www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology When one of the other side's saints has left the church

Re: Fr. Alexis Toth

I wrote:

Publicly venerating someone who, though under duress (in a big way he was a victim), left the church, knowingly and defending it in principle, or promoting private veneration of him, crosses the line.

JBenedict wrote:

Between sympathy for his victimhood and promoting schism.

I thought of that but this wasn't a parishioner who didn't understand the niceties of theology, a good-hearted immigrant just trying to protect his neighborhood's place to pray. Fr. Alexis was a seminary professor. He knew what he was doing and spent the rest of his life promoting schism consciously.

Understood. I'm not saying it's impossible for Fr. Alexis to be in heaven. An excommunication is not "a ticket to hell, no exceptions," contrary to popular belief. It's meant to persuade the person to come back. Canonization is another matter. The church canonizes people who are good examples. So going into schism disqualifies you.

As I like to say, born Orthodox get the benefit of the doubt, and a selling point of being Catholic for me is we include them; they don't include us. So I'm all for St. Pius X's nec plus, nec minus, nec aliter (as I am of the old latinized form of the rite our people adopted on their own: Catholicism means you don't have to hate one or the other) as understood at the time, according to Fr. Cyril Korolevsky (né Jean François Charon) translated by our own late Fr. Serge (Keleher): "saints" who actively worked against the church forfeit that benefit. So Mark of Ephesus is right out in my estimation.

Administrator wrote:

And of course that's great. Like I said, never-Catholic Orthodox get the benefit of the doubt: estranged Catholics.

There's an authentic Catholic version of that - the Orthodox give up schism and we bend over backwards to respect their traditions, making sure that what happened to Fr. Alexis and Fr. Orestes Chornock (and DMD's grandpas and dad) never happens again. You bet this reconciliation is a two-way street!

The trouble is too often here the prevailing view seems to be "Vatican II says Catholicism doesn't claim we're the true church anymore so Fr. Alexis et al. were fine leaving." Tous schismatiques = NO church! Balamand is referred to as though it were doctrine. "Mad at the Catholics? 'Dox! Both are the true church." The new Greek Catholic who loves the unlatinized form of the rite and is frustrated by Ruthenian or Ukrainian Catholic parish life (not where you want to be if you want unlatinized?) is given an "out" that 1) goes against our teachings and 2) is not fair to the Orthodox, trivializing their true-church claim. But very often the person in this mindset is anti-Western anyway so he buys the Orthodox line. Still, I'm convinced forums like this are partly responsible for nudging such people out of the church.

Greek Catholic laity who preach dissent from the magisterium online - siding with Orthodox opinion yet not officially leaving the church - are arrogating to themselves the responsibility of priests. The church is not a micromanaging cult - we don't harass laity with wrong opinions. But when you take on the responsibility of a priest, with the Web as your podium or pulpit, before a worldwide audience, if you dissent, then you deserve the consequences, like a priest or theologian. Such laity deserve to have their bishop or maybe just their parish priest say, "Until you stop, I can't give you Communion."

That's all I'm trying to say, brother.

Good topic.

Church relations grow and develop over time. An example (an extremely advanced one) that I like to look to for perspective is the agreement between the AOC and the Syriac Orthodox Church, according to which (among other things) no one who schisms from other of those two churches can join the other.

(To Stuart, if you're reading this: Yes, I know how much you hate the aforementioned agreement.)

But anyhow, with respect to Catholics venerating St Alexis who discontinued communion with Rome (aka left the Roman Communion) that is certainly ... Unusual.

They do. The growing "bromance" between the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox may be an example. The EOs persecuted the OOs, yet the OOs seem to be coming into the EOs. Easy for them since their church cultures are nearly identical: both Eastern. We share a body of faith with the Orthodox: Trinity, hypostatic union, Mother of God, bishops, images (allowed but optional - requiring them is a cultural thing), and the Mass/Real Presence. The real difference is we include Western culture.

We include them. They don't include us.

Mr. Koehl should have been excommunicated years ago. Intellectually, he's not Catholic and he preaches online.

As Professor Kirk said, that's more than I know.