www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Hesychasm

Seriously? Maybe things are different where you are but from where I am sitting the general feeling since Vatican II has been 'we're a post-conciliar church, a new church'. People seem as eager to run from the names Sts Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine and Gregory as they are to run from Sts Albertus Magnus, Aquinas, Bonaventure and Blessed Duns Scotus. I think Fr John Hardon SJ and Fr John Corapi said/say it best when they say the Roman Catholic Church is in the midst of an identity crisis. The notorious state of the Roman Catholic seminaries in sundry places epitomises this. For many, theology began with Karl Rahner and everything else that went before was part of the pre-Vatican II era. I think Fr Joseph Fessio made this clear on EWTN Live a week or so ago when he was speaking about Benedict XVI. He stated that statistically only like 5% of priests have their speciality in patristics. And that something like 75% were historical biblical critics and 80% or so were specialists in 20th century theology. He said this is epitomised in the attitudes of many priests towards both the magisterium and the liturgy and I cant help but agree.

I'm not denying that there are problems in the Roman Rite, and that there is a tendency on the part of many to embrace anything that is new, simply because it is new. But I do not see the reassertion of Scholasticism as the answer, because in many ways it was the scholastic theology of the manuals that led to the present state of affairs. I would prefer to see a resurgence of the Western Patristic tradition, because that would increase the chance of union with the Orthodox in the long run.

Dear Zenovia, Christ is Risen!
Maria's comments are most excellent.
I don't recall having personally read any book *about* Saint Gregory Palamas, but I have read and studied many of his writings (including some that were never published ... in my youth, I was a novice at the monastery that he had been abbot of) and I must say that I can not fathom what "positions that brought us closer to the RCC" you are speaking of; please share with me, if you would!
Repeatedly and vehemently, Saint Gregory says that the Latins are heretics and outside the Church of Christ. Saint Gregory wrote that professing the "Filioque" shows such a distorted concept of the Godhead as to cut off any who profess it from any hope of union with the Divine.
Likewise, the Latins, at least before Vatican II, damned Saint Gregory as an arch-heretic and Heysachasm as laughable and heretical; see, for example:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07301a.htm

Finally, let me note that hesychasts today are the most opposed to ecumenism of all the monks of the Orthodox Church.

At any rate, today, the Sunday of the Myrrhbearing Women, is the namesday of two of my daughters, so I'll not have time to return to this potentially caustic discourse until any sooner than tomorrow night.

Photius

Dear Alex,

God bless you for your response, and thank you. I had previously heard some of what you posted, and the rest is new to me. I look forward to learning more about this St. Seraphim of Sarov!

But what is most amazing, to me, is that I am beginning to *experience* a little of what the saints have written about: the presence of God that is just behind the Divine Dark. I'm just a little sinner, and yet I have experienced a little bit of God's presence, and words are inexpressible, because He Is ! Ultimately, that is what I was trying to get at in my lengthy post.

I can't thank God enough for sending my spiritual director to me: a Ukrainian Catholic bi-ritual priest, who introduced me to the Eastern fathers and the mystical tradition of the East. That, in turn, has made my practice of Latin Rite Catholicism so much more alive and richer -- because I am finally getting to know the Holy Spirit and the process of theosis.

And that is why I am so interested in Eastern Christian spirituality. In my own life and perhaps overall, I think the Christian West has largely forgotten how to be spiritual. However, the Christian East has preserved how to be spiritual. And thus, the Christian East can spiritually *revive* the Christian West with its spiritual tradition.

God bless.

--John

Thank you, my friend. It's good to be back. I have missed this forum.


I manage by the Eucharist and by Confession, by faith in the Gospel and by trust in the wisdom of my spiritual director, by the examples of history and of good Christians around me; and I'm not trying to be trite.

I also manage by people like you, who give orthodox corrections when needed; thank you.

However, all of this makes me tend to agree in part with what Apotheoun posted; please see my next post.

Be well and God Bless.

--John

I am not a theologian, nor am I a student of theology. I really haven't read enough to remark on the substance of this debate.

Nevertheless, I can make this remark: the Gospel is more than a particular school of theology, and the Tradition incorporates all orthodox schools of theology. Unfortunately, there seems to be a group in the Roman Catholic Church which believes the highpoint of the Church was the 1200s: with Gothic Cathedrals and St. Thomas Aquinas. Well, I think the highpoint of the Church is every Mass / Divine Liturgy.

