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reply: If I have insulted you personally, I am sorry. I tried to only speak to your manner of posting which I find to be rather sarcastic, rude and arrogant in its tone and claims. I would never want to insult anyone, especially a woman. In the future I will try harder not to show how your posts sound to me, since you think by doing this I am attempting to personally insult you. Sorry.

reply: This has already been demonstrated in this thread. You must have missed it. I'm sorry you did. Please read the article by Elias Zoghby which demonstrates historically Eastern Christians helds this view (several centuries before Justinian). You have not commented on this Patristic testimony. Btw, If the "Orthodox view is wrong" then so must be the Pope of Rome, H.H. John Paul II. Because he who said that he "listens to the East" also said that the East was an "authentic interpreter of the Tradition entrusted to them" (cf. Orientale Lumen).

reply: First of all what you speak of as being "Catholic and universal" many Eastern Catholics see to be "Latin" and "Western." Sure, we adhere to the same universal faith that East and West have always adhered too. Unfortunately, this is not of what you speak. Rather you seem to want us to hold to every Latin developement and theological position, or else we are not "Catholic." Many, if not most, Eastern Catholics would find this is unnacceptable. As far our being "satellites" of Orthodoxy within the Cathoilc Church, I kind of like that idea. It certainly flys in the face of what many Latins want us to be, i.e. satellites of Rome to the Orthodox.

reply: Perfect. This is exactly what Latins see us as: Roman Catholics who just have different "liturgical/devotional/cultural expressions." Most Latins couldn't care less that most Eastern Catholics find such an discription to be abhorrent. We certainly do not define ourselves this way. All this time you've been on this forum, I would really think that you would know this by now. That is, if you are really serious about respecting our Churches and heritage.

reply: The argument "from authority" is certainly the least persuasive. Usually people resort to this when their position is very weak. Besides, if you had read the article by Archbishop Zoghby you would've realised that he affirmed the indissolubility of marriage. But, I guess you aren't going to read. I don't even know why am I discussing this with you???

reply: Let me help you a little here. Forget Zoghby's views, just look at the historical data which is presented in his document. This has nothing to do with Archbishop Elias. So, please, don't get hung up on him.

reply: See how rude you are? And you wonder why you get insulted? After this, I'm done with you. All the data is there. You're not interested in even looking at it. You just want to continue riding on your Latin high-horse with your sarcastic statements. Oops. There I go again. Sorry. I need to bow out here. Btw, apparently you missed the fact that I am an Armenian Christian. Our Church does not defer to either of the Orthodox Sees you mention. Therefore, your insult is apparently misguided.

reply: We gave you one for one reason. And I gave you Fathers which corroborated our HISTORIC position. That's all that's necessary here.


reply: Nor will I because you are twisting my original point which was merely a suggestion not an argument. Nor have you commented on the clear patristic witness that directly contradicts your "Catholic" (read "Latin") position.

p.s. I find it interesting that you seem to have trouble calling me by one name. First I saw "Wm. Ghazar" now I see "Dr. Ghazar." What is your point here. I hope this last attempt to address me is not another manifestation of your sarcasm. If so, your "blessings" at the end of your posts are rather meaningless. From this point on, continue with the others. I'm sorry but you epitomize the Latin arrogance which helped bring about the schisms in the Church. I could assure you that if the Popes and the Latin Church's hierarchy still acted as arrogantly as you post, I would not be in communion with ANY OF THEM. Thanks God, this is not the case today.

Good grief. I meant no disrespect by calling yiou Dr. Ghazar. I thought that was your title...? I assumed you had a PhD or MD?

You are right...if this sort of misunderstanding is arising, then further discussion is pointless.

My apologies for having offended you.

I hope to continue this discussion with people who do not react to every counter-argument with the charge of "Latin arrogance."

ZT

More and more often we Eastern Catholics find ourselves caught between Latin and Orthodox arguments.I just want to learn more about MY eastern faith.

