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

I don't know what you mean by official or not official. Sorry.

It would be a great task indeed.

The prime responsibility of the Eastern Churches is to return to its traditions.

To my mind, if it is printed in the guide, it would be official. But a transcript of the actual talk would also be wonderful. (I realize that you may not have that...)

Gordo

Well, that's a list that's Seven longer than the "official list of the Latin Church", so there's no arguments there.

I'm with Gordo in that I think the focus shouldn't be on what Councils are considered Ecumenical after the Great Schism, and that the discussion should be on what role the Pope played in those Councils that are uncontested. Of course that's a whole new discussion that has its own difficulties.

I still maintain, however, that Ecumenical or not, infallible or not, Vatican II's Lumen Gentium represents the normative Catholic understanding of the Church. That doesn't mean the document is perfect, but I'm not aware of any Catholic Churches that reject it, nor do I see how they could while maintaining unity with Rome. Even if it's just a "local Council" document, it is a document of the "Catholic locality", not just of the Latin Church; if it were only a Latin Council and document then the Melkites and others would have had no business participating fully as they did.

I see no reason to view it as otherwise until we see some clear repudiations of it on the part of those Churches which participated.

Peace and God bless!

I hope I did not leave with the impression (though perhaps I must have) that I was claiming anyone on this thread was unbiased. For some of us (me!) our biases likely shine through like a bright light bulb behind a sheet of wax paper.

My point was that what has been presented of the Zoghby confession (equally vilified by ultra-traditionalists in either communion and equally ignored by the rest in either) is so satisfyingly vague it seems to leave us all unsatisfied.

Inevitably, someone who is well informed on virtually any subject develops ideas about that subject, and opinions about it. If my own preference for fine Chinese cuisine rather than Indian cuisine makes me biased, so be it.

There's a delightful story of the newspaper in a large city which for years had employed a certain journalist to write about municipal politics - and then suddenly discharged him, without warning. Seems he had discovered where City Hall was located, and therefore could no longer be objective.

Fr. Serge

Newman, it seems to me, is one to whom we can turn to consider an "unbiased" account of the early Church. He wrote his great "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine" not as a Catholic apologetic but as an Anglican.

Development may sound like a modern term, but for Newman it was not. Todd has objected to the term because the faith was given to the Apostles whole and entire. That is true. But while the Apostles had the entire faith not corrupted by the world, the Church has a long history of preventing the corruption of that deposit. Arianism comes to mind.

Newman's essay is worth a real discussion:

http://www.newmanreader.org/works/development/index.html

I always worry when a man claims to be unbiased, because it means that he is in fact blissfully ignorant of his biases, and that type of man is very dangerous.

Now, as far as the Zoghby Initiative being vague, I agree, at least in part; nevertheless it clearly excludes the Roman innovations of the second millennium and that is enough for me, because it makes possible the eventual restoration of communion with the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

God bless,
Todd

That's an interesting assertion.

When I read Newman I see biases in favor of Anglicanism in his early years, and after his conversion he has biases in favor of Romanism.

God bless,
Todd

Sadly, I cannot agree with you. The status of the ecumenical councils is pivotal to understanding the nature of primacy, since primacy is necessarily connected to synodality. In other words, there is no primate in separation from his synod.

God bless,
Todd

P.S. - Western conciliar "tradition" is practically non-existent, because it was wiped from the face of the earth by the theory of the monarchical papacy in which all authority in the Church was vest in papal office.

We will have to agree to disagree. Lumen Gentium does not reflect the doctrinal tradition of the East, and as an Eastern Christian I will continue to ignore it completely.

God bless,
Todd

P.S. - I have edited your comment so that it is theologically more precise.

From the opposite side of the question, Todd, I can agree that there is no real way around the ecumenical councils nor what I see as ex cathedra proclamations regarding Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary.

I'm not clear how one can have a Catholicism without a Petrine ministry of primacy that holds authority as a supreme and universal pastor.

Best to all,
Robster

I have a Catholicism with a petrine ministry, I just do not limit that ministry to the bishop of Rome; and I also accept primacy (local, regional, and universal), but I refuse to confuse primacy within the Church, with a concept of supremacy over the Church.

God bless,
Todd

P.S. - Since I do not accept the Western understanding of the effects of the original sin, it follows that I do not need a dogma which protects the Theotokos from a non-existent "stain."

Dear Friends,

Just a note to say that Todd's point on bias is crucial to understanding, well, anything.

There is no such animal as an unbiased human. As one prof said, "Only liberals think they are unbiased . . ."

However, since I'm probably a Latinized Easterner, I accept the Papal dogmas (in the best possible Eastern sense though!), and an Immaculate Conception that sees the BVM as being sanctified by the Holy Spirit at birth.

Even if we do not accept the "stain" thing of Original Sin, it was an ever-growing sanctification in her by the Spirit that mitigated the ancestral sin's impact on her throughout her life, but beginning with her Conception.

I also believe the lex orandi tradition of Orthodoxy will bear this out.

Alex

St. Gregory the Great rejected this idea more than 1400 years ago.