www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Purgatory and Eastern Catholics

Maybe John can explain? It seems that some disagree with this claim.

First, what or who constitutes an "RC Trad"?

Second, why would they "hate" Eastern Christians?

Third, if they do hate Eastern Christians, why would they do so "passionately"? Do they actively persecute them? burn their books? Slap them when they see them in person?

Fourth, how does this reflect the Christian spirit?

Fifth, is RC Trad different than Christianity?

Sixth, do RC Trads have a church of their own? If so, do they have a website?

Thanks!
Eddie

ED,

Google angel queen for a headache and fish eaters for a decent forum...

james

James,

I surfed in at Angel Queen and surfed right back to sea. The sharks are more friendly.

Fish Eaters seems like a safe harbor.

Thanks,
Eddie

Peace, dear brothers and sisters. Traditional Roman Catholics are, naturally, a "broad Church" (excuse me whilst I dodge the brickbats) including quite a variety of people. One does find some who regard Eastern Catholics as an unsatisfactory second-rate version of Catholicism, and who defend the bad old "praestantia latini ritus" (Ugh). But one finds others who fully realize that we are not the enemy, that we are not to blame for the grief that occurred after Vatican II, and that we are able to rejoice in the restoration of the 1962 Missal without wishing to junk our own traditions in the process.

Part of the problem is that the Novus Ordo crowd did not hesitate to claim that they were simply adapting some of our usages - which they were not (I discussed this at length in a paper available on the Internet and delivered at a Conference in Oxford eight or nine years ago).

But above all else, peace. We who know what it is to be hurt by the bureaucrats of the Church we love can surely sympathize with others who have been hurt by the bureaucrats of the Church which they also love. That Roman Catholic traditionalists do not always understand us is scarcely surprising; where could they have gained that necessary understanding? We must first be ourselves, and we must then speak for ourselves. In the words of Saint Paul "By the grace of God we are what we are".

Fr. Serge

Maybe John can explain? It seems that some disagree with this claim.

First, what or who constitutes an "RC Trad"? I'm referring to those in the SSPX or to the right of them, such as who inhabit Angelqueen.

Second, why would they "hate" Eastern Christians? Arrogance.

Third, if they do hate Eastern Christians, why would they do so "passionately"? Do they actively persecute them? burn their books? Slap them when they see them in person?

Verbally. I've met a number of SSPX types who have visited my parish who find anything remotely "Orthodox" as revulting, not to mention the fact many of us call ourselves Orthodox in Communion in Rome and they hate that.

Fourth, how does this reflect the Christian spirit? It doesn't, and that's why it bugs me.

Fifth, is RC Trad different than Christianity? Many of the Rad Trads are some of the most arrogant "Christians" I have ever met. Again, I refer to the SSPX, SSPV, sedevacantists,etc.

Sixth, do RC Trads have a church of their own? If so, do they have a website? Just read Angelqueen and what they have to say about the Melkites.

Fr. Serge,

By any chance do you remember the paper's title ? I would very much like to read it.

james

John,

Thank you for explaining. We can only hope then that they accept Jesus and become Christian.

Eddie

I know quite a few traditionalists who love Eastern liturgy and go to a Ukraininan Catholic church on weekdays when the latin mass is not available. I think they respect the East because the East is also traditionla and does not look or feel like a protestant church and does not make big changes to liturgical practice. Though one of them was upset at the idea that the filioque is allowed to be said or not said, and seemed surprised and did not believe me when I informed her that the latin church actually is the one who changed the creed from its original form.

That paper of mine was titled "Whatever Happened to the Liturgical Movement?" I'm not sure if it retains that title on the Internet (I didn't post it). It's also published in a Book of papers from that conference, and in Eastern Churches Journal.

Fr. Serge

Dear Lawrence,

Yes, indeed. Prayers for the souls in Purgatory can be found in most UGCC and other EC prayerbooks.

Such prayer was and is a characteristic feature of EC life in Eastern Europe especially.

