www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Papacy and the Eastern-rite

Todd,

Have you ever considered writing a book on Eastern Catholicism or Eastern theology? I think you should. Even if you only distributed it in PDF I would buy a copy.

Gordo,

I'm pretty sure that St. Peter and those around him at Pentecost weren't reciting the Nicaen Creed nor venerating icons either.

Regards,
Robster

Dear Tertullian,

As Fr. Meyendorff and others have written, a great Council of Reunion between East and West, should it take place, could discuss not only the structure of a reformed papacy, but also the doctrines that the West has come to accept since the Schism of 1054 AD.

Fr. Richard McBrien in his "Catholicism" for example actually gives TWO versions of the Immaculate Conception dogma.

As Orthodox theologians have said, once a common understanding of Original Sin, based on patristics etc. is to be had between East and West, the IC becomes much less of an issue with the West.

Although Todd would say that Orthodox today could believe that the Theotokos "committed small sins," in fact, the much more authoritative Orthodox lex orandi tradition affirms the contrary.

It matters not that the lex orandi is not on the same authoritative footing as the Roman papal pronouncement.

It comes down to the same.

In that ONE point, I would say that Todd is letting what appears to be a Western "holdover" to affect his otherwise eminent Orthodox theological perspective.

Alex

Dear Todd,

You mentioned that the Orthodox Church has Primacy (as I believe it does too).

You also mentioned that it also has Peter as bishops are the successors of all the Apostles (and Peter established bishops in many more Eastern towns and cities than in the West, to be sure).

I agree with you.

So why do we need communion with Rome?

Is it something that is not absolutely necessary, from the Eastern perspective? Is the EC insistence on it in and of itself a form of Latinization that, with all the others, needs to be gotten past in some way?

Alex

If the practical definition of "Magisterium" is "authentic Church teaching", and it is, and the voices of the Magisterium are the Bishops of the Church, and they are, why should we prefer the "magisteria" of private individuals (even ones with names like Ratzinger, Wojtyla, Zizoulas and de Lubac) to the Magisterium?

And if only the "Eucharistically received" word heard at Church on Sundays is important, then how does the Church fulfill her mission of "going out and preaching to all nations"?

And must all those nations be ready, willing and able to receive the Church's evangelical message (with appropriate East/West nuancing!) before she should deign to speak to them?

And should we expect that "any old words" spoken by the Bishops of the Church will do the trick, or do we think that they must have some relationship to the truth Christ wants the nations to hear?

Best to all,
Michael

P.S. If "ordinary" vs. "extraordinary" vs. "super-duper" is getting in the way, one may safely ignore them -- they are "inside baseball", and of interest mostly to professors in pontifical and other Catholic universities. I've never heard of a penitent confessing a sin against one of the teachings of the Church, and that in addition it was an "extraordinary magisterial teaching". Come on.

There's much I disagree with you on Todd, but I totally agree with your statement, "the modern conceptual theory of the magisterium has in many ways replaced Tradition itself in the Western Church, because immemorial practices and beliefs are no longer accepted by the simple fact that they are the living expression of the Apostolic paradosis".

I have not, in any of my posts, limited the liturgical proclamation of the Word of God to that which is "Eucharistically received." Now it is true that the Eucharist is the apex of all liturgical action, since all things point to the Eucharist and flow from it, but the liturgy also includes the different hours of prayer that sanctify the entire day, and the cycle of prayer that sanctifies the year. In fact, the liturgy is about consecrating man's entire life and activity to God.

Nevertheless, my point remains, because there is a difference -- not merely of degree, but of essence -- between the personal reading of scripture (or other texts) and its living proclamation in the liturgical life of the Church.

God bless,
Todd

Although I think that the modern Roman fascination with categorizing things is foolishness, I am not all that concerned by it, because it will be swept away should communion ever be restored between the West and the whole of the East. Nevertheless, I am concerned by the ongoing disintegration of Tradition in the West, which has been caused by an overemphasis upon juridical and political views of power in the Church, where the Magisterium has replaced Tradition in the minds of many Latin Catholics.

No one in this thread has said anything like this, so I do not see why you raise a question totally unrelated to the topic under consideration. I am sure that both the Roman Church and the Orthodox Churches will continue to proclaim the message of Christ to the world whether they completely agree with each other or not.

Try to stick to the topic at hand, which is the relationship between the Papacy and the Eastern Churches, because nonsensical questions like this will get us nowhere.

God bless,
Todd

Please allow me to say that it's to have unity in the Church.

Robster,

You completely miss my point. Of course there are many terms and observances and various other items that were not utilized by the Church or proclaimed at the time of Pentecost, or even many centuries later.

My point was that they simply listened to and received Peter's message, completely removed from any need or attempt to categorize or qualify it. Filled with the Holy Spirit, he spoke as one with authority. They listened and were saved, thousands being added to their number from every nation.

It reminds me of a sign my former college roomate posted on our dorm room door:



Sometimes the Gospel needs to be seen as the proper domain of pastors - the shepherds of souls - and not canonists and tenure-seeking academic specialists.

In ICXC,

Gordo

Communion with Rome is not necessary as some kind of juridical or political requirement within the Church. In fact, as Fr. Garuti said in the book that I referenced earlier in this thread:

In other words, it is necessary for all of the Churches to be in communion with Rome, just as it is equally necessary for Rome to be in communion with all the other Churches throughout the world. That said, the unity of the Church is not established by legal prescriptions or by juridical norms; instead, it is made manifest by the celebration of the liturgy and the profession of the Orthodox faith.

God bless,
Todd

Alex,

Clearly, we interpret the liturgical texts differently, because none of the Fathers ever said that the Holy Theotokos was divinized from the first instant of her conception.

Moreover, as I pointed out in another thread, since there is no dogma in Orthodoxy that says that Mary never committed sins, no one is required to believe that she was not -- at some point during her life -- purified. Now clearly, it is pious and reverent to believe that the Theotokos never committed any sins -- an opinion that I happen to hold myself -- but it is not, nor can it ever be, a dogma.

God bless,
Todd

I accidently left out the last part of the first sentence of my concluding paragraph. It should read as follows:

What do the majority of Eastern Rite bishops believe regarding the papacy? If you told your priest that the Pope is first among equals, what would his reaction likely be?

Gordo,

I can certainly agree that the proclamation of the gospel should largely rest with our pastors.

But as the gospel content has richly developed through the centuries in a variety of ways and through various needs and circumstances, and has done so in no small measure due to the Petrine ministry and our Latin fathers, I do not see listening to that message today outfiited with the full corpus of what we have come to know, as being wholly not in keeping with Peter's evangelizing of those around him.

Regards,
Robster