www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Is Eastern Orthodoxy a Part of the True Church?

"The Byzantine Forum is an ecumenical forum that is hosted by Byzantine Catholics. All points of view are welcome so long as they are expressed with charity. Etnick has been asked on a number of occasions to be charitable in his comments. When he does not speak with charity he does not show Orthodoxy in its best light. Orthodoxy deserves better than the tackiness Etnick tarnishes it with."


I'm sorry if what I say comes off as "tacky", and I certainly know that I am not the best representative of the Orthodox church. I'm not an eloquent speaker, and I'm not very politically correct, so I tend to shoot from the hip when I try to make a point. Please forgive this shortcoming of my character.

(I used to have to stay after school alot and clean the chalkboards!)

I'd have to disagree with mwbonline; no Rite of the Church is lacking anything in its reflection of the True Church, so I reject that only an admixture of Latin and Byzantine elements in Eastern Catholic churches make them the "best reflection of the True Church."

Alexis

I'm pretty sure that mnbonline was being complimentary to our host (the Byzantine church).

Be that as it may .. on to another subject...

I do note Alexis, that you are a person of some fire and passion. I think that is a good thing. You seem to be a person of real convictions.

So many of us here in the West lack any real conviction (we are neither cold nor hot) ... but rather we are luke-warm and mindlessly hold what is politically correct for our group. We tend to mimic belief instead of really knowing what we believe deep inside.

I can see that this is not you. You are very thoughtful. You believe - what you believe. This is a very Eastern trait.

In my studies I have learned that one of the major items which the Mid Eastern people do not like about Western culture ... and do not understand ... is the fact that we are passion-less. We do not hold much of anything deeply. We can not really dedicate ourselves to something.

And so again .. I compliment you. You are a person of fire, passion, honesty, and true conviction.

Peace to all churches.
-ray

Well, thank you, Ray. I hope my convictions do not come across as rude or ill-founded. Let me extrapolate a little bit on the reason why I disagree with mwbonline:

Although I disagree with his first paragraph in which he states that the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics comprise the True Church (this seems to exclude Eastern Catholics, Oriental Orthodox, etc., and anyway I have issues as a Catholic with the idea that the fullness of the True Church is not found totally and completely within the Catholic Communion - I certainly believe it is), I don't wish to focus on that because most people here have made up their minds about that one way or the other, and most are not swayed by anything than their own personal convictions. Which is fine, but means there's not much point focusing on it.

I am disagreeing mainly with the statement in the second paragraph that seems to say that latinized Eastern Catholic churches are really the best reflection of the True Church. But this opinion has many problems, for me. First, it implies that each Rite of the Church is lacking something, something which can only be had by incorporating practices from other Rites. I.e., a completely "Eastern" Byzantine church or a completely "Roman" Latin church are somehow less perfectly a reflection of the True Church. I don't agree with that. Not to mention that even if that were true (Eastern Catholic churches mixing Latin and "Orthodox" elements, as he puts it, best reflecting the True Church), this excludes every other Rite whose liturgical patrimonies or elements are not included in these parishes. So how can an Eastern Catholic church with some Roman practices be "the best reflection" of the True Church, when it almost certainly doesn't employ elements from OTHER Eastern traditions. It's either Byzantine-Roman, Maronite-Roman, Coptic-Roman, etc. This leads to the assumption that only two of the Church's Rites, mixed in a parish, make the best reflection of the True Church, and the other Rites are only of secondary importance.

Anyway, I think that each liturgical tradition of the Church is complete in its reflection of the True Church. I don't see how, logically, this couldn't be the case. It could only be the case if one were willing to admit that no single parish in the world is a "best reflection" of the True Church since no parish on Earth, to my knowledge, employs all the Rites of the Church within its walls, and what a mess that would be!

Alexis

Dear Alexis ...

all Ahhh!! what a wonderful explanation!

Not everyone has been given the gift that you have been given.

My views on the Church and churches is very similar. In fact I compare it to a hologram in my mind. One day a comparison came to me and it was stunning.

You know how a hologram contains a 3d picture .. and one can look at it from all angles and the photo (picture) in it reflects real life (as one moves his angle of viewing one is now seeing the 3d effect). Yet if the hologram is broken up into pieces .. each piece still contains the complete and entire picture in itself.

One would expect that each piece of the hologram would only contain just a part of the picture ... but no .. each piece actually contains the entire picture in itself. It is the exact same picture in the whole and in each piece! Simply amazing.

So too with each particular church in the Catholic Church (universal). When considered as a whole there is this one 'picture' of Christ and when looked at individually there is also this very same (and still complete) picture of Christ. And it is the same picture!

Anyways .. some very few people out there in the big world recognize Christ in any other of the catholic churches except their own. This is due (of course) to being trained that way.

But this Byzantine forum is unique. People with a true ecumenical spirit (unity within the catholic churches) stay while the ones who can not .. eventually leave.

-ray

Clarification: I stated 'Eastern Catholic Churches' which includes all of the Rites that Alexis mentioned. I then gave a specific example of the Orthodox and Catholic elements as found in SOME of the Rites (i.e. the Byzantine).

If I pray the Jesus Prayer as a Western Latin Rite Catholic does that make me an 'Orthodoxized' Catholic as Alexis and others seem to apply to Eastern Rite Catholics that would be 'Latinized' if they say the Rosary?