Purgatory as such was prominent among the Orthodox of the (much-maligned) Baroque era and it figured in the albeit scholastic-inspired Catechism of St Peter Mohyla.

Even after this aspect of his Catechism was removed by the Orthodox Patriarchs, Mohyla insisted on keeping Purgatory in for his Metropolia.

And indulgenced pilgrimages to miraculous shrines of the Most Holy Theotokos of the EC's were kept by the Orthodox in Eastern Europe so that in Poselianin's "Bogomater" there are many, many references to Orthodox "Otpusts" and the villages and towns where they are held. It is not clear what "otpust" means in the Orthodox context, however.

There were also Greek Orthodox theologians who accepted "purgatory" as Fr. John Meyendorff mentioned in his works.

Again, it is not clear what their understanding of it was, whether it was the same as the RC or whether it was a use of a popular term in Europe that received an Orthodox inflection.

At Florence, purgatory was clearly opposed by St Mark of Ephesus and especially the notion that there are "categorized places" to which the souls go after death. Orthodox eschatology has a completely different understanding of what happens to the soul after death.

It is a view that does not lessen the Church's prayer for the dead. The Orthodox Church is second to none in its assiduous prayer for the dead.

Alex

Isn't St. John Maximovitch quibbling here over purgatory:

"6] The Church's teaching on the state of souls in heaven and hell before the Last Judgment is set forth in its clearest fashion by St. Mark Of Ephesus in his dialogue with the Roman Catholics over the Roman doctrine of Purgatory (which the Orthodox reject as false). It is an extensive collection of writings, and much of it is beyond the focus of this limited study. The following should suffice, however, to illustrate the Orthodoxy of St. John Maximovitch's words:


"Those reposed in faith are without doubt helped by the Liturgies and prayers and almsgiving performed for them, and that this custom has been in force from antiquity, there is the testimony of many and various utterances of the Teachers, both Latin and Greek, spoken and written at various times and in various places.
But that souls are delivered thanks to a certain purgatorial suffering and temporal fire which possesses such (a purgatorial) power and has the character of a help -- this we do not find in either Scripture or in the prayers and hymns for the dead, or in the words of the Teachers.

But we have received that even the souls which are held in hell and are already given over to eternal torments, whether in actual fact and experience or in hopeless expectation of such, although not in the sense of completely loosing them from torment or giving hope for final deliverance.

And this is shown by the words of the great Macarius the Egyptian ascetic who, finding a skull in the desert, was instructed by it concerning this by the action of Divine Power.

And Basil The Great, in the prayers read at Pentecost, writes literally the following:

'Who also, on this all-perfect and saving feast, are graciously pleased to accept propitiatory prayers for those who are imprisoned in hell, granting us a great hope of improvement for those who are imprisoned from the defilements which have imprisoned them, and that Thou wilt send down Thy consolation' (Third Kneeling Prayer at Vespers).
But if souls have departed this life in faith and love, while nevertheless carrying with themselves certain faults, whether small ones over which they have not repented at all, or great ones for which -- even though have repented over them -- they did not undertake to show fruits of repentance: such souls, we believe, must be cleansed from this kind of sins, but not by means of some purgatorial fire or a definitive punishment in some place (for this, as we have said, has not at all been handed down to us).

But some must be cleansed in the very departure from the body (as St. Gregory The Dialogist literally shows); while others must be cleansed after the departure from the body, before they come to worship God and are honored with the lot of the blessed, or -- if their sins were more serious and bind them for a longer duration -- they are kept in hell, but not in order to remain forever in fire and torment, but as it were in prison and confinement under guard.

All such ones, we affirm, are helped by the prayers and Liturgies performed for them, with the cooperation of the Divine Goodness and Love for mankind.

And so, we entreat God and believe to deliver the departed (from eternal torment), and not from any other torment or fire apart from those torments and that fire which have been proclaimed to be forever."

Dear John Ross,

This reminds me of the Anglican Canon who gave a sermon on Purgatory.

