www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Documentation on approval of post-schism eastern saints..PLEASE!!

Christ is in our midst!!

I have to laugh--and probably join God in this. What documentation do you need to recognise holiness?

There are plenty of documented miracles done through the intercession of men and women who were not visibly part of the Catholic Church during their lifetimes. Do I need a document to allow me to ask for their help? (I admit to needing all the help I can get.)

St. Nektarios, a Greek Orthodox bishop and saint, is a powerful intercessor and I attribute his intercession to the fact that I sit before this screen two years after a heart attack--from which I have no visible damage to the heart muscle of any kind, something the cardiologist saw as some sort of miracle. I just happened to have some holy oil from a monastery named for him that I anointed myself with just before the ambulance took me away. Go figure.

Then there's St. Herman of Alaska. A chapel in his honor in Alaska holds the collection of crutches and other aids no longer needed by people cured of different things by his intercession--something like Lourdes.

Holiness is not an exclusive to the Catholic Church. God continues to work wherever He wills and through whomever He chooses.

If I can pray to relatives who aren't canonized, why is it such a stretch to ask for the intercession of those not officially canonized in Rome?

Have to ask one last question. Is this like the Pharasees who always had to have a sign?

Bob

I always chuckle when I imagine a heavenly scene like this...
"OMG, what in heaven's name are YOU doing HERE!"

He is and ever shall be!

Which ones have been vetted by a meticulous body like the Congregation for the Causes of Saints? In Signs and Wonders p. 306, Fr. Louis Monden, S.J. says, "pre-canonization inquests in the Orthodox Church are very different from their Roman counterparts. Examination of the bodily remains is of primary importance; perfect preservation is a favorable and often conclusive factor warranting canonization. ... the norms applied in these inquests concerning miraculous events are not the same as the strict rules applied by the Catholic Church, and thus no purported miraculous facts may be accepted as such without prudent critical investigation in every case." According to T. G. Pater the 2003 New Catholic Encyclopedia IX:669-670, while God sometimes works miracles outside of the Catholic Church to manifest His presence in certain events, support a doctrine that separated Churches have retained from the Catholic Church, or to increase the faith of individuals, He never works miracles in circumstances that could, with good reason, be construed as confirming a non-Catholic "religion as a whole or ... a doctrine" opposed to the teachings of the Catholic Church. An example of this latter would be the following vision of a lady from Alsace in the year 1927, from Archimandrite Lazarus Moore, Saint Seraphim of Sarov: A Spiritual Biography, p. 242-243: "'Suddenly I saw [St.] Francis [of Assisi] himself coming towards me, and with him a little old man like a patriarch, bent but radiant,' she said indicating thereby his old age and venerable appearance. He was all in white. She felt frightened, but they came quite near her and Francis said; 'My daughter, you seek the true Church. It is there, where he is. It supports everyone, and does not require support from anyone.' The white Elder remained silent and only smiled approvingly at the words of Francis. … When she visited his room to see whether he was comfortably settled, she saw there a small Icon and recognized in it the Elder whom she had seen, in her light sleep, with Francis. Astonished and alarmed she asked: 'Who is he, that little old man?''St. Seraphim, our Orthodox saint,' answered the workman. Then she understood the meaning of the words of St. Francis about the truth being in the Orthodox Church."
Thanks be to God Who, in His infinite mercy, spared your life!

Nectarios of Aegina (1846-1920) said the following [orthodox.net]; I think you can find these quotes in The Church Fathers on Love in Truth (Orthodox Kypseli Publications, 2000, trans. Constantine Zalalas):
(1) "Neither the Papist nor the Protestant church can be considered as the True Church of Christ. The first was altered by a number of innovations and the accursed despotism (Primacy) due to which resulted the schism from the Orthodox. … Only the Orthodox church maintained the teachings of Christ flawlessly without a single innovation. Only in the Orthodox church does unity exist."
(2) "Through the dogma of 'Infallibility' the Western church lost its spiritual freedom. It lost its beauty and balance, and was deprived of the wealth of the grace of the Holy Spirit, the presence of Christ--from spirit and soul ended up a dead body. We are truly grieved for the injustice done to the church and we pray from the bottom of our hearts that the Holy Spirit illumine the mind and the heart of the Most Blessed Pontiff to have him return to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church that which he took from her, something that should never have taken place."
(3) "All the more should this be happening now, when there is a discernible and lively interest on the part of the heterodox, particularly those of the West, in the Orthodox Church. But this gracious love which characterizes good zeal according to knowledge never forgets or overlooks the falsehood of heresy or who the heretics are, or, in this case, who the Pope of Rome is."

