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Peace!
Lately there has been much talk and questioning from among my circle of friends about whether Eastern Catholics(in communion with the Pope of Rome) are bound by the council of Trent and all of it's declarations.This might seem like a naive question but I'm a little confused: just how much are Eastern Rite Catholics bound to accept of the Roman church's councils(and regulations etc.), especially those that were made in the time when the churches were not in communion with each other?
In Christ's everlasting love and mercy,
Sarai

I will leave answers to your questions to our more learned members, but I will express an opinion. Every time the Latins have a council, they think it's ecumenical. It's not!

Dear Sarai,

In actual fact, the Eastern Catholic Churches maintain their own Particular traditions and laws as well as theological traditions.

We accept the first Seven Ecumenical Councils with Rome and consider these normative for the entire Church.

The later Councils of the Roman Church tended to be "local" in nature, even the union councils of Lyons and Florence (which didn't work out, in any event).

These what I will call "Local Roman Councils" tended to deal with particular issues affecting the Roman Church.

Trent was called to answer the challenge of Protestantism, as you will know.

For Eastern Christians, a "protestant" is someone who dons an orange scarf and stands out in the cold screaming something about bad elections .

Vatican II dealt, in one document, with the Eastern Catholic Churches, but didn't tell us anything we didn't know before (it's just that we weren't doing what we knew we should have been doing).

So the only real impact of the 14 Local Latin Councils (LLC's) is in how Rome defines and redefines its relationship to us.

Trent in particular really had nothing to say to the Eastern Catholic Churches.

Alex

Charles,

I must fraternally disagree with you. There have been 21 Ecumenical Councils. All Catholics must accept all of these. Certainly there are instructions meant only for the Latin Church in some of these. But all of the teachings and dogmas proclaimed by these Councils must be believed by ALL Catholics and all of the Councils must be accepted as Ecumenical and having the same authority as the first seven.

Michael

Yes, there have been 21 councils, but the Orthodox believe that only the first 7 were ecumenical, since they were not participants in the rest. I think that Alex's point is valid, that most of these Latin councils are irrelevant to Eastern Churches, both Catholic and Orthodox. Did any council proclaim a dogma that wasn't already accepted by Eastern Catholics? Most councils proclaimed no dogmas to begin with. The councils after the first 7 dealt primarily with issues specific to the Latin Church, although Vatican II did reach out to the East, and actually has been beneficial to us. I think you will find that we Easterners are not even mentioned in the majority of the councils.

Dear Friends,

Please, please, no snarling!

(I know you are not!).

I think that if it can be shown that there is anything in the 14 later Latin Councils that the East does not yet have as part of its rule of prayer/rule of faith, then PERHAPS we might be obliged to accept it.

The Marian dogmas - we've dealth with those lots of times before and I think we're all agreed that the East need not define what it has always believed about the Theotokos (and most of us agree that the East's veneration for the Theotokos is higher than that of the West - MOST I say! ).

As for the papal doctrines, we have our own theological traditions to interpret those too.

In fact, Vatican II was an attempt by Rome to actually LIMIT papal jurisdiction over the Catholic East by stating the role in church government that the Patriarchs/Major Archbishops play.

As for defining a dogma "ex cathedra," why should an Eastern Catholic accept anything he or she already believes in in pith and substance.

The IC doctrine states that Maryam was not conceived with the stain of Original Sin.

The East has a different understanding of Original Sin - an understanding that the West in the CCC seems to finally understand as well.

If someone can show me ONE instance of the later Latin Councils teaching something outside the Eastern tradition - then maybe we could argue for inclusion.

And there can really be no doubt but that the 14 Councils after the Seventh Ecumenical Council, were "universal Latin Church councils" as the East was absent from them.

And even where the EC churches were present - that still does not reflect the intended presence of the East.

Alex

Alex, we are not snarling. Mike and I actually know each other and get along quite well. He's really a nice guy - also a very talented musician. But you can tell he's much more Latin in outlook than I am.

Mike, it is not quite as black and white as you have portrayed it.

