www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Petrine Views

Isn't a dogma, by definition, a "revealed truth"?

I wish the Lord used the plural "servants" in his exhortation, just to make it clear for us. And I wish he didn't take just St. Peter aside on the seashore and tell him "feed my sheep." And I wish he never told Peter to be the confirmer of his brethren. And I wish he didn't just give the keys to Peter even though there were other Apostles present. And I wish God never gave just Peter a special vision to teach the most significant ecclesiological action for the life of the Catholic Church - the inclusion of non-Jews into God's Kingdom.

Blessings

well said!

Apotheun:
No one but you is claiming here the higher grades of bishop are separate sacraments. you're trying to create a strawman.

What is being pointed out is that their position may grant authority over their brothers.

A metropolitan has authority over his brothers, even in the most conciliar of Orthodox Churches: at the very least, to call them to Synod. In many, far more.

A patriarch has the same authority, but over metropolitans as well as mere bishops: to call forth the synod, and usually to chastise those who disobey the synod, or even to excommunicate them.

The catholic view is, while not stated as such, effectively that of the pope being archpatriarch: having the ability to function as patriarch over the other patriarchs.

Position grants authority. Does not an Auxiliary Bishop hold the sacrament of Episcopal Holy Ordination? Indeed. Can he not ordain? Of Course. But he MAY NOT ordain unless his brother bishop in authority over him says he may.

Likewise, the primate of a synod, as head of a synod, can call the synod and enact its decisions; many have other granted authorities as well, which the Synod has granted them and their successors.

They mirror St. Peter in miniature, not the Pope mirroring them enlarged. The Pope is the Echo of St. Peter, successor, heir, and holder of his position, with its authority. And by virtue of his not appointing an heir, but leaving his authority to Rome, St Paul as well.

Sorry I forgot to address this part of your quote in my original response.

I suspect you are injecting some misconceptions into what I've written, or perhaps you were asking them leading questions.

Can you tell us what exactly you asked them, and what exactly their response was?

Blessings

Dear brother Laka Ya Rabb,

What is it about my description of the High Petrine view that you disagree with?

Agreed. But your statement here simply reinforces my belief that Orthodox rhetoric against papal primacy is based on misconception.

I'll hold off comment until you explain what you feel is unacceptable about the High Petrine view.

Blessings,
Marduk

As an Orthodox Christian, I believe the teachings of the Holy Orthodox Church. At this point in history, this precludes us from agreeing on the topic at hand. Unless of course you hold fast to what Apotheoun articulated.

Regarding your explanation of a high-petrine view I can only say the Patriarchal encyclical of 1895, found here [orthodoxinfo.com] can clarify what is unacceptable to me. Paragraphs 14 to the end speak directly to this.

Wow! I have been away from my computer for the last three days and was not able to check the thread until today. Thank you all so much for your responses and the discussion that has ensued. There is a lot of information to take in, and I will need to think about this some more.

I do like the distinctions that Mardukm makes in an understanding of the Petrine view. That's something I hadn't considered before. Like most artificial distinctions for the sake of study and argument, things are not quite so cut and dry in the real world.

There are two more questions that I have:

1. Mardukm, you keep saying that the role of the Pope of Rome as defined by Vatican I is not a "revealed truth". However, isn't that what a dogma is? Isn't a dogma a codification of a revealed truth? It seems to me that the Fathers of Vatican I were saying that their understanding of the role of the Bishop of Rome in the Church has been revealed by the Holy Spirit and belongs to the Deposit of Faith. Obviously, they have to say that it was there from the beginning but did not reach full flowering until 1868, but it's hard to get around their not saying it is a revealed truth. Could you clarify a little more your definition of dogma, and how a dogma cannot be a revealed truth?

2. What impact does it have on a Council when all the bishops who disagree with the dogma as proposed leave town before the vote. I realize this was done out of respect for the Pope, but it seems to me that it could call into question the definition of the dogma especially since the vote had to be unanimous in order to pass. Does anyone know if there is a precedent for such things?

