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

Well said!

It is also important to note that the canonical privileges given to the bishop of Rome by his brother bishops assembled in council are not a divinely revealed dogma, but are of human institution for the good ordering and maintenance of communion among the local Churches.

I do not see Vatican I as an ecumenical council, because the entire Catholic Church was not represented. After all the Orthodox were not present, and they are Catholic.

Then how can we claim councils which have no Oriental Orthodox representation as ecumenical?

I'm interested to hear more voices from the Oriental churches point of view regarding ecclesiology. How it is different from Eastern Orthodox point of view.

That way we can have a balanced information regarding what patrimony of the east, since east does not mean only Byzantine.

Well, there are only three Councils that did not--though the Orientals only accept the first three, and the Assyrians just the first two. However, both the Orientals and the Assyrians accept the substance of the Seven Councils, even without formally ratifying them, through the various Joint Agreed Christological Statements. It is fortunate that, through the passing of time, we have been able to transcend the ancient polemics and the secular issues that were behind many of these disputes, to realize all sides were in fundamental agreement on the nature of the God-man Jesus Christ, and that the differences were principally terminological and cultural.

The attempt to impose a single, unitary Christological formula, rather than respecting the legitimate differences of doctrinal expression within the Churches, ironically resulted in a lasting division of the Churches, for no good reason, and with lasting harm to the Body of Christ.

I think the reality is the problems we face have little to do with unity and authority, and if the bishops themselves sort something out, I really don't think much will change on the ground. I am not even talking beyond the Orthodox world.

The reality behind this reality is the Orthodox world for just about everybody is their parish, and their problems and concerns are local. That is where the focus is and should be.

A great bumper sticker on the car of a politically activist friend once said, 'think globally, but ACT locally.'

True only in the United States and other places where the Orthodox are a small minority of Christians. In Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East, where the Orthodox are more prominent, the sense of a larger Church has not vanished.

But even in the so-called "diaspora", a more ecumenical perspective is growing as all Christians, regardless of confession, find themselves under assault from an aggressively secular culture.

I can go in to any Orthodox church in the world and feel at home. We believe the same things. That is not the issue.

The problems we face are the same here as they are for instance in Russia, as highlighted by Metropolitan Hilarion. If the bishops want to focus on authority and jurisdiction, they can; but the problems we face are not structural. It's deck chair re-arrangement.

Go back and read what i said; i was talking about sects. Before Nicaea there was no united church only squabbling sects or, if you will, different flavors of Christianity. I was anachronistic and names those three modern.. different flavors of Christianity to make the point.

GC, go check your pms. I sent you some reference material on St Mark.

I would have to disagree with that. There were, to be sure, many local Churches, but already most of these looked to one of three Great Churches as their Mother Church--Rome, Alexandria and Antioch. Alexandria and Antioch were also centers of biblical exegesis and theological speculation, and each developed its own unique way of interpreting Scripture and formulating doctrine.

But there was no great division within Christianity indeed, the third and the first quarter of the fourth centuries were probably the era when one could speak of a unified Christian Church that ran from Britain to Mesopotamia--precisely, I believe, because there was no overarching concept of a universal Church in an organizational sense, and also because doctrinal formulations were vague and ambiguous (perhaps deliberately so). With the collapse and marginalization of the gnostic sects, one can truly speak of an "orthodox" Christianity.

Indeed, the divisions that did exist were not focused on theological issues at all, but on the problem of reintegration of the lapsed who fell away from the Church during the persecutions, and whether such people could ever be forgiven. The emergence of Arianism, therefore, was something of a departure from the past, and became a major issue for two reasons only: the extremely forceful personality of Arius (not to mention his great rival, Athanasius), and the intervention of the Emperor Constantine, who (for reasons of his own) desired harmony within the Church upon which he sought to base the stability of his empire.

This does mark a turning point, for previously the issue of Arianism would have been resolved within the Church, rather than by the intervention of the Imperial government. And from then on (as Meyendorff demonstrates in Imperial Unity), the Empire had a vested interest in creating and promoting a uniformity of doctrinal expression: just as there could be only one law within the Roman Empire, so there could be just one theology.

But, as I noted, this effort was doomed to failure because theology is at all like law, and each culture will develop its own way of expressing the truth revealed to us about God and the divine plan of salvation. This is why attempts to "define" truth are inherently divisive, if by "definition" we mean a specific set of words that attempt to capture and circumscribe mysteries that are beyond human comprehension.

Very well said StuartK

Sounds like a loose confederation of local churches with no central control is the realistic basis of unity.

No, a communion of local Churches united in faith, recognizing the moral leadership of certain other Churches, is the realistic basis of unity.

A single priest in a single parish can sometimes exhibit more moral leadership than a room full of bishops, so I don't buy in to the idea that certain churches/bishoprics/sees are themselves moral leaders over any others. Certainly no single patriarchate fills that bill.

But yes, local churches. That is really the focus. The conversation about jurisdiction and authority can go on forever; but it will do nothing for the individuals in the church who find their problems and lives are not addressed or affected by the church, so they just leave. That is reality.