www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Orthodoxy and Justification

Dear Columcille,

In St Paul's time, fishermen were educated in Greek philosophy and people drank beverages while they argued over theology.

How does the RC Church follow in St Paul's footsteps today?

Does it preach on street corners and go into synagogues?

Can we get a grip on reality here for a bit?

People today know about Christianity - something they didn't know in Paul's time.

And despite the fact that they know about it and attended Church etc., many are "secular" and "unchurched."

That, to me, speaks to a crisis of liturgy and Christian way of life.

We already have the requisite "mental knowledge" about Christianity.

Alex

:rolleyes:

PT

Alex-

You're right. I'm sorry.

Alex-

Let me ask you one more thing. What role does preaching have in today's church as far as converting people to Christ? Does G-D still operate through the "foolishness of preaching" in our day?

Columcille

Dear Columcille,

Nothing to be sorry about, Big Guy, you are raising a point of discussion which is excellent!

I think preaching is very important today and especially in Church.

The main mission field is among those who come to Church but who need to be fully renewed in Christ.

Wherever we are, we are to imitate Christ and to reflect Him through us.

God will always bring to us those Whom He is calling to be saved.

Alex

Bless me a sinner, Father Thomas,

I take it you are wondering about my last comment there . . .

I don't accept the Filioque, and it is not required to be used in the UGCC. Many parishes no longer use it and I only attend those parishes that do not.

I believe that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and rests upon the Son.

I believe that the Spirit was sent into the world by the Father and the Son.

I believe that the Most Holy Mother of God was the Temple of the Holy Spirit from the very beginning of her existence, as we celebrate the feast of the Conception of St Anne. I believe she was taken up, body and soul, at her Dormition. I venerate her many, many miraculous icons and invoke her Protection and Intercession, as well as that of all the Saints.

I believe that the Pope of Rome is first among equals throughout the entire, universal Church. I believe that my Patriarch is first among equals in my Church. And I accept the Patriarch of New Rome as first among equals in the East.

I believe that the Pope of Rome may get involved jurisdictionally in my Church if my Church asks him to.

I believe that when the Pope of Rome ratifies the decisions of an Ecumenical Council, he with the entire Church is exercising the gift of indefectibility or infallibility.

I believe that the councils of the Roman Church since the Seventh Ecumenical Councils are local councils and add nothing by way of faith and morals to what the Eastern Churches already believe.

Then there is the Nicene Creed . . .

Alex

I'm going to make this observation, Alex, and I do not mean to be offensive - please don't take it as such.

I think your views, as "progressive" as they are, not the views of mainstream Catholicism. I commend you for your bravery and your foresight, but I do not believe that this represents what most Catholics would consider the fulness of the Catholic faith. That is, I don't think it is proper to choose to believe the Catholic faith in such a way which separates you (even if it is the entire Ukrainian Catholic church!) from the rest of the Catholic church, starting with Rome.

Ultimately, this is what makes me uncomfortable about how I see the Catholic faith presented by Eastern Catholic churches. I think it is at odds with Catholic teaching as it flows from Rome. That is more the observation of an outsider, than a theological certainty.

Priest Thomas

Dear Denise,

Again, thank the others for the timely responses. I'm often delayed by my work.

Rebaptism is a misnomer or a moot point.

If we baptize someone who was validly baptizeed (in God's eyes) at an earlier date then we've done nothing and haven't hurt the person either.

If we baptize someone who was not validly baptized (in God's eyes) at an earlier date then we have done our job regarding the process of entry into the Church.

Seems like I'm arguing for the second baptism as a safety system, but I'm not.

I agree to look outside the Church to recognize the workings of the Holy Spirit, accepting those things which are valid based upon their form and the intent of those participating.

For example, would we remarry people who have had a monogomous relationship that lovingly produced three children? No, we accept them into the Church as well-married (sort of like being well-cooked).

So in general, for those baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, with the intent by those parents and those sponsors and that community that the person live what we would be willing to identify as a Christian life, I believe that we should accept that baptism.

And once the person has communed, really, why would there be any discussion of rebaptizing them?

The other option is to view evrything that occurs outside of the boundaries of the canonical Church as having occurred in "unmitigated darkness" [to quote Dean Ericson of SVS] and rebaptize, remarry, reordain, etc., etc.

Truly He is Risen!
Andrew

Bless me a sinner, Father Thomas!

Well, I would respectfully disagree!

I don't think you and other Orthodox I know, however well-meaning, appreciate the allowable diversity of theological traditions that exist within the pale of Catholicism.

The Catholic Catechism is a statement, at a fundamental, basic level of what the Church believes.

Fr. McBride's "Catholicism" however, indicates a number of perfectly valid theological traditions or interpretations of Catholic doctrine.

For example, Fr. McBride presents two views of the Immaculate Conception, for example, one based on Augustinian "stain of original sin" and the other proceeding from a more Eastern Patristic view - that the Mother of God was sanctified by the Spirit from the moment of her Conception etc.

RC theologians by and large agree that the "Filioque" has no place in the universal Creed.

The Jesuits of the Oriental Institute in Rome are not partisans of the Filioque and Fr. Meyendorff worked, as you know, closely with the Jesuit Fr. Gustav Weigel who rejected the Filioque both in the Creed and as a matter of faith.

The Filioque, ultimately, was a Latin construct designed to differentiate between the Persons of the Son and the Holy Spirit - as it was thought by the Latins that without it, the Two could not be differentiated.

But Fr. Meyendorff himself wrote that at Florence unity could have been achieved if the Latins had agreed to remove the Filioque and if both sides affirmed that the Spirit proceeded from the Father through the Son.