Dear Ghazar,

In keeping with my penchant for always staying on topic, I understand the Armenian Church divides the Psalter into eight sections.

Could you share this division with me?

Alex

Sorry - wildly off topic - Alex please e-mail or PM me !!

my apologies to all for this

Anhelyna

Dear Zoe,

How are you today? Are you ready for a comment from me?

Yes? O.K., here we go . . .

The Christian East did indeed allow for marital separations, annulments or whatever one would wish to call them when it was still in full communion with the West - and also allowed for remarriages in those cases.

Surely this is common knowledge? I've attended lectures on this topic given by RC theology profs here at the University of Toronto and this was mentioned matter-of-factly.

Rome never issued warnings to the East for this, nor did it threaten Eastern Patriarchs and Bishops with excommunication.

The West also had its ways of ending marriages, one of the more famous ones was, of course, having a spouse sent to a monastic community and tonsured there.

"Get thee to a nunnery" essentially was a way a Catholic man in the West got rid of a wife he no longer wished to have around, since monastic tonsure annulled all previous contracts etc. including marriages.

The Church could and did grant annulments which stated that the marriage never really existed in the first place.

I still don't see how any Latin Catholic here has answered my earlier question/charge about the annulment farce in North America.

Really traditional Latins condemn them as wrong, promoted by liberal laity, Bishops etc.

Others work around them by saying people don't take marriage seriously and so this results in grounds that can later lead to a valid annulment.

So Latins can have sex in marriage and later get an annulment on psychological and other grounds suggesting that they didn't take marriage seriously . . .

Also, your comment on Moscow is REALLY out of line.

Do you know about what happened to the Eastern Catholic Church in Eastern Europe in 1946?

Hmmmm?

I"ll compare our martyrs for the Catholic faith and the Papacy under communism with yours anyday.

It was the Roman Catholic Church, may I add, in the era of "ostpolitik" that kow-towed to the atheistic communist state of the USSR, my dear, keeping quite mum about the Eastern Catholics.

Thanks to John Paul II, that attitude was reversed. But he knew about what life under communism was like, unlike Western Catholic ecumenists.

Ultimately, I think you and other Latin traditionalists are barking up the wrong tree here.

For all its moral pronouncements against divorce and remarriage, the RC Church, in North America especially, is granting what can really only be called "church divorces" under the guise of "annulments." And then allowing remarriages.

It's a divorce by another name.

I have many RC acquaintances who have received Catholic divorces, oops, I mean "annulments" and are remarried.

I know the particulars of their annulments and while it isn't any of my business, I think the RC Church has truly compromised itself in this area of moral theology and praxis.

Again, what we have is the RC Church officially saying one thing on the one hand and then officially doing something else on the other.

Call me "naive" about the liberals infesting your Church or whatever.

If a Church doesn't practice what it preaches, there is a problem, don't you think?

So before anyone here comes after the Eastern Churches or Constantinople or what-not about their practices in this regard, take a good, long look in your own Latin backyard.

The RC Church of today is not only doing what the East has done - one could say it is going well beyond what the East has allowed in terms of annulment/ecclesial divorce and remarriage.

I can here foot-stamping already . . .

Alex

As a Coptic Orthodox, I am in the middle of it all.

1) As with the rest of Orthodoxy, we do believe that adultery can dissolve a marriage because one spouse has sought to join him/herself with another. However, the original marriage bond is not broken. If the offending party returns to the innocent spouse, no new marriage is necessary since it still and ALWAYS exists. However, I have recently been exposed to an argument put forth by Western Catholic apologists in response to Protestant apologetics on the issue of Matthew 5:31-32 which might change my mind. I will discuss this below, and I hope to get some input on it since it has not yet previously been discussed.

2) As with all of Christendom echoing God Almighty's injunction, we hate divorce.

3) As with Catholicism, we believe in the "Pauline privilege."

