We call her Blessed, what do you call her?

[Xeno.of.athens]

St. Gregory Palamas is venerated in the Byzantine-Rite Catholic Churches but not in the Latin churches

Wikipedia says:

Gregory has been venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church since 1368. Within the Catholic Church, he has also been called a saint; Pope John Paul II repeatedly called Gregory a great theological writer.[2] Since 1971, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church has venerated Gregory as a saint.[3][4] Some of his writings are collected in the Philokalia, and since the Ottoman period, the second Sunday of Great Lent is dedicated to the memory of Gregory Palamas in the Orthodox Church and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.[5] The Byzantine Synodikon of Orthodoxy also celebrates his memory and theology while condemning his opponents, including some anti-Palamites who flourished after Gregory's death.​

​

and his theology of the uncreated energies of God directly contradicts the Scholastic theology found in Thomas Aquinas of uncreated grace. In the Byzantine Catholic Churches, just like the Eastern Orthodox churches, at least since the Second Vatican Council, the second Sunday in Lent is the feast day of St. Gregory Palamas. Likewise, the Byzantine Catholic liturgy is generally compliant with Eastern Orthodox canon law such as the Quinisext Council in Trullo, which the Latin Church famously rejected.

Indeed lately several Eastern Catholic bishops ranging from Ruthenian Greek Catholics to the Patriarchs of the Melkites and Chaldeans have pushed for unification with their respective Eastern counterparts, the Antiochian Orthodox and the Assyrian Church of the East, expressing a view that any inconsistencies, for example, the understanding of the role of the Pope, could be resolved. However this eagerness is not reciprocated; the Holy Synod of the Assyrian Church of the East wrote an eloquent letter to the Chaldean Patriarch expressing their desire to not reunify in such a manner that would cause them to lose their historic autocephaly (ecclesiastical independence) and find themselves inadvertently having become subordinate to the Pope of Rome.

Also it should be stressed that the Pope of Rome is not the Patriarch of the Eastern churches; historically, until 2006, one of his titles was Patriarchate of the West, as he was in charge of all Western Rite Catholics, but his powers concerning the Eastern Catholic churches are less clearly defined; at a minimum, the Pope no longer routinely exercises his authority over most of the Eastern Catholic churches except when it comes to the selection of new Patriarchs for them.

Also, the Roman Catholic Church believes that the filioque is erroneous if inserted into the Nicene Creed in the Greek language, and many Byzantine Rite Catholic churches omit the Filioque, even those which do not speak Greek (which are the majority; the actual Greek Catholic church is one of the smaller ones).

The rest are not dogmatic theology, nor especially difficult matters for either Orthodox or Catholic Christians.

 

[The Liturgist]

Wikipedia says:

Gregory has been venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church since 1368. Within the Catholic Church, he has also been called a saint; Pope John Paul II repeatedly called Gregory a great theological writer.[2] Since 1971, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church has venerated Gregory as a saint.[3][4] Some of his writings are collected in the Philokalia, and since the Ottoman period, the second Sunday of Great Lent is dedicated to the memory of Gregory Palamas in the Orthodox Church and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.[5] The Byzantine Synodikon of Orthodoxy also celebrates his memory and theology while condemning his opponents, including some anti-Palamites who flourished after Gregory's death.​

​

The rest are not dogmatic theology, nor especially difficult matters for either Orthodox or Catholic Christians.

The problem is of course that St. Gregory Palamas taught that grace is an uncreated energy of God, whereas the RCC regards it as created. Also, his main opponent, Barlaam, after failing in his attempt to have St. Gregory declared a heretic, joined the Roman Catholic Church.

Also it is not just the Ukrainian Greek Catholics among Byzantine Rite Catholics who celebrate St. Gregory Palamas on the second Sunday in Great Lent.

 

[Ceallaigh]

Frankly I find it frustrating given your anti-Catholic polemics and anti-Eastern Orthodox polemics that you did not bother to find out about the Eastern Catholics.

