Dear Friends,
Actually, Fr. Keleher most recently used that famous quote that originates with one of our Greek-Catholic bishops of the 17th century in talks with the Orthodox. It was a Bishop Boretsky, an ancestor of the much-lamented Vladyka Isidore Boretsky of Toronto, in talks with St George Konissky of Belarus ("our walls of separation do not surely reach all the way up to heaven!").
Rome has, and will continue to, include Orthodox Saints in its calendar, such as St Seraphim of Sarov and St Sergius of Radonezh and St Gregory Palamas.
Much energy is spent on another thread trying to prove which Church has the "fullness" of faith as an offshoot of the Saints' discussion. That Orthodox Saints are "Saints" and are "holy" - there can be no question about that as any reader of their lives can see.
Rome approved most of the Russian Orthodox saints for the veneration of the Russian Catholic Church and has also included some of these into its own universal calendar.
It is clear that Rome affirms that Orthodoxy has the fullness of truth and holiness save for the schism that afflicts both Churches.
Regarding those saints who were either against Rome or else whose contemporary Orthodox cult is coloured by anti-Catholicism, no one is obliged to honour ALL of the Saints of particular Churches.
There are Roman Saints that had not so nice things to say about the Orthodox. Orthodox writers extoll Jerome Savonarola - but Savonarola made it clear in his writings that he considered the Orthodox to be outside of the true church in accordance with the ecclesiology of the time etc.
The Russian Old Believers who are in union with the ROCA or with the Moscow Patriarchate do NOT accept into their calendars Orthodox Saints such as St Dimitri of Rostov - because he and others had no good things to say about Old Believers!
As a final note, I remember first bothering Fr. Serge Keleher years ago in Toronto with a question concerning the veneration of the Pillars of Orthodoxy, including St Mark of Ephesus.
May a Catholic honour an Orthodox saint renowned for his anti-union stance?
If it bothers a Catholic, then don't. But one can always find something to admire in the lives of such saints, including their zeal for their Orthodox faith and church!
To honour St Alexis of Wiles-Barre as a saint is also something I don't see conflicting with one's Eastern Catholicism - when we pay attention to context.
Our Greek-Catholic New Martyrs died for their faith against an atheistic, militant system that was oppressing and crushing them. St Alexis opposed an unjust ecclesial context, albeit Catholic, that was harming the spiritual life of Eastern Catholics. Would anyone care to deny this or explain it otherwise? And if we can agree on this contextual issue, how can the veneartion of St Alexis conflict with our commitment as Eastern Catholics?
Fr. Keleher raises the point of the anti-EC attacks in the canonization and cult of St Alexis.
In fact, the Orthodox Akathist to St Vladimir the Great already contains a "jab" at Catholicism (which was expunged by the Russian Catholics before they published that service i.e. instead of showing St Vladimir choosing "Orthodox truth over Western heresy" it emphasizes the beauty of Eastern liturgical piety that drew the Rus' sovereign to the East).
Such pointed "jabs" at ECism can be found in numerous Orthodox liturgical publications and yet we EC's do not reject the cult of the Saints in whose honour those liturgical prayers are celebrated.
St Mark of Ephesus' life shows that he came to Florence as a . . . UNIONIST! He simply asked Rome to remove the Filioque and solidify the reunion of East and West thereafter. He believed that God would heal the rest.
Rome refused and now we know the rest of the story . . .
To exclude St Mark of Ephesus in this way because of his stand on the Filioque would likewise mean that we would have to do something about Todd/Apotheoun and some others on this forum as well for the same reason!
Alex
