www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Joint Declaration - JPII and Bartholomew I about the Filioque?

[. . .]

It looks like I have found an EC Bishop who apparently thinks its OK for me to be in the EC Church! And hey, I've also got a whole history of EC's from my mother's side. I delcare that we who are both ECs are in union! We'll call it the lm/OC intitiative!

My point is that I or you are fundamentally incapable of being anything other than "not supra-cultural." We always see things through the prism of our own perspectives.

Truth is above culture - but how else can it be expressed except in our particular ecclesiological/cultural terms?

By "culture" applied to my Particular Church, I mean the perspective that emphasizes devotion to all Three Persons of the Holy Trinity as translated into an emphasis on the social aspect of the Church, the Church on earth and in heaven, the cultus of the Saints, the glory of the Theotokos, the transfiguring Light of Theosis, the Incarnation/Deification as reflected in iconography, the glory of the Saints, their miracles, "God in us" transforming, recreating, divinizing etc.

"The present book is a summary of two books, on of that against the Gentiles, or those heresies which oppose the truth, the other the first part of the Summa Theologiae of which there are three parts. We have taken up the labor of such a summary on account of our great love for these two books. We have put these things together which we had written out before our captivity, and later rediscovered in the diaspora. Since they are in no wise of an easily transportable size on account of the breadth and size of the chapters and questions, and of the fullness of the precise arguments contained in them, and since this our unfortunate life after our national disaster lavishes on us wanderings and distasteful goings and comings, and being unable to carry about so great a weight of books, of necessity and for no other ambition we have made a project of this summary so that it can suffice for us and for anyone else who is well versed in them, in place of the complete books. The author of these books is a Latin by birth and so he adheres to the dogma of that church as an inheritance; this is only human. But he is a wise man, and is inferior to none of those who are perfect in wisdom among men. He wrote most especially as a commentator of Aristotelian philosophy, and of the Old and New Testaments. Most of the principal conclusions of both Sacred Theology and philosophy are seen in his books, almost all of which we have studied, both the few which were translated by others into the Greek language, and their Latin originals, some of which we ourselves have translated into our own tongue. (But alas! All our labor was in vain, for we were about to suffer along with the fatherland which perished on account of our wickedness, the divine mercy being unable to hold out any longer against the divine justice.) In all the aforesaid areas this wise man is most excellent, as the best interpreter and synthesizer in those matters in which his church agrees with ours. In those things wherein that church and he differ from us-they are few in number-namely on the procession of the Holy Spirit and the divine essence and energies, in these not only do we observe the dogma of our fatherland, but we have even fought for it in many books. Our zeal even to the shedding of blood for our dogmas is evident to all men, both friends and enemies, and the whole world is filled with the books we have produced against those who deny them. Glory be to God in all things!"[3]

For me, there is nothing heretical about Aquinas. It is his perspective that is so different (as you yourself admit) from that of the East that he has really nothing to say of relevance to the East on the matter of Theosis, even though his moral theology has been used by Orthodox.

I think JP II and Benedict have been supra-cultural.

I don't deny what you say about governing the local Church--the principle of subsidiarity--that's a good principle.

Bishop John's statement doesn't deny what you have said either.

Universal jurisdiction of the Petrine Office refers to matters of faith and morals which are supra-cultural. That's all. In all other things, the Pope, can err and, therefore, he best be careful about what he does in matters outside of faith and morals.

On a more serious note, I think the Orthodox and EC's have a difficult time seeing the charism of the Petrine Office. The Office by its very nature must in fact deal with things on supra-cultural level and, when disputes arise, get to the truth of the matter.

Many Orthodox and EC's might have a hard time seeing the charism of Peter's successor because it is not one which their Bishops have in the same way that Peter's successor does.