There were some good things that came out of the 1200s --including Gothic Cathedrals, St. Thomas Aquinas and, yes, Scholasticism. After all, the ultimate goal of Scholasticism (if I know my history correctly) was to show that the "new" science of Aristotle that was permeating Western Europe at the time did not contradict the Gospel, that the Gospel completes, corrects and perfects all that is true in human philosophy and knowledge. That was all good.

However, there were 1,200 years of the Church before that particular controversy arose, and it has been about 800 years since that controversy arose, and I tend to think that the Church should not be limited in its expression and understanding of the Gospel to the good Christian response to a controversy of a particular time and place. What is good and still useful from that should be preserved. But, I don't think we should limited to it.

Instead, I think that (especially in the West) we need to remember that the Gospel is not merely a collection of intellectual ideas: to be debated or explained. The Gospel is the Eternal Word of the Living God. The Gospel is Jesus and all who are united to Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, true theology is from living the Gospel. And thus, I think that we should return to the teachings and methods of those who lived the Gospel most consistently and most thoroughly: the fathers (eastern and western) of the Church. Only then, as we are transformed by the Gospel, can we review the various intellectual schools of thought and decide which parts are useful today to express and confess the same Gospel in today�s situations.

Happy Pentecost !

--John

The spirituality of the Eastern Church is not enough to revive the Western spiritual tradition. The spirituality of the Eastern Church is more than powerful enough to convert people to Eastern Christianity, that is assured, but as for reviving the West...*shakes head* wont happen. The spirituality of the West is distinct from that of the East. In spite of having the same goal the way in which one walks towards the end of the path is quite different. Eastern spirituality is beautiful but its built within a framework of traditions that doesnt really square with the Western way of doing things.

If I've learnt anything from this thread its that the differences between the East and West although small are real. We may well be talking about the same things indeed in almost exactly the same way, but the terminology and the approach we take to those things is noticeably very distinct. Having started this thread to find out what Heyschasm is and now, being decently sated with the responses I've recieved, I believe that Heyschasm is beautiful thing...that Westerners wont understand unless they become Eastern Catholics. Western Christendom does not have the background framework of theology to support Heyschasm (or even to truly appreciate it) and this kind of ties into what Apotheoun and I were discussing.

The only thing that will help the Roman Catholic Church is if it remembers that its actually Roman Catholic (all the Latins on this board will know what I mean). We have an identity crisis, we dont know who or what we are, and we're trying to fill the void with anything we can find. Its sad but true. Apotheoun was right to suggest the West needs to rediscover its own patristic tradition but thats only one piece of the puzzle. Fathers aside, Western theology has developed so much since Pope St Gregory the Great died that its impossible to go back. Moreover, who would want to? The West cannot operate without the framework given to it by the scholastics. Its own mystical tradition was scholastically codified by Sts Bernard of Clairvaux and Bonaventure. "Baroque theology" as it is often called, though it shifted emphasis, was still heavily dependent upon all that had gone before both Fathers and Scholastics and the problems of the 21st century Church arise from the fact that we dont know the meaning of 'organic development'. We're trying to recreate a dead era in manner that would further isolate us from the East indeed, by illustrating once again to all those doubting Orthodox 'that Westerners have no respect for tradition'.

What the rest requires is to reawaken itself to its unbroken continuity. Going to the foundations of the structure and trying to build from there would topple what has been placed upon them already. If we want to make progress it must be from where we are right now factoring all that has gone before us. Joseph Fessio SJ was right on EWTN live when he said after the Council 'there was no theology, there was a desert'. The word desert is synomous with barreness, waste, void. There is a de facto gap between what was before Vatican and what has become thereafter. The magisterium is about the only thing that recognises the Church's organic growth.

It breaks my heart sometimes to listen to the Corpus Christi office that St Thomas Aquinas composed, those beautiful hymns 'Pange Lingua' and 'Tantum Ergo'. Because they are the product of a heart on fire. In those beautiful verses he uses exactly the same terms to describe transubstantiation as he does in his academic works. How many moderns would be capable of so linking their academic theology with their life of prayer? For these individuals its strange that St Thomas Aquinas' teaching career culminated in a mystical experience because they cannot associate the strict, disciplined and rigourous method of theology he used with prayer. As if accuracy is an obstacle to prayer instead of a means to give oneself a clearer vision to contemplate?