A few other random thoughts:

In reading the Canons of the Council, it seems hard not to get an Absolutist understanding of the Papacy. After all, if that were not the case, why would the Melkite Patriarch and the Melkite Synod of Bishops feel the need to accept Pastor Aeternus with the disclaimer of the Council of Florence? It seems to me that there was a limited acceptance of the teachings of Vatican I by the Melkite bishops.

Everything about the understanding of infallibility screams that the Pope can act alone without having to consult anyone else, that he is not subordinate to an Ecumenical Council, and that he has universal and direct jurisdiction over the entire Church. (I realize I am paraphrasing, but I don't have the Canons in front of me directly.) Obviously, in reality and practically speaking, no Pope has ever acted this way. Even when the Popes defined the two Marian doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Dormition, they consulted the bishops of the world before doing so. Popes just don't act willy nilly and would be foolish to do so. However, nonetheless, the written Canons are there, and what is to stop a Pope in the future from calling on those to act unilaterally. In one word, nothing. It's almost a provision that would allow the Pope to impose "martial law" on the Church if needed.

This touches on the related issue of what happens if the Bishop of Rome were ever to fall into heresy, but I will leave that for another day.

It seems to me that this is what frightens the Orthodox. No matter how many assurances they receive from Rome that the Pope will not impose his will on them and that he will respect their rights as patriarchal churches, Vatican I and Pastor Aeternus will always be in the back of their minds. If the Pope does not need to consult other bishops or convoke a Council to define a dogma of the Faith, then what is to stop him from trying to impose his will on them. It is hard to be in a communion of love with someone whom you fear could turn on you at any moment.

I hope that language is not too strong, but that's the sense I get. For example, regarding the "filioque", many Eastern Orthodox will say that it's meaningless that Rome does not require Eastern Catholics to add it to the Creed because the Pope could change that whenever he wanted to. The Orthodox would be worried that something like this could happen.

I agree that the Pope has a primacy; however, the only thing that is going to make a difference to the Orthodox and aid the cause of reunion in this matter is a clear example of collegiality and synodality from the Popes of Rome. As they say, "Actions speak louder than words".

There is much more that I could, and would like to, write, but I feel as though I am rambling at the moment, and it is getting late. I hope what I have written makes sense.

Thanks again for all the responses and the great discussion. I look forward to more posts.

-Scott

Dear brother DTBrown,

To be perfectly clear, I believe the incident with Pope St. Victor does indeed demonstrate universal primacy in action. The entire Church held local synods on the Easter issue at the direction of Pope St. Victor. And from what few accounts we have on the incident, the issue was that Pope St. Victor was abusing his authority, not that he didn't have it.

That's what I meant when I agreed with you that papal authority can be misused. If it is not used in the spirit of service in order to build up the Church, then it is being abused. That doesn't mean it does not exist.

On the other hand, I also believe that the incident clearly demonstrates the collegial nature of papal decisions. That's a point I have argued about with Catholic papalists.

Catholic papalists who think the canon that states "there is neither appeal nor recourse to a sentence or decree of the Roman Pontiff" indicates some kind of absolute power by the Pope are just being eisegetic. All that canon means is that the Pope is the highest court of appeal. This is simply a repetition of the Sardican canons that were confirmed by the Sixth Ecumenical Council. It does not mean the Pope is above correction.

It was one of the greatest apologists of the Latin Church, St. Robert Bellarmine, who asserted that if the Pope misuses his authority to tear down and not build up the Church, then we as Christians are obligated to correct him. But let me add that this is done through the proper canonical channels - our bishops, as occurred during the Paschal controversy. I reject the Eastern Orthodox standard set by the events after Florence, that permits laity to judge and depose their bishops without the benefit of synodical trials (it's useless for EO apologists to appeal to the synod that occured after the bishops were already driven out of their Sees).

