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

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.

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

. . . This is true on both sides, but it is much more true on the Latin side, for it is demonstrably the Latin Church that changed and innovated more extensively over the last 1000 years.

No, the word is developed, not "innovated", which has a negative connotation.

while those of the Orthodox, by virtue of their weaker position, have had little effect on the Latin Church.

No, the word is developed, not "innovated", which has a negative connotation.
Cardinal Ratzinger affirmed both the East and the West were legitimate in both the developments and form they always had.

I agree wholeheartedly.

Where exactly in my post did I say that Cardinal Ratzinger asserted that the changes in the West were illegitimate? I don't believe I said that at all; instead, I merely posted a quotation from his book that touched on ecclesiology.

A kind of ecumenical dogma seems to be developing here which needs some attention. Quite likely it began with this train of thought: for intercommunion with the Orthodox, the Catholic Church need not necessarily insist on acceptance of the dogmas of the second millennium. It was presumed that the Eastern Churches have retained the traditional form of the first millennium, which in itself is legitimate and, if rightly understood, contains no contradiction to further developments. The latter after all only unfolded what was already there in principle in the time of the undivided Church. I myself have already taken part in attempts to work out things like this (citation of the "Ratzinger solution"), but meanwhile they have grown out of hand to the point at which councils and the dogmatic decisions of the second millennium are supposed not to be regarded as ecumenical but as particular developments in the Latin Church, constituting its private property in the sense of "our two traditions". But this distorts the first attempt to think things out into a completely new thesis with far-reaching consequences. For this way of looking at it actually implies a denial of the existence of the Universal Church in the second millennium, while tradition as a living, truth-giving power is frozen at the end of the first. This strikes at the very heart of the idea of Church and tradition, because ultimately such an age test dissolves the full authority of the Church, which is then left without a voice at the present day. Moreover, one might well ask, in reply to such an assertion, with what right people's consciences, in such a particular Church as the Latin Church would then be, could be bound by such pronouncements. What once appeared as truth would have to be characterized as mere custom. The claim to truth that had hitherto been upheld would thus be disqualified as an abuse.
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Unity is a fundamental hermeneutic principle of all theology, and hence we must learn to read the documental that have been handed down to us according to the hermeneutics of unity, which gives us a fresh view of many things and opens doors where only bolts were visible before. Such a hermeneutics of unity will entail reading the statements of both parties in the context of the whole tradition and with a deeper understanding of the Bible. This will include investigating how far decisions since the separation have been stamped with a certain particularization of both language and thought--something that might well be transcended without doing violence to the content of the statements. For hermeneutics is not a skillful device for escaping from burdensome authorities by a change of verbal function (though this abuse has often occurred), but rather apprehending the word with an understanding that at the same time discovers in it new possibilities.

Ecumenical dialogue does not mean to opt out of the living, Christian reality, but rather it means advancing by means of the hermeneutics of unity. To opt out and cut oneself off means artificial withdrawal into a past beyond recall; it means reducing tradition to the past. But that is to transfer ecumenism into an artificial world while one goes on practicing particularization by fencing off one's own thing. Since this preserve is regarded as immune from dialogue but is still clung to, it is lowered from the realm of truth into the sphere of mere custom. Finally, the question arises of whether it is a matter of truth at all or just a question of comparing different customs and finding a way of reconciling them. In any case, the axiom that introducing dogmatic definitions made since the separation should be regarded as "not in keeping with dialogue" would mean a flight into the artificial, which should be firmly resisted.

Joseph Ratzinger, "Problems and Prospects of the Anglican-Catholic Dialogue," Church, Ecumenism and Politics, pp. 83-84, 84-85.

For this way of looking at it actually implies a denial of the existence of the Universal Church in the second millennium, while tradition as a living, truth-giving power is frozen at the end of the first. This strikes at the very heart of the idea of Church and tradition, because ultimately such an age test dissolves the full authority of the Church, which is then left without a voice at the present day

So, in general, we all would agree with Ratzinger.

. . . there is a terrible flaw in the good Cardinal's position . . . Earlier [in his book] he had indicated that the maximalist positions of both sides should - at least in some sense - be mitigated, and this of course is a good thing. But then he strangely fails to recognize that his own proposal, which would require that the East accept the doctrinal innovations of the West made during the second millennium is in fact a "maximalist" position, that is, it involves the utter capitulation of the East to the West; while all that is required of the West is that she accept the East in the form that the Eastern Churches have always had. This does not seem to be a balanced proposal; instead, it is a proposal that requires that the East accept the Western concept of "doctrinal development," and everything that follows from that theory.