4) As with Western Catholicism, we do not believe that abuse, future disinterest, illness, etc. are sufficient grounds for any divorce.

5) As with Catholicism, we believe in the legitimate soundness of the principle of "nullity." I do not agree with some Easterns here that the nullification of marriage is nothing more than a dressed up ecclesiastical divorce. The very theological principle behind nullity is different from ecclesiastical divorce. Ecclesiastical divorce is based on the principle that God has granted the keys to His Church, and by divine economy, the Church has the right to grant such divorces (one has said that the Eastern Church only "recognizes" divorces, but this is incompatible with an appeal to the power to bind and loose). In distinction, a declaration of nullity is based on the principle that marriage binds a man and woman by the indissoluble power of the Holy Spirit. If a marriage is invalid, it can only mean that a marriage never existed - that the Holy Spirit was not active in the marriage.

This is a difference between the Eastern Orthodox concept of marriage, the Coptic Orthodox concept of marriage, and Western Catholic concept of marriage. In our view, the priest (by calling on the Holy Spirit to seal the union as minister of God) AS WELL AS THE COUPLE (by virtue of their sacramental love) share an EQUAL responsibility in the validity of the marriage. In distinction, Eastern Orthodoxy seems to say that the priest has the PRIMARY if not SOLE hegemony in determining the validity of the marriage (by calling on the Holy Spirit to seal the union as minister of God). In Western Catholicism, the couple have the PRIMARY role in validating the marriage, with the priest having only a secondary role as witness of the Church. Thus, the principle of "nullity" is completely in line with Coptic Orthodox spirituality.

Now, I want to present what I have heard from Western Catholic apologists regarding the Matthean passages, and I would appreciate a thoughtful response (not like the name throwing between Easterns and Westerns that has been going on):

It has been proposed that since Matthew was written orginally in Hebrew, we must look at the passages in question from a Hebrew perspective. In the Jewish tradition, the marriage of two spouses begins NOT at the marriage ceremony, but DURING THE BETROTHAL. The marriage ceremony is only a ritual formality (though its importance should not be dismissed). Take for instance, the OT injunction that a fornicator is bound by God's laws to take the unmarried woman as a wife. Becoming the "wife" is the ceremonial aspect of the marriage. The two had ALREADY been joined by divine law by virtue of the sexual union.

Now, Western Catholic apologists have suggested that given this Jewish background, Matthew speaks of "porneia" not in the context of marriage as the West or the modern world understands it. Rather, the porneia had to occur during the BETROTHAL stage. Being unfaithful to the betrothal is just as much an instance of "porneia" as being unfaithful after the actual pronouncement of the words "man and wife."

On its own, this might seem to be nothing more than another interpretation. However, this is where the actual scriptural context comes into play. Western Catholic apologists immediately point to the following verse (v.32) to solidify, if not actually determine, the true meaning of this passage. Verse 32 uses the word "adultery." W.Cath. apologists have (ingeniously, IMHO) pointed out that verse 31 uses a different word - that is, "fornication." If the holy writers of Sacred Scripture intended verse 31 as unfaithfulness IN MARRIAGE, then they would have use the word "adultery." But they did not. This means that in verse 31, the state of marriage was not intended, but only the state of betrothal. In the state of betrothal, unfaithfulness can still occur, and in this instance, the "wife" can be "put away." In fact, THIS IS THE EXACT SAME SITUATION IN WHICH MARY AND JOSEPH FOUND THEMSELVES. Joseph thought that Mary in their betrothed state was unfaithful to him, and he deemed it necessary to "put her away quietly."

It is also highly important to note that in verse 32, one who divorces a divorced woman COMMITS ADULTERY. Now, if verse 31 is intended to mean that the MARRIAGE has been dissolved by virtue of infidelity, why is it that in verse 32, a person who marries a "divorced" woman COMMITS ADULTERY? One can only commit adultery if the woman that was "divorced" was STILL MARRIED IN GOD'S EYES.