Eastern Jesuits would be the first to defend Orthodox doctrines as a legitimate theological tradition in communion with Rome.

If you feel that the Eastern Churches are in schism from Rome because they don't really believe in what Rome teaches - I would suggest that that is not the case . . .

Rome has glorified our martyrs who died for their loyalty to Rome under soviet communism.

And the current Pope is quite open to Orthodoxy and Orthodox theology in a way no other has been to date.

I'm sorry to have destroyed the clarity of the "us and them" paradigm between Orthodoxy and Catholicism!

Alex

Alex --

I certainly respect your views and your right to hold them within the Catholic communion.

I guess that, to me, (and I'm not being flippant here) it can sometimes seem like it doesn't really matter very much what you believe (because, for example, you can believe differently from what the Vatican says) as long as you are under Rome. I know that sounds flippant, but I don't mean it that way ... it's just the way it looks sometimes from where I'm sitting.

I also think that there may be some confusion and/or disagreement about this on the Catholic side. The curial letter to the Melkite Patriarch a few years ago pretty explicitly said that the Melkites couldn't realy claim (as they had) to believe everything that Eastern Orthodoxy teaches because Orthodoxy doesn't accept everything that Catholicism teaches. Obviously, as you indicate in your post, there are Catholics who disagree with that, but I think that just leaves it very confusing as to what the real Catholic position on this really is. At least so it seems to me from where I'm sitting.

Brendan

Dear Brendan,

And I truly do understand where you are coming from, Beloved Counsellor!

Your own prayerful struggles with your faith and your journey in that regard, together with what must have been your great internal suffering - all this has developed you as a strong Christian with deep and informed faith and spirituality!

I feel that I do have a clear understanding of Catholic faith at two levels that exist for me simultaneously:

The theological "basis" or, as people in your profession would say, the "pith and substance," on the one hand, and the various, legitimate "interpretations" of the same "pith and substance" that can be had on the other.

I do read and think a lot about these things and I don't mean to bore you when I give you just one example.

The "And the Son" and the "Through the Son" of West and East.

On the face of it, I know that Orthodox commentators have said that Catholics can give a "Filioque" interpretation to the "Through the Son" phrase of some Eastern Fathers.

And no one is denying that the Filioque does not belong in the universal creed - well, at least not here .

But what is the "pith and substance" of the Filioque?

I went to RC theological sources, both written and oral, and they all confirmed to me that the more complex RC distinction of "Active Spiration of the Spirit from the Father" and "Passive Spiration of the Spirit from the Son" really DOES mean that the Spirit's Origin is in the Father alone.

The pith and substance that both sides agree on is precisely that - the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, the Monarch of the Trinity.

That is the Orthodox, as well as Catholic, teaching.

Everything after that is legitimate theological diversity - as long as it doesn't deny the pith and substance.

"Through the Son" is, I believe, the best phrase with which to define the Spirit's relationship to the Son in the Inner Life of the Trinity.

But, as I also found, both East and West DO believe that the Son and the Spirit proceed DIFFERENTLY from the Father. So, even though that difference is unknowable, it does differentiate the Son from the Spirit, as RC theology seeks to determine . . .

Is there a difference? In pith and substance there is NOT.

There is a difference in terms of theological prism or interpretation.

So if we two interpret something we see occur in real life differently, that doesn't mean that we are being confusing or relative.

It does mean that we are bringing our different mental, cultural and spiritual capacities to bear on the understanding of what we see objectively occurring.

And without the capacity for developing and different, however Orthodox, interpretations of dogma - well, how is that possible anyway?

And are you saying that Orthodoxy proclaims AND interprets doctrine in exactly the same way, allowing for no theological diversity?

And that if it doesn't, then it is being relativistic?

If so, I'm saying that that is impossible. It was not so in the first Millennium of the Church and it is not so now.

The opposite is not relativism. It is the sign of a growing faith that seeks to be enriched by developing understanding of itself - albeit within the parameters of the "pith and substance" mentioned above.

It is fine if you would like to say that that is "relativistic."

For me, though, that term speaks of a certain insecurity (no offense intended) that needs a "black and white" and "absolute" definition AND interpretation.

If I am being uncharitable, I withdraw the above.

But it is something that is as sincerely believed by me, as your belief in my(our) EC relativism!

I have a big mouth and I know you will forgive me as the silly, idiotic fellow I am.

But I'm cute!

Alex

I read a RC document on the Filioque somewhere. It was speaking of the distinction of "And the Son" and "Through the Son." It argued that since Filioque means something totally different than "et Filio", which is why those who inserted the Filioque specifically avoided "et Filio."

Guess the avoidance didn't do much good!

Logos Teen

Dear Denise, et. al.,

Regarding my previous post, I wouldn't want anyone to think that Dean Ericson of SVS had stated that everything outside of the canonical Church was "unmitigated darkness." He was using those words to describe what some Orthodox think of baptism, marriage, chrismation, or ordination, etc. conducted outside the bounds of canonical Church.

I apologize for any confusion or disconcertment caused by what I posted.

In Christ,
Andrew

Dear Andrew,
I, too, am delayed by work (my boss wouldn't look kindly at time spent on the internet -- I work in a hospital), and usually am numerous posts behind in reading.

I get the feeling that how one is brought into the Orthodox church may depend to some extent on the particular parish. Some may be stricter, some more lenient.

How does Orthodoxy deal with a convert whose spouse is not a church-attender? Do they prefer couples convert together?

Andrew, thank you for your kind replies.

denise

At least in the OCA, how one is brought into Orthodoxy depends on the jurisdiction and on the bishop.

There is a fellow catechumen at my OCA parish who is a non-attender. When she comes for functions at the Church, no one rushes up to try and convert her or anything