There seems to be a mind-set in many parts of this forum that the Orthodox are perfect and without fault and these viewpoints are rarely challenged.

ALEXIS:

Again, you may have missed the point of what constitutes the Catholic Church. The Catechism and the constant teaching of the Church since the reign of Pope John XXIII of blessed memory is that the Catholic Church that is in visible communion with the Roman Pontiff does indeed constitute the Catholic Church menioned in the Creed. However, that being said, it is also true that the rigid lines that were drawn over the course of history are no longer part of the way in which we view the Church. That is the idea behind the choice of the Latin ver "subsisto/subsistere." His Holiness John stated emphatically, for ecample, that "the Counter Reformation is over." We would no longer be in a battle with Protestants but would approach them as brothers in the Lord with whom we have the Divine mandate to find a way to fulfill the Lord's High Priestly Prayer.

Pope John had also spent a part of his career in the diplomatic service and was familiar with the Eastern Churches on a personal basis. He, like Patriarch Athanasius of blessed memory, saw that the Church had entered a new era in which the modern world demanded that we either speak with a unified voice or be relegated to a position of impotence in relation to the events that swirled around us.

It was at the Vatican Council, after the voices of the Eastern Catholic hierarchs were heard for the first time by many in the West, that the realization came to the Council Fathers that there were ways in which others who called themselves Christians were really members of the Church, though imperfectly from our point of view: the renewed look at the common Baptism in the Trinity that we all share. And it was from that realization that the Holy Spirit moved the Catholic Church to be able to listen to others' points of view that were different than our own. It takes nothing from what we believe and hold, but it does expand our own vision--that being that the history that has separated us is no longer enough to continue to do so and that we must overcome it to move toward the vision Our Lord called us to have in His High Priestly Prayer in the Gospel of John.

Now there are those who call themselves "Latin trads" and "Latin Traditionalists" and many other similar terms who want to maintain those rigid lines. And there are many in other Apostolic Churches and ecclesial communities who want to do the same thing. I maintain that they are immature in their own faith and are threatened by the idea that they don't have a lock on Christ or on the fulness of Truth that He is. I remember that the Lord tells us that the Holy Spirit would "lead us (us) into all truth" and that does not mean that we have a lock on it at any given time. Not that the Deposit is deficient, but that we do not have the fullest understanding of it or its implications yet: we're still in the process of understanding it fully and mining its riches.

So actually, the rigid lines are more like areas of grey proceeding from a solid colored middle and proceeding outward. The Vatican Council called us to embrace the world and to share with everyone the gift we have, but also to appreciate the gifts of others. And we don't fully embrace or appreciate when we try to redraw those rigid lines.

The one other thing that the Council did emphasize, too, was that no one living can be called heretic or schismatic for being born and raised in another Christian body. The only ones who can assume those titles today are Catholics who move elsewhere. And even then, we are called to respect the conscience of the other in all charity, leaving the judgment of that to the Lord and the internal forum. It is not a judgment for anyone but the competent authority to make, not us pew dwellers.

In Christ,

BOB

Clarification #2: before this is further misinterpreted, I did NOT mean to imply that....
1. Orthodox Churches need to incorporate Latin practices (or vice versa)...THEY DO NOT AND SHOULD NOT
2. There is anything missing in the Orthodox liturgy that needs to change...THE LITURGY IS PERFECT
3. Eastern Catholic Churches that have modified their Liturgical practices to Latinize should not reverse those changes...LATINIZED ELEMENTS OF THE LITURGY SHOULD BE REMOVED

With this said, DEVOTIONAL PRACTICES that have been borrowed from either East or West should not be 'anathemized' as in some way impure or defective by either the East or West. This is where the Eastern Catholic Churches are unique...they have these elements and as someone has said are a natural 'bridge' between the two lungs of the Church.

Bob,

"Subsistit in" has recently been clarified by the CDF. I'll let the quotes do the talking...

One from Wikipedia, just for some background on "subsistit in":


Here is further clarification from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, published last summer:


Alexis

mwbonline's clarification does make a difference, since he's talking about private devotional practices and not public liturgy.

Still, isn't being, say, Byzantine and using some Roman practices still excluding breathing with the other lungs (well, that analogy sort of stops working - let's assume we have more than two lungs!) of the Church, like the Armenian, Chaldean, Coptic, Ethiopian, Maronite, etc.? It just seems the "best reflection" would be practicing all of the Rites of the Church (or ritual practices from each sui iuris Church), or either being content to practice only those from your own, and viewing that as neither deficient nor better than incorporating practices from other Rites.

Alexis

ALEXIS:

You've confirmed what I said previously.

BOB

I thought I confirmed what I said previously?

I said "...and anyway I have issues as a Catholic with the idea that the fullness of the True Church is not found totally and completely within the Catholic Communion - I certainly believe it is." This seems to square perfectly with the Church's teaching as clarified recently by the CDF and, of course, as interpreted in light of Tradition.

Maybe we both get to win?!

Alexis

It is an Eastern forum not a Roman Catholic forum. We Roman's are guests here. Think .. 'Orthodox in union with Rome' my friend.

For any of us here .. loving our own church is the same as loving Christ.

Friendliness and efforts at understanding each other - is the order of the day. The old ways of competition are gone (or should be gone).

This is just my own opinion.
-ray

I think the minute that Christ let the first human into his church ...

it was no longer 'perfect'


-ray

I wonder if He's ever had second thoughts.

BOB