There is something else that needs to be considered. There is no word that differentiates "woman" from "wife" in Hebrew or Greek. I think it is simply an unfortunate misunderstanding that verse 31 uses the word "wife." That denotes a married state. In fact, given the entire context of the two passages, the word for "wife" could, and SHOULD, be interpreted to mean only "woman" - as in a woman betrothed.

This cannot be looked at as a disparagement of the Eastern Fathers who interpreted Matthew 5:31 as a state of marriage. The Fathers were not inspired, nor are the Fathers individually infallible. We must give heed to the Scriptures where there is a disagreement among the Fathers. Can we agree on this principle?

I think it was the Catholic Council of Trent who proposed that the only things that can be accorded infallibility from the Fathers are in those instances where there is a clear unanimity of belief regarding an interpretation of Scripture. Perhaps we can all learn from that exhortation. Let us not say, "the East is right, and the West is wrong," or "the West is wrong, and the East is right." Rather, we should give heed, where there is disagreement, to the Scriptures.

Unless someone here can show me a kink in what I have read from Western Catholic apologists, I can only submit to the wisdom of Scripture and adhere to the Western Catholic understanding of this issue.

Blessings,
Marduk

Dear Marduk,

The teaching of the Fathers is indeed inspired and does not contradict Scripture - just as the teaching of the Councils is inspired, as are the Canons and Dogmatic definitions and Creeds.

And we can agree that divorce is something that is condemned by all.

The betrothal part of the marriage tradition of Judaism was really, in every way, as valid a union as was the marriage itself.

Joseph's betrothal to the Most Holy Mother of God was already a union that bound him to look after her.

In my Church we used to have the ceremony of Betrothal (which is now part of the wider Mystery of Crowning) and it was done in church and certainly does imply that a union has been achieved, although it does not mean that sexual relations may be had as a result.

The point is that our Lord Himself appears to have made allowance for separation on the grounds of adultery (we're not talking about remarriage, just separation).

And the fact is that the Church is also charged with the responsibility to "bind and loose" also implies that our Lord has left such in the hands of the Church.

The Western Church does indeed declare "annulments" of marriages on the basis of facts presented to local bishops and their tribunals.

And the Western Church does indeed use its ecclesial authority in these matters on the basis of what is presented before it, psychological evidence and the like to determine if a marriage ever took place in the first instance.

So the Western Church does not limit its judgements in the thousands of "annulments" that it grants yearly in North America to the words of Christ or those of the Fathers.

If it did, I don't think we'd see that many annulments . . .

Alex

Dear Alex:

I have no time now to comment fully on your response. But two things come to mind:

(1) I am NOT a "Latin Traditionalist." I am simply a middle-of-the-road Catholic layperson who attends a Novus Ordo Mass, obeys the Magisterium, and would be very interested in the Byzantine Rite were I not so thoroughly turned off by the sneering anti-Latinism rampant on this board.

(2) The current annulment situation in America is a scandal and an abuse; it's certainly not normative. You're perfectly correct--those tribunals that abuse the annulment process are not heeding Christ or the Fathers. But this is an abuse, Alex. We shouldn't draw therefrom the conclusion that it's OK not to heed Christ or the Fathers! Rather, we should clean up our act re annulments, because someday we'll be before the Judgment Seat of Christ, and He'll want to know why we didn't heed His clear command. This applies as much to us Catholics as to the Orthodox. (However, I would still note that -- given authoritative Catholic teaching on the indissolubility of marriage -- even with all the abuses in praxis, there are still far, far, far fewer annulments than there are divorces.)

(2) I am well aware, as I've already noted, of pre-Schism Eastern tolerance for divorce/remarriage. But as I also already noted, this was basically introduced by the secular authority (the emperors), not by Early Church Fathers. It was only later--c. 10th century and onward--that Eastern patriarchs started jumping on the bandwagon. And IIRC, this unfortunate development was the sad result of caesaropapism. As LatinTrad has pointed out, we are not making this up! There are reputable historians aplenty who'll bear out these claims.