According to Catholic dogma, someone who dies without abjuring these errors and embracing Catholicism is damned. Otherwise, we have a branch theory of the Church (cf. A. H. Amadio in NCE II:582-583) entailing that it simply does not matter whether one is Catholic or Orthodox. If Nectarios worked such a miracle for you, then at the very least he must have been explicitly desiring to become Catholic when he died.
The blessings God grants outside of the Catholic Church (cf. Lumen Gentium §15 [vatican.va]) not only come from the Catholic Church [All Salvation Comes through Christ [vatican.va]], but lead people to the Catholic Church, which is why Unitatis Redintegratio §3 [vatican.va] says that the Holy Spirit uses the separated churches "as a means of salvation" to bring people into the unity of the Catholic Church outside of which one cannot be saved (cf. Dominus Iesus §16 [vatican.va]).
Presumably your relatives were devout Catholics when they reposed, and didn't spend their lives tirelessly attacking the dogmas of the Catholic Church like such men as ex-Catholic Alexis Toth (1854-1909) [ocafs.oca.org], ex-Catholic Gennadius II Scholarios (1400-1472) [newadvent.org], Mark of Ephesus (1392-1445), and Athanasius of Brest-Litovsk (1597-1648) [ocafs.oca.org].

I don't feel comfortable venerating someone who was notorious for his opposition to the Catholic Church unless the Magisterium has declared, upon prayerful and careful investigation, that it is morally certain that the person did not die before being formally received into the Catholic Church or explicitly desiring to enter the Catholic Church (cf. Fr. Joseph Schweigl, "Menologio graeco-slavico post annum 1054," Periodica de re morali, canonica, liturgica 3 (Rome 1941): 224, 228). I venerate St. Gregory Palamas because the Magisterium has done so in his case, and I came here to see if anyone knows what specifically led the Magisterium to this conclusion, in light of St. Gregory's well-known opposition to Filioque.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

It would seem that Raphael is not too excited about the work of the Catholic Orthodox Theological Consultation of North America. oh well....

Again one does not need to believe the Filoque to be Catholic. I reject it as outside my Churches theological and spiritual Tradition. My Church doesn't recite it in the Creed. Rome has said the only Ecumenically binding form of the Creed is the original Greek Creed. It is a Latin Theological opinion. I have never read where the Filoque is a "Dogma." If it was wouldn't the Eastern Catholic Churches have to say it during the Creed? Rome's silence is proof that it isn't dogma.

Again, Romes silence on venerating Orthodox saints in modern times is enough from me to Venerate Orthodox saints since the schism. Silence says more than high and mighty statements.

I think that nothing is ever going to satisfy you. And since this is a forum full of Eastern Catholics who do venerate Orthodox Saints whom hold contrary opinions on some papal claims that you seem to think is necessary for salvation no answer from us is going to be pleasing to you.

And there are Orthodox posters who read these posts that are saying they are not saved unless they are in union with the Catholic Church and I am sure they find that offensive. This is an Ecumenical Eastern Christian form and polemics like


have no room, especially during the Great fast, on it. There are plenty of other places for polemics like this.

I think this thread has ran its course and should be closed.

Dear Nelson,
I agree that this thread has run its course, and that's too bad. It seems that discussions on these topics get closed before more helpful answers get posted, because people who identify as Catholic get their feelings hurt when they are reminded that their Church teaches dogmatically (i.e., as divinely revealed) that (1) the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (see Denzinger 691 [catecheticsonline.com]; not reciting Filioque in the Creed and not believing it as divinely revealed are two different things); and that (2) someone who dies in the state of "the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of Baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith" and "the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him" is not saved. It's unfortunate that my efforts to reach out and correct self-identified Catholics who deny the teachings that the Catholic Church proposes as divinely revealed are perceived as an offensive, uncharitable polemical attack on Eastern Orthodox Christians, "our separated brethren" (Unitatis Redintegratio §3 [vatican.va]).

That, unfortunately, is why you are not far from the truth when you say:

May God grant you a firmer understanding and acceptance of the faith, peace of mind, and bodily health during this Great Lent.

God bless you and yours,
the sinful Will Raphael Huysman

Raphael,

With all due respect, you need to learn something about the Catholic Faith before you go around condemning others.

You have violated the user agreement, which said that Roman Catholics are not welcome to come here to demand we prove to you our faithfulness to Catholicism. We in the Christian East simply do not use your measuring stick, nor are we interested in hearing you tell us about it. You have come into our living room, and demanded we rearrange the furniture and re-paint the walls to suit your understanding of theology (which is considerably different that that of the Catholic Church). That is wrong.

Proof-texting without understanding is not a good thing, and no matter how hard you try or how well-intentioned you are, you are not the judge of who is Catholic or not, or who is in heaven or not.

John, Admin