www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West "I love the Orthodox too much to be Orthodox"

Glory to Jesus Christ!
I wanted to share a link to an article that I wrote on why I as an Eastern Catholic am not Orthodox.

http://bit.ly/arKRrI

As I state in it, I wrote this with much fear and respect for my Brethren.

In XC,
J.A. Deane

Your article is confusing and ambivalent. Also, please, what is "the Eastern Catholic Church"? I've looked around and can't find any such animal, nor can I identify who is its patriarch, metropolitan or other hierarch.

Stuart,
I wrote,
"an Eastern Catholic Church".

In XC,
Jonathan

Nonetheless, it's still your duty to try to be Orthodox, and not something else. Assuming that the kind of Eastern Catholic Church to which you belong is a "Greek" or "Byzantine" Catholic Church.

Also, this part:


is just so much maudlin eyewash. The Unia were done out of cold-blooded self-interest, and didn't quite work out the way that was intended by those who initiated them. The history is far more interesting, and useful, than the myth.

If I am talking about the "interest of unity" must it be a solely spiritual apolitical motivation? If one reads with a romantic eye perhaps, but that was not meant to be an unqualified rubber stamp. If perfection is endless growth in the good no amount of well-aligned intentions makes for a flawless reunion/maintenance of union.

The fact of communion between East and west is more real than motivations of men, or lack thereof.

God be with you, dear StuartK.

The facts are the facts, and you can interpret them however you like, but if your interpretation is not supported by the facts, then it can and should be discounted.

Why did the unions occur? First and foremost, because Orthodox communities in the borderlands between east and west were under pressure from the Latin kingdoms of Poland and Hungary as well as from Protestant sects. In the context of the times, this placed the Orthodox under a series of crippling social, political and economic disabilities that threatened their very existence. They were unable to look to their traditional protectors--Constantinople and Moscow--because the former was in thrall to the Turks (at war with the Hungarians) and the were at war with the Poles. In desperation, a group of Kievan priests and bishops entered into negotiations with representatives of the Polish government (and without the knowledge of the Holy See) to accept them into communion with the Church of Rome on the same basis as the Union of Florence. In return, the Orthodox (for so they thought of themselves, and hoped to remain) would be granted full legal equality, their bishops treated as members of the nobility like the Latin bishops, their churches not subject to taxation, etc., etc.

Of course, in the end, it didn't work out, because the world had changed since Florence, but that does not change the fact that the Treaty of Brest was a hard-headed piece of Realpolitik, and not some romantic attempt to get back into the good graces of the Heir of Peter. Moreover, this misguided attempt at unity backfired almost from the beginning, since Rome refused to recognize the "Ruteni" as a Church (an aggregation of repentant schismatics, at best), and the Orthodox considered them to be apostates. The long and sorry story of uniatism begins here.

As for the Carpatho-Rusyn, they were being oppressed by Calvinist followers of the Hungarian Rakocy and desired the same protections as were being extended to the Kievan uniates, so on 24 April 1646, they formed the Union of Uzherod (however, an autograph copy of same seems to have been lost). The Orthodox of Transylvania followed suit with the Union of Alba Julia in 1701. All of these were internal movements of Orthodox communities driven by social and political, rather than theological and ecclesiological factors. In an age when church and state were inextricably linked, their survival depended on recognition by the secular authorities, and that could only be forthcoming through acceptance by the Church of Rome.

So, why then should we stay Greek Catholics, if really we are children of political movements and not sincer theological ones?

Great article J.A.!

Please help me to understand. If these "unias" were political, why did average church members accept them then and later even to the extent of martyrdom? Why did millions of Ukrainian Greek Catholics return to union with Rome in the 1990s rather than remain Ukrainian Orthodox? Why do present-day "Eastern Catholics" anywhere in the world stay Catholics even though they have heard the Orthodox arguments?
I am not being hostile or disputatious. I really want to hear the Orthodox explanation for the continued and persistent loyalty of "Eastern Catholics" to union with Rome. Thank you.

Stuart, you want to see others citing sources, but you never do, you only summarize historical events, and that through your own prism, but you seldom acknowledge that you have your own prism. No sir, what you say in your summaries is what happened.