Alex, please give me a break here. Look at Our Lord's words. I don't care whether one is Eastern, Western, or whatever: There is no way that Our Lord's words can be twisted into such a pretzel as to be made to mean: "Go ahead and get divorced/remarried up to three times for up to 20 reasons--as long as you're penitential about it."

As I said earlier (perhaps too bluntly, but I don't know how else to say it, frankly), this isn't a matter of East versus West. This is a matter of Christ's own words versus sophistry and casuistry.

You don't have to be a "Latin Traditionalist" to see this. IMHO, it's a matter of common sense.

Blessings,

ZT

Dear Zoe,

I'm sorry if I sound hard on you or Latins in general.

It just seems to me that some of our Latin posters are ganging up on the East, on Orthodoxy etc.

I agree with you and don't dispute our Lord's words.

But I'm trying to give the East a fair shake here in light of the practice of Western annulments.

Thousands of annulments are granted to Western Catholics officially by the West in North America - I don't know about other continents.

The numbers of annulments have skyrocketed.

I, for one, and perhaps I'm naive, you tell me, seem to have a problem with seeing such "annulments" as anything other than church-sanctioned divorce.

It is "divorce" by another name.

And I daresay the Orthodox Church isn't as quick to dissolve marriages as the RC Church seems to be these days.

Far from it.

There are Our Lord's words and those of the Fathers on this matter on the one hand, and then what the Church does on the other.

If you can help me see the consistency between the two, I'll be much in debt to you!

(If you think I'm being harsh, just tell me off. My wife does it to me all the time.)

Alex

I'm sorry to be blunt but one's love and interest in the Byzantine Church should not be subject to postings on an Internet Forum which tends to attract some of the more extreme opinions. :rolleyes:

Dear Brian,

Yes, I can't believe the extreme Anti-Latinism that sometimes rears its ugly head . . .

(why is my nose suddenly growing?)

Alex

Dear Friends,

Please accept my apologies when and if I, in any way, expressed "Anti-Latinism" in anything I posted here.

I should have known better than to want to defend the Orthodox Church (Alex, stop that!).

No, really, I should have been more circumspect.

I didn't like some overtly anti-Orthodox statements made here by those who are, shall we say, not Orthodox.

And if I expressed anger at those statements, and there are those who believe I was wrong in doing so, I refer you to Aquinas who believed it was a virtue to be angry in a just cause.

And to defend Orthodoxy from incomplete and therefore false slander here is, I believe, a just cause.

The positive side is that ecumenism is really sizzling when a Catholic can go to the mat for his Orthodox brothers and sisters, no?

Er, you know what I mean - I hope.

Alex

ZT,

You state:
"(2) I am well aware, as I've already noted, of pre-Schism Eastern tolerance for divorce/remarriage. But as I also already noted, this was basically introduced by the secular authority (the emperors), not by Early Church Fathers. It was only later--c. 10th century and onward--that Eastern patriarchs started jumping on the bandwagon. And IIRC, this unfortunate development was the sad result of caesaropapism. As LatinTrad has pointed out, we are not making this up! There are reputable historians aplenty who'll bear out these claims."

You bring this claim out again and again yet it is a false statement, although it is bandied about a lot by Latin apologists. Archbishop Elias illustrates this and you choose to ignore it. Any cursory reading of the Eastern Fathers and the Canons of the Eastern Churches of their era show this. That Latin apologists take differing statements out of context and recaste them to suit their claims does not mean a thing.

I will say this, like William, I approached this issue with a bias for the Latin understanding. The Orthodox through seperation from Rome has allowed an error to enter, I thought. But then instead of listening to Latin apologetics, I researched the issue for myself and was forced to recognize that the East had always taught this, therefore I am obliged to defend it. And now that I am preparing for ordination I am forced to look at the pastoral application of the Latin and Eastern systems and am again obliged to recognize the pastoral superiority of the Eastern with in the Eastern theology of marriage.