Once upon a time there was a discipline called Sacred Theology within the Roman Catholic Church. If the Latin Church is to be revived then it must become more than merely nominal. Am I a Thomist? Personally no. I do not use the scholastic method of objections, on the contrary, I answer that and counter objections. But in spite of my paragraphed essays, hehe, I make it my business to understand the way the scholastics taught. Why? Because subsequent Catholic theology is entirely dependent upon their methods i.e. the theology of the great Counter Reformation Jesuits like St Peter Canisius etc. The fact that many Catholic priests today do not have a decent enough grip on traditional Catholic metaphysics to detail what the Church believes about the Blessed Sacrament is...bewildering and a prime example of the need to rediscover the so-called 'pre-conciliar theology'.

Sincerely
Myles

PS) Happy Pentecost
PPS) Sorry administrator for the Latin commentary. I know we've been warned. I dont mean to but the people at byzcath are nice so I share my thoughts. I will try to refrain in future. My apologies to my Oriental brethren.

The Latin Church (which I belonged to for 17 years) needs to be true to her own history and development, just as the Byzantine Church must be faithful to all that she has received. That being said, I am not advocating a historicist reconstruction of the past, which would involve a rejection of the Scholastics, because 800 years of historical development cannot be ignored. What I am advocating is a change in emphasis, which would involve a greater focus upon the foundational nature of Patristic teaching. The Church is inherently Patristic, just as she is Apostolic, and that means that the Fathers have a foundational priority over the Schoolmen.

It is often said that Thomas Christianized Aristotle, and of course there is truth in that, but in my view Thomas also Aristotelianized Christianity, and that is what I have come to see as a problem. A greater focus upon the Fathers of the Church would benefit the Christian West by reasserting the normative character of their teaching.

As a new member of the Byzantine Church I intend to be an Orthodox Christian in communion with the Pope.

Myles,

That, I think, is quite the point; but I respectfully disagree with your interpretation.

What is the Roman Catholic Church? Is it just the Latin Rite and its history and traditions? Or, is it all Christians who are in communion with the Bishop of Rome? I think the latter.

Now, I do not mean the Latin Rite should toss out its developments since the early Church. Indeed, one of the things that annoyed me so much about the "spirit of Vatican II" people is that they pretended that the time between the early Church and the Vatican II was a big mistake that can be ignored. Rubbish ! Of course the Latin Rite must remember and preserve and grow from its heritage.

However, no growth will occur in Christianity --in individuals and in the Church overall-- unless people remember that Jesus Christ is the core and purpose and goal of the religion. Obviously, you believe that. However, there are some people --on the left, right and middle-- who get so caught up in *how* to be a Christian that they seem to forget Christ.

Moreover, I think this has become a significant problem in the West overall. I don't know why. But, I humbly suggest that material success and riches have so preoccupied our civilization for, say perhaps, the last 250 years or so that we have overlooked and forgotten how to be spiritual. Even among religious believers, religion seems to have been more and more focused on externals: either external piety or external good works. Yet, without an active interior life, these and all the rest are doomed to superficial success and burned out personalities. Hence, because of our external focus, we have overlooked and forgotten the internal.

We in the West have forgotten the Holy Spirit.

Hence, we in the West *must* rediscover the Holy Spirit. We must do so by means of the fullness of Truth --including keeping the Commandments, receiving the Sacraments / Mysteries, learning and living the Scriptures and the Tradition, following the magisterium, being true to our heritage, etc. We must do so while living today but remembering and learning from the past.

What irks me is when people (not you) seem to think Catholics must go back to the 1200s in order to do so. That is as silly as pretending the entire Middle Ages were a great big mistake that can be ignored.

Instead, we in the West should look to Christians who are living the fullness of Truth already, right now.

Those are the Eastern Churches --especially those in communion with Rome. They have preserved the fullness of the Gospel by preserving all of the deposit of faith and also *living* that faith. They have done so because they remember the Holy Spirit, and they seek to live in union with Him: in the silence and stillness of the Pentecost of their hearts. Therefrom flows the rest of their lives as Church: nourished and sustained by the Eucharist.

