Originally Posted by Apotheoun
Originally Posted by Tomassus
Cardinal Kurt Koch on the Dialogue Between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches

10 June 2013
http://risu.org.ua/en/index/all_news/confessional/interchurch_relations/52587/

. . .

Cardinal Koch explained that "from the Orthodox point of view, the church is present in every local church that celebrates the Eucharist, so each Eucharistic community is a complete church. Instead, from the Catholic point of view, a separate Eucharistic community is not a complete church. Therefore, a basis of the Catholic Church is the unity of separate Eucharistic communities with each other and the bishop of Rome. That is, the Catholic Church lives in the mutual intersection of local churches in one universal church.”

. . .
This is the part of the text that I find truly problematic, because it reveals two very different views of the nature of the Church. The Orthodox hold to a patristic viewpoint, while the Roman Church continues to support the late medieval scholastic viewpoint.

The Eucharistic and Trinitarian ecclesiology of the Church Fathers is incompatible with the Roman universalist ecclesiology advocated by the Cardinal in his talk.

My point exactly and a point which resonates beyond the snippets posted by RISU from the entire address. Even with the totality if his speech, that distinction seems to negate much of the prior emphasis in Rome's recent talks with the Orthodox. We shall see, keep tuned.