You see, as Marduk points out, there is no possibilty of a declaration of nullity in the Byzatnine Church, or at least there should not be if we are being consistent. If the priest blesses the marriage it is a valid marriage period. No going back and trying to figure out mental states and ability to consent. Our sacramental theology demands a different approach.

I agree that Our Lord disallowed divorce. But he also gave the Church the power to bind and to loose. The Church has the right to intervene for an abandoned/wronged spouse. East and West have formulated different ways of doing this.

Please understand I am not advocating an Eastern Catholic disregard the system we are currently under, but I, like Archbishop Elias, do call on the Church Hierarchy to review the situation in light of Eastern practice.

In Christ,
Subdeacon Lance

But Alex, I'm not defending the contemporary annulment system! Au contraire--I have decried the excessive use of annulments as a scandalous abuse.

OTOH, I would say annulments are definitely not "Catholic Divorce" because:

(a) The overuse of annulments is an abuse in praxis, not in doxy. Our theology is rock-solid, but we're messing up in practice! Such a situation can be corrected: You crack down on the abuses. But when a communion's theology allows for divorce/remarriage for up to three times and for up to 20 reasons, then it's a whole lot harder to reform that situation. The communion actually has to do a massive paradigm shift and change its moral theology in order to bring it back in line with Our Lord's command. That's a tall order...and frankly, I don't see it happening in EOxy anytime soon.

(b) Even with all the abuses in the Catholic tribunal system--abuses that I hope will be reformed soon--even with all the abuses, it remains true that the number of annulments granted yearly pales in comparison with the number of divorces. If annulments were really "Catholic Divorce," then there would be a heck of a lot more of them, IOW. (And that's in the current climate of abuse of the system.)

(c) I appreciate your concern to defend our Orthodox brethren against unjust charges. But is my observation that the Orthodox are wrong on divorce really an unjust charge? Ecumenism doesn't mean glossing over our very real differences or seeing our two communions as completely equivalent or identical. If Orthodoxy were "just as right" about everything as Catholicism is, then there would be no compelling reason to be Catholic rather than Orthodox. In fact, I believe that there are some things Orthodoxy is seriously wrong about--the papacy, divorce, and contraception, to name three biggies--and that's why I'm Catholic. Two contradictory statements can't both be true...so there comes a point where you have to choose. If you choose FOR Catholicism, then that means you are (inevitably) choosing AGAINST Orthodoxy...and especially against those aspects of Orthodoxy which are in flat contradiction to the counterpart teachings in Catholicism.

As a Catholic, I can endorse much of Orthodoxy--after all, there are far more similarities than differences. But there [i[]are[/i] differences--and those of us in communion with Rome must choose the Catholic "side" in these disputed areas, if we are to be Catholic in any recognizable sense.

Believe me, our Orthodox brethren understand this point. They have no problem whatsoever telling us where they think we're wrong! Moreover, they don't define "ecumenism" as meaning that they must agree with absolutely everything we Catholics say, even at the expense of the Orthodox POV. Can you even imagine such a thing?

It seems so ironical that ECs bend over backward to accommodate EOxy--even jettisoning Catholic distinctives in the process, sometimes--while the Orthodox folks they're courting would never dream of extending them the same "courtesy." And I hafta say--I think the Orthodox are quite right not to "give away the store" this way. However, the flip side of this is--we shouldn't be giving away the store either!

Lastly, while your ecumenism is sizzling, do you think you could extend a little of it to your Catholic brethren? Please try to see the rationale for our beliefs and practices, too...rather than slamming us for annulments whilst justifying the Orthodox on the divorce issue. Thanks much!

And my own sincere apologies for having offended you (and others) on this board with my bluntness, rudeness, etc.

Blessings and back to work....

ZT