Now, the solution for the Christian West is not to become Eastern. The solution is to *learn* spirituality from the East so as to *remember* the perfectly good spirituality that is within the Western patrimony but which the West has largely forgotten. We must look to the East to reintroduce us of the West to the Holy Spirit and to remind the West how to live in union with Him. Then, with our souls reinflamed with the same Holy Spirit, we can again be spiritual in Western terms and ways.

Our Western spirituality is like a lamp that has burned low and smoldering. So I say this: we in the West should take our lamps to the East, and we should humbly ask them to help us to remember how to trim our lamps again and to let our lamps be rekindled from their lamps with the Holy Spirit. And after they recover from the shock of the West acting humbling and asking the East for help, they will help us. At least, *some* of them would help us. And then, we in the West --together with the East-- can burn brightly again: on the same Holy Spirit but on our own lamp again.

Maybe that sounds silly or too romantic. Maybe this is only part of the solution, part of a much bigger picture. I also realize and respect the fact that the Eastern Churches exist unto themselves and not solely or mostly for the benefit they could give to the Latin Rite of the Church.

Nevertheless, the West must rediscover the Holy Spirit. The East --especially the Eastern Churches already in communion with Rome -- have preserved how to do so. Hence, relearning from the East what it means to be truly spiritual will be at least part of the solution to the problem of the West rediscovering its own spirituality.

In sum, Myles, I agree with you: we in the West must remember what it means to be truly Roman Catholic. But, I say that part of that are the Eastern Churches who are already in communion with Rome. They can help us remember how to be spiritual, and they can help us burn brightly again with the Holy Spirit -- whom we in the West have mostly forgotten. So, let�s humbly and enthusiastically ask our Eastern brothers to share their spirituality: which we can be revived upon and which will, in turn, enable us to renew the spirituality of the West.

Be well.

--John

In a nutshell, here is what I think on this topic.

I think, like Apotheoun wrote so well, that the West got too far away from its patristic roots. I think it became too scholastic -- long after the need for scholasticism arose.

Now, with Vatican II, the Western Church is going back to its apostolic origins. It's not disregarding its past, but it is reevaluating itself in light of its origins as well as its heritage.

That is critically necessary because the West has increasingly forgotten the Holy Spirit, over the last 250 years or so, as it has become more and more materially focused. Thus, I think it is good to preserve the best parts from scholasticism, but I think it is even better for the Western Church to revive its patristic heritage. In that way, we can better live again in the Holy Spirit.

I think we can do so especially by learning from the Eastern Churches who are in communion with Rome. They have preserved patristics as living, vital Tradition. Thereby, we in the West can rediscover the Holy Spirit and renew our own spiritual tradition.

All of this is not to return to the past. Instead, this is to better adapt to the present and future needs of the Church by reviving the fundamentals of living the Gospel. And the Gospel is lived by living in union with the Holy Spirit, and being transformed by the Holy Spirit: interiorly, in the Eucharist, and thence through all dimensions of our lives.

--John

I respect both of your views and there is some wisdom to what you're saying. But I disagree with you entirely on what you're saying about the Church becoming too scholastic. Scholasticism pretty much died during the period you are referring to (the Enlightenment onwards) it was revived by Leo XIII to combat modernism. Hence the great neo-thomist push of the 20th century embodied in the philosophy of Maritan and, of course, Pope John Paul the Great whose theology of the body is Thomist personalism.

Was John Paul II out of touch because of his Thomism? Was he dry and lacking in the Holy Spirit? Does scholasticism mean to be ignorant of the Church Fathers? Obviously the life and works of the now deceased former Philosophy proffessor at Lublin, Karol Wojtyla, illustrate otherwise. Scholasticism does not mean one is dull to the Holy Spirit. The life, sanctity, religious experiences etc. of Sts Aquinas and Bonaventure illustrate otherwise. All that being said I'm not advocating the revival of scholasticism in its purest form but I am rejecting that school of thought that tries to blame the current condition of Roman Catholicism on the scholastics. I must say, whilst restraining my worse nature, that I find that suggestion deeply painful and sterotypical.

To say Aquinas Aristotelianised Catholicism is something similar to what a Protestant friend of mine said about how the Fathers neoplatonised the Church of their era. It is completely untrue and almost seems to lay the blame of secularism in the Western Church at the feet of its saints. Had Thomism been able to survive the 18th century intact across Europe instead of being superseded by Cartesianism, British Empiricism and Continental Rationalism the continent would not be in the state it is now. But these ideas have become embedded in the Western mindset and penetrated the Church in the form of 'modernism'. Leo XIII, Pius X et al. tried their best to use Thomism to combat modernism. They revived it and enforced it and they failed. But anything would've failed. The modernists are equally as disdainful of the ressourcement as they are of the scholastics.