No, I definitely do not believe Rome is to be blamed. Rome was simply staying true to the Canons and ancient Tradition, as will be explained in more detail below. If anything, the local Latin bishops had the blame.

That's a wrong comparison. There is no indication that President Jackson opposed the action, but was in fact just reflecting the mentality of the times, which imbued a prejudice against Indians as a foreigners and third-class citizens in their own land.

In contrast, Rome had been very supportive of the unique Tradition of Eastern Churches for almost 200 years (somewhat less for the Oriental Churches, because of lack of knowledge of our own unique Traditions). As it relates to just the incident at issue (since there were numerous actions evincing Rome's support for the Eastern and Oriental Traditions), Rome gave the Easterns their own bishop so they wouldn't have to be completely dependent on the Latin ordinary (notwithstanding that for the first several years, he was effectively a suffragan of the Latin episcopate), Rome did not stringently enforce the two decrees before cum data fuerit, and he gave explicit dispenstaion from the decrees to the Eastern bishop in 1925.

You make it appear so cut-and-dried, when in fact the situation was much more complicated.

The fact is, Catholics were a minority group prone to discrimination in those times in a sea of Protestatism. Catholics were "un-American" and were not allowed to hold office; most Catholics were "lower class" and lived in ghettoes; the Blaine Amendment was passed which was primarily directed against the Catholic school system. The most numerous and most influential of the Protestants were members of the Episcopal Church, and the most obvious distinguishing factor between the Episcopal Church and the Catholic Church to the regular joe was indeed the celibate priesthood.

The fact is, the decree was not intended to be absolute, but rather dependent on the circumstances of the country, so when the circumstances changed the restriction would naturally be lifted by virtue of the decree itself.

Now I ask you this: was the idea of a celibate priest so absolutely foreign to the Eastern Tradition as to be a valid cause for schism? There is all this talk of the responsibility of the Pope. But what about the responsibility of the laity and priests? Was it right that they should schism for the sake of a disciplinary matter? Was it right for these folks to polemicize the whole episode as a wholesale disrespect for the Eastern Tradition?

If your answer is "yes", does that mean you think that the schisms within the Eastern Orthodox Church over non-doctrinal matters (ROCOR, Old Calendarist, Old Believers, etc.) were/are a good and holy thing? Please respond to that question.

It appears you have a misunderstanding of the Petrine ministry. It is not meant to force anything on a bishop. In fact, Vatican 1 asserts that the Pope must use his authority to uphold, defend, and promote the local bishop's proper, ordinary and immediate authority. It's imminently inconsistent - to say the least - for Easterns to complain about the boogeyman of papal tyranny, and then expect him to act in such a fashion when it suits them.

The fact is, the Pope did a very great thing for the Easterns that had never been done before. He gave them their own bishop within the canonical territory of Latin bishops. By doing so, he granted them a dispensation from a universal Canon law of the Church. In the early Church, when a Christian immigrated to a country with a different Rite, that Christian was merely absorbed into the new Rite. When there were enough people of a different Rite in a local diocese/see, the local bishop would accomodate those people in charity by establishing a parish for them using their own Rite, but those parishes were always and ever under the omophorion of the bishop in that territory.

Now, it was very obvious that the Latin bishops in those days were prejudiced against the Eastern Tradition. Without the Pope's intervention and dispensation from the universal canon law of no two bishops in a particular territory, the Eastern Catholic Church would have disappeared from United States a long time ago.

Blessings

I think you're imposing a later Tradition onto a Divine mandate. The hierarchy of head bishops did not just come out of the blue from the minds of the Fathers at Nicea. Rather, it was simply applying and confirming a more ancient model, as the language of Canon 6 from Nicea clearly indicates.

