www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Should unity realistically return to first millenium standard?

I usually refrain from making quick cracks, but this one - I just can't pass it by without comment.

We 'Easterners' had and still possess a "more Catholic ecclesiology" - it did not need to 'emerge' from the collapse of the Western Empire. But all that being said, reaching a common understanding of these things is crucial to any future union of the Great Apostolic Churches and I think that thinkers like Dvornik have helped pave that path.

I would comment, but tea was coming out of my nose after I read it.

Perhaps I should have been clearer. I meant that a more Catholic ecclesiology may have emerged in the west as well as in the east. My prayer is that a more Catholic ecclesiology will emerge once unity is restored. I think the current division prevents that from happening, in both east and west. We need each other, and I think that is the point of Fr Dvornik's work. The model that is contained in the correspondence of St Gregory and St Augustine of Canterbury is a splendid example of how it can all work once again. On this last day of the Octave - "May all be one!" Amen

I find your unkindness is only exceeded by your arrogance.

Is it possible to post some of the correspondence between the two saints? I am interested in what they have to say.

I agree that a full Catholic/Orthodox ecclesiological understanding will only become a reality once the divided Churches come together in unity. I think the Eastern Catholic Churches can play apart by getting the ball rolling on this new understanding by witnessing and working with our Latin brothers and sisters living out the Orthodox faith while maintaining our communion with Rome.

I like this little gem from Letter LXIV, To Augustine, Bishop of the Angli

"Thy Fraternity knows the use of the Roman Church, in which thou hast been nurtured.
But I approve of thy selecting carefully anything thou hast found that may be more pleasing
to Almighty God, whether in the Roman Church or that of Gaul, or in any Church
whatever, and introducing in the Church of Angli, which is as yet new in the faith, by a
special institution, what thou hast been able to collect from many Churches. For we ought
not love things for places, but places for things. Therefore choose from each several Church
such things as are pious, religious, and right, and, collecting them as it were into a bundle,
plant them in the minds of the Angli for their use."

This is a very unhelpful post.

I do not find either you or Stuart to be arrogant or unkind.

You have a right to your opinion, but I do not share it. The Eastern understanding of petrine primacy, which is perpetuated in the episcopate as a whole, is an ancient patristic viewpoint - as Fr. Meyendorff pointed out in his article in the book I gave a link to earlier in this thread - and as such it must form the foundation of any truly patristic ecclesiology.

That may very well be the Eastern point of view, and I am not arguing whether it is or isn't. However, there is a valid western point of view that finds support and has its roots deep within an ancient patristic tradition also. The ecumenical task is to find a synthesis of those two, not to champion one and say, "You're wrong!"

If you read the article by Fr. Meyendorff you will see that the Eastern Fathers take the Western concern for Roman primacy into account, but in doing so they never accept the proposition that Rome possesses a unique petrine ministry distinct from that received by all the bishops through the mystery of holy orders.

In Imperial Unity, Meyendorff documents the extent to which the various metropolitan provinces of the Western Church also resisted attempts by Rome to circumscribe their autonomy. In the end, they were inextricably drawn into Rome's orbit by the collapse of late Roman society in Gaul, Spain and Britain, and the destruction of the Great Church of Africa, the Church of Cyprian and Augustine, first at the hands of the Arian Vandals, then after a short restoration under Justinian and his successors, then by the Muslims. As I said, had these Churches managed to remain autonomous for just a century or so longer, there would have been more than one patriarchal Church in the West, and the position of Rome would be fundamentally different.

I agree wholeheartedly.

That kind of evidence wouldn't hold up in court as it is pure conjecture based on your own suppositions.

That kind of evidence wouldn't hold up in court as it is pure conjecture based on your own suppositions.

1. We're not in court
2. I'm not a lawyer, I'm an historian
3. The historical evidence supports my conjecture.

Except that you really can't find it, you have to argue backwards from the present day understanding of the Petrine Primacy in order to avoid the awkward conclusion that the Papacy of the second millennium is a very different thing than that of the first.