The basis for our communion with the Roman Church is the Union of Brest. The Popes have reaffirmed that Union on many occasions, including the 350th anniversary by Pius XII (1945); of the Millenium (1988) by JP II; the beautiful 400th anniversary of the Union of Brest at which the Holy Father presided with Patriarch Miroslav-Ivan in 1995; the papal documents Orientale Lumen, Slavorum Apostoli, his trip to Ukraine in 2001, etc. etc. etc.

While presiding at the beautiful Moleben in 1996, JP II stated unequivocally, "The Union of Brest was the work of the Holy Spirit".

Needless to say, no repudiation of the Union by Rome, nor ANY public pronouncement of modifications to that Union was associated with any of these events. Rather to the contrary.

Article 1 states "we should remain with that which was handed down to us in the Holy Scriptures, in the Gospel, and in the writings of the holy Greek Doctors". Nowhere does it say "we abandon ourselves completely to the Roman hierarchy and dicasteries".

In the case of a Council such as Vatican II which spoke specifically to us, and at which our bishops took a vital part, that is quite a different thing entirely on how we look at a particular Council as Eastern Christians compared to a Trent.

Charles,

Thank you very much for your kind remarks. Ditto.

Diak,

I agree with you. In no way do I want the Eastern Churches to start to "Latinize" their liturgies or understandings of Church teachings. All I am saying is is that all 21 Councils must be accepted as legitimate Ecumenical Councils by ALL Catholics, Eastern and Latin, and that those things not just pertaining to the Latin Church but to the whole Catholic Church must be believed and accepted by all Eastern and Latin Catholics.

Michael

Eastern Catholics see the later 14 Councils as legitimate and authoritative but we do not consider them to be ecumenical, especially in the same way as were the Seven Ecumenical Councils. The vast majority of these councils in the West addressed issues internal to the Latin Church and did not affect any of the Eastern Churches. There is no official teaching whatsoever by the Roman Catholic Church regarding the number of Ecumenical Councils. At some point someone compiling a list of important councils included the ones he considered important. There were others.

If you have access to a good Catholic library, see the letter of Paul VI to Cardinal Willebrands of October 1974 is found in "Information Service" of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, n. 25 (1974/III) pages 8-10. See also the homily Cardinal Willebrands preached in Lyons for the 7th centenary of the Second Council of Lyons which directly follows. It is about the only place where there is an actual discussion of the qualitative difference between the �Ecumenical Councils� and what Pope Paul VI termed �the General Councils in the West�.

Dear Administrator,

But is it legitimate for EC's to categorize the Councils in that way?

In other words, will my Roman-trained pastor try to take my head off if I say that this is how I understand the Councils?

(I guess you can't really control the latter . . . ).

Alex

While I can understand why some Eastern Catholics may think of Trent as a Western Synod as it dealt mostly with the threat of protestantism this argument does not hold water with all eastern catholics the Italo-Albanian church and Maronite church and the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankar church where in communion with Rome at the time they had prelates that attended Trent to say Trent is not binding on these Eastern Catholics is telling me that even though they attended Trent and voted on Trent it's not binding on them. I think this would only apply to Eastern Catholics not in communion with Rome at the time who were not represented at the council. I also hear Eastern Catholics not willing to accept Vatican 2 even though they were represented there. That doesn't seem to make any sense to me your prelate was their he voted he knew what was going on it was ecunmeical with your church. The only churches that can claim to have this option are the Eastern Orthodox to me if your church was represented and voted at a council your bound to it.

Tobit,

Can you provide some reference or source for this?

Many years,

Neil

No I just hear lay people spuot this nonsnese no official has ever claimed this which makes me wonder why this opinion is popular in my experiences with Eastern Catholics.

As per my theory that if you have a prelate present at a council your church is bound to the council irregardless if your sister church is still in Orthodox schism, look at
http://www.mliles.com/melkite/councilsecumenical.shtml

It has the Melkite listing the first 7 ecunemical councils and skips the councils they missed (thus they are not bound to those councils) but suddenly they include the 20th and 21st councils so they are bound to findings of those councils. THis is how I think the question of how Eastern Catholics accept the various councils. SOme eastern catholic never missed any councils and those churches would be bound to all councils. Whatever the case of the various ORthodox churches is of no conseuqnce only the history of your particular church. Thus and Italo-Albannian church for example would be bound to all 21 councils irregardless they are an eastern rite.