You shouldn't bear false witness against me no matter how frustrated you let yourself get. I'm on record as not being anti-Catholic, and definitely not anti-Eastern Orthodox. Why would I have posted videos of Metropolitan Ware's and Archimandrite Philip's techings if I was anti-Eastern Orthodox?

Edit: I see that Xeno.of.athens is apparently in error along the same lines as well.

I think you owe me an apology.

 

[dzheremi]

I'm going to guess that comes from recognizing that most western Christians will think that "Catholic" means "Roman Catholic", and they don't want to confuse others as to who they are in communion with. After all, the official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is "The Orthodox Catholic Church" (see, e.g., here), so I doubt they meant that they aren't Catholic -- only not Roman Catholic/in communion with Rome.

 

[The Liturgist]

You shouldn't bear false witness against me no matter how frustrated you let yourself get. I'm on record as not being anti-Catholic, and definitely not anti-Eastern Orthodox. Why would I have posted videos of Metropolitan Ware's and Archimandrite Philip's techings if I was anti-Eastern Orthodox?

Edit: I see that Xeno.of.athens is apparently in error along the same lines as well.

I think you owe me an apology.

Forgive me, it was not my intention to mischaracterize you. I had assumed based on your posts in this thread that you had major objections to our doctrines. Note also that by “anti-Catholic polemics” and “anti-Eastern Orthodox polemics” I meant polemics in opposition to Catholic and Eastern Orthodox doctrine, as opposed to polemics stating they are bad people, idolaters or non-Christians, and I should have made that clear.

So please forgive me, and pray for me, as i am the chief of sinners.

Also I am glad you like Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, memory eternal. Have you seen his lecture “Salvation in Christ?” And could you link me to the thread where you posted him?

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I should add I think it is very important that when we mess up and hurt another member’s feelings, we should apologize for it and seek their forgiveness, because this is easy to do in the heat of the moment, and I myself have experienced it severely. I try to ignore it, of course, but in another thread someone has posted that I will likely be damned owing to the fact I celebrate Christmas, and so I really don’t want to be that kind of guy to anyone on the forum. I think we need to love each other, and in this case I was too caught up in the thread and inadvertently hurt @Ordinary Christian ’s feelings, for which I do apologize profusely and beg his forgiveness.

 

[Valletta]

The problem is of course that St. Gregory Palamas taught that grace is an uncreated energy of God, whereas the RCC regards it as created. Also, his main opponent, Barlaam, after failing in his attempt to have St. Gregory declared a heretic, joined the Roman Catholic Church.

Also it is not just the Ukrainian Greek Catholics among Byzantine Rite Catholics who celebrate St. Gregory Palamas on the second Sunday in Great Lent.

Actually the Catholic Church acknowledges the existence of uncreated grace (God Himself) and created grace.

 

[The Liturgist]

Actually the Catholic Church acknowledges the existence of uncreated grace (God Himself) and created grace.

I believe the problem is that the Orthodox Church, owing to Palamist theology, does not believe grace can be a creature.

 

[prodromos]

The problem is of course that St. Gregory Palamas taught that grace is an uncreated energy of God, whereas the RCC regards it as created. Also, his main opponent, Barlaam, after failing in his attempt to have St. Gregory declared a heretic, joined the Roman Catholic Church.

Also it is not just the Ukrainian Greek Catholics among Byzantine Rite Catholics who celebrate St. Gregory Palamas on the second Sunday in Great Lent.

Eastern Catholics also venerate St Mark of Ephesus and St Photius.

 

[Ceallaigh]

Forgive me, it was not my intention to mischaracterize you. I had assumed based on your posts in this thread that you had major objections to our doctrines. Note also that by “anti-Catholic polemics” and “anti-Eastern Orthodox polemics” I meant polemics in opposition to Catholic and Eastern Orthodox doctrine, as opposed to polemics stating they are bad people, idolaters or non-Christians, and I should have made that clear.

So please forgive me, and pray for me, as i am the chief of sinners.

Also I am glad you like Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, memory eternal. Have you seen his lecture “Salvation in Christ?” And could you link me to the thread where you posted him?