I do not reject the Greek Catholic Church, I'm a pretty big fan. But I dont think it helps the Roman Catholic Church recover its identity to "borrow" from Greek Catholicism. To look, admire and respect perhaps. But I think we can look at the Greek Catholics as an example as to why what you're saying is mistaken. The Greek Catholics were long latinised, long influenced by Western spiritualities and Western devotions. Even on this board there is a backlash against the use of Rosary instead of the Prayer Rope, of the stations of the cross in Greek Catholic churches, of pews...Likewise do you not think the same thing will happen in the Roman Church? Is it not already happening? How many reject the notion of standing during Mass? And have complained tooth and nail against it?

The Roman Catholic Church is not the Greek Catholic Church and the Greek Catholic Church is not the Roman Catholic Church. Yes they can uplift one another but they cannot be one another. Too much interaction blurs the distinct traditions of both and leads to them loosing their unique identies. The Latinisation of the East is an illustration of this. It is looked down upon by the Orthodox, treated with dislike by many Greek Catholics and in itself shows how even seeminly innocent developments can cause division.

You want to be Orthodox in communion with Rome Apotheon? Well I want to be Roman Catholic in communion with Rome. I dont like my identity being blured by the East and I dont like to be told that those saints who I look up to are the cause of modernism. Likewise, I should not think any Eastern Catholic should be told they need to learn the work of Sts John of the Cross and Robert Bellarmine. Why would they need to learn from us what they have in their own traditions?

If this response has seemed ill tempered at times I apologise. But I feel as though I am being charged with the defence of saints. Maybe I am misjudging but from my vantage point it feels like they're being blamed for a hell of a lot that they had nothing to do with. In summation my voice is the voice of Vatican II as contained within 'Optatam Totius' paragraph 16:

God Bless both of you
Sincerely
Myles

Christ is Risen!

This is blasphemous, and the notion that we can "behold God face to face" is heresy, according to Saint Gregory Palamas (and every Orthodox Theologian I've chanced to discuss it with); according to the Latins, Saint Gregory was a heretic for not believing this. You seem to be with the Latins and against the Orthodox on this one. May I suggest you ask your spiritual father, presumably a heysechast given his background, rather than taking my word.

Photius

Dear Photius,

I have my reason for believing this, and it is between me and God. My elder knows of why I say this. It has nothing to do with books, terms, theology, or words. It has nothing to do with being with or against the Latins, or with or against the Orthodox.

All I can say is that I would not so quickly dismiss it or discount it. No one really knows the mysteries of God. I wish I could say more, but I cannot.

In the Risen Christ,
Alice, 'the heretic' :p

Dear Photios

I quote from the book of Saint Gregory Palamas as a Hagiorite:

"In the whole teaching of the Church this truth can be seen, that the Father is Light, the Logos is light and the all-holy Spirit is light. It can also be seen that when people are granted to see God, they see Him as Light."

Yet you stated that seeing God face to face is blasphemy and a heresy. Please tell me what the difference is between the 'beatific vision' and the 'vision of the uncreated light' since they both are referring to visions of God?

Zenovia

Dear Photios,

I really wish people would stop distorting the writings of the saints so as to 'rationalize' their beliefs.

Again Saint Gregory mentions that " the 'nous' cannot be united with the heart and attain a vision of God without divine Grace." Yet you stated that seeing God face to face is blasphemy as well as heresy.

As for the procession of the Holy Spirit Saint Gregory said: "It is impssible for us to participate in the knowledge of God's essence, but we can know and acquire experience of His energies. Likewise the Holy Spirit as essence proceeds from he Father alone, but as energy He is sent by the Son and also from the Son. The existence of the Holy Spirit, His manner of being, is one thing, and His disclosure is another."

I think Photios that you should read some of the posts above and learn what the RCC position really is, rather than giving us a fundamentalist 'Orthodox' opinion of what the RCC position is. You do no favor to yourself, to the Orthodox Church or to God by those distortions... and by doing so, you are also denigrating a great saint.

Zenovia

Zenovia