There were political factors and there were religious factors involved in the union. The proof of this is the Union document itself: http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/TREATBR.HTM You can't deny that there was among the Kievans a profound desire for true unity in the faith and protection of that which is sacred - the full and integral tradition of the Eastern Church. That is not merely political. That the Eastern churches who came into the Union did not get all that they were promised is a human failing. Clement VIII certainly had his heart in the right place.

But just for argument's sake, let's say that the religious element in the union was overshadowed by political factors. Do you berate someone for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons? No, you praise him, if you are thinking correctly.

Because we have changed since then. We were recommissioned at the Second Vatican Council and given a new mission: to bear witness to the possibility of being fully Orthodox AND in communion with Rome, so that the potential of wider unity might some day be realized. And when that day comes, we go back home.

But it does us and the Church no good to romanticize our origins, just as it does nobody any good when the Orthodox demonize those same origins (the dark, Jesuit-driven conspiracies to undermine the Orthodox faith, etc.). Only a courageous and unblinking examination of the truth will allow us to put away the the old grudges, prejudices and polemics and advance together towards unity in faith.

The best book on the subject of the emergence of the Unia is Father Borys Gudziak's Crisis and Reform: The Kyivan Metropolitanate, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Genesis of the Union of Brest (Harvard Series in Ukrainian Studies) 2001.

I demand sources only when someone does an extensive cut and paste job--a blatant appeal to the authority of the source--but then does not provide a citation to the source. I have no problem when people are providing their own argument--and this is very much my own synopsis. When I quote people, I provide sources, as you should know perfectly well if you read my posts.


Sometimes. Depends on what his reason was. Suppose he happened to do the right thing for an utterly reprehensible reason? But, in any case, I was not berating the Kyivan bishops, but rather demanding that we stop romanticizing the Unia and recognize it for what it was. Apparently this isn't good enough for some people.

Interesting as this historical debate may be, it seems to be completely beside Jonathan's main point.

As I understand it, his argument is that Orthodoxy itself suffers when it reacts against western thought to the extent of disregarding the patristic idea that sacramental grace flows objectively through the Church, despite the sins of Christians and schism between churches. Among other things, this provides a theological basis for the claim that the schism between Catholics and Orthodox is internal to the church, and does not result in the creation of one or more para-ecclesiae.

In other words, and answering Stuart's point above about "being Orthodox", Jonathan's whole point is that the Orthodox Church has itself retreated from orthodoxy insofar as it resists the notion that grace is objectively present in the sacraments of schismatics. (Quite who that ugly term describes is not all that important to the argument.)

For one, I think there's a lot in Jonathan's line of reasoning that rewards careful reflection.

Fr Maximos

I don't disagree that grace objectively flows from the sacraments of schismatics. That was my point in an earlier thread in which I noted how, in the first millennium, such schisms (unless driven by heresy) did not place members of schismatic churches or groups outside of the Church per se; they continued to be viewed as Christians.

But I don't know too many Orthodox who would adhere to that position, and the long history of the Church from the 11th century onward would indicate, through the many examples of intercommunion between Catholic and Orthodox, that his has generally been that case. To the extent that there are some who view it that way, it may be they see the separation of the two Churches as being something more than schism, and there is a long patristic tradition that the sacraments of heretics are devoid of grace (baptism being something of an anomaly). And, to the extent that they see the Catholic-Orthodox schism as rooted in heresy is at least partially the fault of a Catholic Church that viewed communion with the bishop of Rome not as a matter of ecclesiology, but as a dogmatic necessity. After all, from Trent to the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church did not even recognize the Orthodox as having true Churches--and therefore, not true sacraments. A certain amount of tit-for-tat has always been present in the relationship.

Scholastic theology which was dominant in the West since the reception of St. Thomas Aquinas had always seen sacraments as valid, providing that the correct form, matter, intent and minister were kept. The validity of sacraments ministered by schismatics wasn't questioned in general (jurisdiction is a different matter).

This is a common stereotype, but it is simply not true. For example,