+

I should add I think it is very important that when we mess up and hurt another member’s feelings, we should apologize for it and seek their forgiveness, because this is easy to do in the heat of the moment, and I myself have experienced it severely. I try to ignore it, of course, but in another thread someone has posted that I will likely be damned owing to the fact I celebrate Christmas, and so I really don’t want to be that kind of guy to anyone on the forum. I think we need to love each other, and in this case I was too caught up in the thread and inadvertently hurt @Ordinary Christian ’s feelings, for which I do apologize profusely and beg his forgiveness.

I take these things lightheartedly. We are brothers and things like this to me is just passing brotherly spatting. I confess that I've been directly accued of hating on Catholics by others enough times, that I had a knee jerk reaction to what you wrote. I think I watched Ware's whole salvation in Christ video. It's his briefer video of salvation and theosis that I've posted a few times. When it comes to that I'm quite partial to the Orthodox view. Another favorite I've posted a few times is the Orthodox vs Protestant view of salvation, being in favor of the former.

From April 2021:

Here's a brief video about Theosis for those unfamiliar with it.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

The problem is of course that St. Gregory Palamas taught that grace is an uncreated energy of God, whereas the RCC regards it as created. Also, his main opponent, Barlaam, after failing in his attempt to have St. Gregory declared a heretic, joined the Roman Catholic Church.

Well, that isn't quite right, is it? The grace of God's self-giving is uncreated because God is uncreated. The graces we receive, such as health, natural endowments, particular graces like answered prayers and so forth, are all created graces. So, there are both uncreated graces and created graces.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Edit: I see that Xeno.of.athens is apparently in error along the same lines as well.

what?

 

[The Liturgist]

Well, that isn't quite right, is it? The grace of God's self-giving is uncreated because God is uncreated. The graces we receive, such as health, natural endowments, particular graces like answered prayers and so forth, are all created graces. So, there are both uncreated graces and created graces.

The latter are clearly not grace, which is a kind of uncreated transformative energy of God, but are rather blessings, the fruit of the interaction of the uncreated energies of God, such as His grace and love, with His created world and with us His children.

It should also be noted that well before Palamas, going back to the Cappadocians, the Greek church embraced the essence/energies distinction. Furthermore, God in his divine essence is entirely unknowable; rather, we know Him through his energies which have resulted in certain revelations about God, from which we are able to use apophatic theology, the via negativa as it is known to Latin scholars of theology, to reason about God on the basis of revelation: for example, we can say of God that He is immutable, impassable, unbounded, uncircumscribed, that there is nothing outside of His knowledge or beyond His capability, and He is nothing other than goodness and His love is unlimited.

In His incarnation, in which humanity and divinity were united in the hypostasis of the Only Begotten Son and Word of God, furthermore, God revealed Himself in human form, and thus in the womb of the Theotokos, He who is uncontainable was contained. This is the basis for the veneration of her, the extreme veneration (hyperdoulia) which differentiates her from the other saints but which still does not constitute worship (latria) or adoration, which are due only to God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

The latter are clearly not grace, which is a kind of uncreated transformative energy of God, but are rather blessings, the fruit of the interaction of the uncreated energies of God, such as His grace and love, with His created world and with us His children.

It should also be noted that well before Palamas, going back to the Cappadocians, the Greek church embraced the essence/energies distinction. Furthermore, God in his divine essence is entirely unknowable; rather, we know Him through his energies which have resulted in certain revelations about God, from which we are able to use apophatic theology, the via negativa as it is known to Latin scholars of theology, to reason about God on the basis of revelation: for example, we can say of God that He is immutable, impassable, unbounded, uncircumscribed, that there is nothing outside of His knowledge or beyond His capability, and He is nothing other than goodness and His love is unlimited.

In His incarnation, in which humanity and divinity were united in the hypostasis of the Only Begotten Son and Word of God, furthermore, God revealed Himself in human form, and thus in the womb of the Theotokos, He who is uncontainable was contained. This is the basis for the veneration of her, the extreme veneration (hyperdoulia) which differentiates her from the other saints but which still does not constitute worship (latria) or adoration, which are due only to God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

It seems like a distinction of definitions rather than a substantial difference. But it is probably a subject for debate elsewhere.