When told that the 39 articles of religion in the Book of Common Prayer condemn Purgatory, he replied: "Well, yes, the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory is condemned. I was talking about the ANGLICAN doctrine of Purgatory."

My own view is that the doctrine of Purgatory lends itself to popular belief by all simply by virtue of its theological simplicity and reasonableness. And so St Peter Mohyla thought as well.

Good post, JR!

Alex

It frustrates me when Orthodox simply say we believe X because Rome believes Y. The question for me is who speaks for Orthodoxy.

I used to be a Protestant, and I frequently find many Orthodox engage in an almost Protestant private interpretation of Tradition. There are as many answers to what is the Orthodox Church's belief about proposition X as there are Orthodox believers. It is bewildering sometimes.

Zizoulias believes proposition X about the nature of the Church, while Afanasieff believes proposition y about the nature of the Church.

St. John Maximovitch says proposition X about the Immaculate Conception (that it's a heresy), while Bishop Kallistos Ware says it's an acceptable theological opinion. And so forth.

Thomas Hopko says the Roman primacy could be accepted by the Orthodox under certain conditions, while other groups of Orthodox say never. Not to mention the issue of the efficacy of Catholic baptisms and Catholic sacred mysteries.

It seems there are many Orthodoxies, but not one single Orthodoxy.

We Eastern Catholics may differ in terminology and emphasis with our Latin brethren, but we don't disagree with them in terms of substance.

Dear JR,

Certainly, I think one would also find a wide view about whether the Orthodox are schismatics etc. among Roman Catholics.

In fact, as indicated elsewhere here, there are those traditionalist RC's who say that Melkites and other EC's are both "heretics and schismatics."

In fact, they would not be the first RC's to say those things about Eastern Catholics (let alone Orthodox Christians).

The ancestor of our late Eparch, Bishop Isidore Borecky of Toronto corresponded with St George Konissky, Archbishop of Belarus. In his letters, there is the sentence, "When the Latins (Poles) are in a state of anger, they refer to us, (Eastern Catholics) as well as to you (Orthodox Christians) as 'schismatics.'"

Certainly, even after the Union of Brest, there were many RC's, and not just Poles, who regarded EC's as "half-Catholics" since they adhered to "schismatic rites" (most notably, the Sign of the Cross with three fingers, which is why many EC prayerbooks historically contained the letter of Pope Innocent III confirming this method).

The fact that the RC Church makes an official statement (or aboutface?) on this matter at Vatican II and afterwards does not mean that all Catholics share it as a matter of fact.

And regardless of the variation among Orthodox on this or that matter, it all comes down to one thing: This is the Orthodox Faith, one, true and absolute - take it or leave it. No variation on that.

And when Orthodox engage in private interpretation, they know that everything hinges on the approval by the Church authorities.

Catholics know that too, but tend to engage in a kind of watered-down ecumenism that sometimes leads to "We are all one already! What is the problem with you people?"

Even if tomorrow the RC Church should find itself in complete agreement with Orthodoxy on the Filioque etc. etc. that fact will not a unified Church make.

There is ultimately one Orthodoxy after all. One is either in it, or one is not. The rest is just sugar-coating.

EC's themselves have a wide range of views on things we share with the Latin Church.

I believe there can be more than one theological expression and I believe several such expressions can say the same thing.

But do our expressions of the Catholic faith in union with Rome approximate those of Orthodoxy? I would say "no."

Is it an insurmountable barrier? Nothing really is.

Alex

Alex,
I can see where you are coming from in an ideal world, but the serious differences among the Orthodox that I see are really matters of Church dogma, not niceties. In any case, the Trads account for not even one percent of the Roman Catholic Church. Being generous, there are 2 million of them out of 1 billion Roman Catholics.
I think the question of whether my baptism is valid should be something that can be stated objectively, instead of saying its valid in Orthodox jurisdiction x and invalid in jurisdiction y.
Its great to deal with things in an ideal world; that is, until reality sets in.

,John