Jesus Christ established St. Peter as the head of the Apostles. In the first century, there was no such thing as "territorial jurisdiction." After the model of the Apostles, there was simply one head bishop among the bishops of all the nations (apostolic Canon 34/35). This is evident from the example of Pope St. Clement who judged on a disciplinary matter in a different country, the visit of St. Polycarp from Smyrna to Pope St. Anicetus to discuss the matter of Easter, and the fact that Pope St. Victor was able to solicit the entire Christian world to hold local councils to discuss the Easter issue. As the Church grew larger, microcosms of this primordial apostolic model cropped up locally. In these times, it appears that Alexandria and Antioch obtained prominence, probably due as much to the fact that they were centers of scholarship as their Petrine foundation. It cannot have been its scholarly reputation alone that merited their ecclesiastical importance, because, for example, Athens was also a center of scholarship and had apostolic foundation, but never gained such prominence. This increased prominence probably occurred some time in the 3rd century, no earlier, because, for example, when Tertullian writes against the heretics, he identifies Ephesus, not Antioch, as the Christian center of Asia.

Then comes the First Ecumenical Council who ruled: "Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis prevail, that the Bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also."

What was this "ancient custom" if not the model of the Apostolic college with its head. Further, the language admits that Rome is the exemplar of this ancient custom.

I debated an Orthodox apologist recently who insisted that the episcopal order is of divine institution, and the Church cannot abolish what is of divine institution. I responded that I agreed, but pointed out that this divine institution included not just the episcopal body, but an episcopal head for that body. Since the episcopal head is of divine institution, then neither can the Church abolish it.

What the First Ecumenical Council did was establish territorial Patriarchates for the proper administration of the Church, applying and confirming the primoridal apostolic model. But such a canonical/ecclesiastical establishment can in no way abolish the divine mandate that the episcopal body of the Church has an episcopal head.

Blessings,
Marduk

To recap the development
Primitive church:
Peter (Pope)
Other Bishops and Apostles

Early Church model
Pope
Patriarchs
Other Bishops

Only Slightly later:
Pope
Patriarchs
Bishops
Chorbishops

A little later still
Pope
Patriarchs
Metropolitans/Archbishops
Bishops
Chorbishops

Eventually:
Pope
Patriarchs
Metropolitans/Archbishops
Bishops
Auxiliary Bishops
Chorbishops

This would be the most full form of the hierarchy... but Chorbishop is seldom used. A Chorbishop being permitted to ordain minor orders only, having no vote in the metropolitan, patriarchal, nor grand synods, and likewise no vote for auxiliary bishops, represents a clear "lesser form" of bishop. It's not a function of their ordination that differentiates a chorbishop from a patriarch... it's the enthronement.

In the west
Pope
Eastern Patriarchs
Metropolitan Archbishops
Bishops
Auxiliary Bishops

Note that "Western" patriarchs are not in point of praxis patriarchs, but metropolitan archbishops with precedence.

In the EOC:
Patriarch
Metropolitan/Archbishop
Bishop
Auxiliary Bishop


but in the EOC, the authority is limited severely for Metropolitans and Archbishops, and Chorbishops are an honorific, sans episcopal ordination. Hmmm... Oh, and the Antiochian Synod having an even more abbreviated form:

Antiochean Orthodox:
Patriarch
Metropolitans
Auxiliary Bishops

Really gives pause...

So? Weren't we were talking about the foundation of the episcopal lineage?

Me neither. And apparently neither did Vatican 1, because that Sts. Peter and Paul founded the Church in Rome is not part of the dogma of the primacy.

The sacrament of orders to episcopacy is one sacrament shared by all bishops. There is no distinct petrine sacrament. [/quote]
Agreed. I'm glad that the Catholic Church does not teach that either.

Don't hold your breath, because I never claimed there was a petrine sacrament.

Blessings

That's a wierd question. I said that the Council judged his position, not St. Cyprian.

Blessings

Then why do you keep asking "where is that found in the Ecumenical Councils?"

I gave you a whole list of proofs from Tradition. No response?

Blessings