Orthodox, let's talk about our differences. (RCC)

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zhilan

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That is an interesting view from the Orthodox position (the part about Peter being the rock). Most Orthodox that I am aware of would not say that he is.

So if the hypothesis that Peter was the rock up until the Great Schism, then where did the rock go after that? Did the current Ecumenical Patriarch become the rock and first among equals? Did it stay with Rome, albeit its authority negated due to supposedly heretical teachings?

Yeah, most Orthodox would not view Peter as being the rock. And as far as I'm aware, Peter was not alive at the time of the Great Schism. :p

I'm saying, I think Peter was the rock, I think was the important one, he was the one Jesus left in charge. But to get from that (which I would call primacy), to infallibility and supremacy is the leap I don't see. It's like, remember in elementary school when the teacher has to go to the bathroom while everyone is working on a project or reading or something. There's the one kid in the class the teacher knows she can trust, the kid who is well behaved, but has the clout with the other kids to make them listen to him and keep them out of trouble. So when she has to step out of the classroom she leaves that kid in charge. That kid has "primacy" in the class, he has authority and he has respect. And that kid can enforce rules that are already in place. He can maintain the "traditions" of the classroom. He does not however, have the authority to make new rules. He can't do away with math, or dismiss everyone to go home for the day. He also can't wander over to the class next door and tell them he has authority over them as well. And that would be the difference. :D
 
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buzuxi02

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Orthodoxy is the christianity that flourished in the eastern half of the roman empire. The east used primarily greek in its official language with its christian centers in Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. The west whose center was Rome used primarily Latin since 395 a.d..

Around the 9th century an enstrangement began taking place. The east began to weaken from muslim advance, Rome began looking towards the west for protection, especially under Charlemagne and the Franks. Likewise the Franks only looked upon the latin speaking Rome as western europes hegemony, and the rest of christianity as greek speaking outsiders.

From then on certain false beliefs and traditions crept into Rome with its new found power, and the influence upon her by the new powers. The other apostolic churches of the east (Orthodox) could not convince Rome of her errors (as was the custom when heresy arose and a council would convene to determine the matter) so there was a slow breach. Rome isolating itself from the eastern half and claiming universal supremacy, slowly began alienating itself from the 44 other apostolic churches mentioned in the bible and finally fell away.
 
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Dark_Lite

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Yeah, most Orthodox would not view Peter as being the rock. And as far as I'm aware, Peter was not alive at the time of the Great Schism. :p

I'm saying, I think Peter was the rock, I think was the important one, he was the one Jesus left in charge. But to get from that (which I would call primacy), to infallibility and supremacy is the leap I don't see. It's like, remember in elementary school when the teacher has to go to the bathroom while everyone is working on a project or reading or something. There's the one kid in the class the teacher knows she can trust, the kid who is well behaved, but has the clout with the other kids to make them listen to him and keep them out of trouble. So when she has to step out of the classroom she leaves that kid in charge. That kid has "primacy" in the class, he has authority and he has respect. And that kid can enforce rules that are already in place. He can maintain the "traditions" of the classroom. He does not however, have the authority to make new rules. He can't do away with math, or dismiss everyone to go home for the day. He also can't wander over to the class next door and tell them he has authority over them as well. And that would be the difference. :D

Well the Catholic view is more like the Pope is the Principal of the school. He doesn't get involved at the teacher level usually unless it becomes necessary. Even today the eastern Catholic Churches are mostly autocephalous, though the Pope still has ultimate authority over them.

However, what I asked was: From your perspective, if Peter was the rock, where did the rock go after the Great Schism? Did the Ecumenical Patriarch become the rock? Did it remain in Rome (but with no authority)? Did it disappear entirely, or something else?
 
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Macarius

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Well the Catholic view is more like the Pope is the Principal of the school. He doesn't get involved at the teacher level usually unless it becomes necessary. Even today the eastern Catholic Churches are mostly autocephalous, though the Pope still has ultimate authority over them.

However, what I asked was: From your perspective, if Peter was the rock, where did the rock go after the Great Schism? Did the Ecumenical Patriarch become the rock? Did it remain in Rome (but with no authority)? Did it disappear entirely, or something else?

I cannot speak for zhilan's views, but I would have to ask that IF Peter is the rock of Matt 16 (and I'm not convinced), what says that only Rome succeeds to that role?

@zhilan: you said of Peter that Christ commanded him to "feed my sheep." Every bishop has that command. Yes, Peter was unique in recieving the keys first (binding and loosing), but every apostle recieved those (matt 18). Rome's primacy (not authority) in the mid-first millenium was based on Rome's place as capital of the empire, its antiquity as a tremendous city of martyrs, its apostolic origins, and its important history of theological orthodoxy. The verses talking of St. Peter "feeding sheep" weren't interpreted as granting any unique authority to the Pope until much much later (I would ask RCC proponents who use those verses to find the earliest interpretation they can that follows their current interpretation).
 
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Dominic Korozya

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Proof for what? I gave you several articles to read on several topics. Please be specific.

Proof that your historical records (about how and why the church split) are accurate and not bias.
 
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Dominic Korozya

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Oh not at all. It is unity to Christ that makes us Christian. Mere beliefs / doctrines / teachings can only make an intellectual pseudo-Christian. If those truths do not unite us to the Truth (through asceticism, prayer, and sacrament) then we will have the greater condemnation, having been given many talents and having squandered them.

And again - the Apostles were taught by Christ. The faith they expressed at the council of Jerusalem (where the judaizers were rejected) wasn't a new development in the faith. It was a clarification of Christ's teachings.

Every time that a new issue or heresy pops up, the Church does need to respond to that. And this is what I mean by "clarifying the faith." But it doesn't respond to that by changing Christianity. It responds to it from within Christianity. It must, in other words, remain fundamentally the same.

So at the time of Christ, all His followers were Jewish. Yet Christ taught many things (and met / associated with some faithful gentiles) that led the Apostles to know that His Kingdom and New Covenant were open to all. In particular, Christ's parables about the Kingdom in the late chapters of Matthew indicate this. When Sts. Peter and Paul began to have successful ministry among Gentiles, and win real converts, the question came up as to whether or not Gentiles had to become Jewish first.

The apostles, clarifying what they had already recieved, proclaimed no. And we know that this isn't a developed / new / innovative doctrine. Rather it is a clarification of what was taught by the Messiah.

Similarly, the exact wording of the Trinity or Incarnation was not formalized until Nicaea and Chalcedon, but those teachings were definitely believed in the early church.

Purgatory and the current Roman Catholic papacy, however, do not pass this same test from our perspective. There is good evidence the early church believed Christ to be fully God. There is no evidence they believed the bishop of Rome to be the unique successer to St. Peter and to enjoy, by that succession, complete authority over the church and limited infallibility. The papal dogmas aren't clarifications - they are a whole new set of teachings.

Now, there are teachings that come and go and do no harm. Not every tradition of men contradicts Holy Tradition. For example, the fasting of the church has changed dramatically over time. But that is ok, as the essentials (that we do, in fact, fast; as Christ commanded) are the same. Yet Rome claims its powers are Holy Tradition, and excommunicates (or historically has) those who doubt it.

Okay. In your view what are the most obviously invented doctrines of the Catholic church that are unsupported by the bible?
 
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Joshua G.

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The vast majority of early christians did not believe that Peter was the rock referred to in Matt 16. But even if he is the rock in that passage, it does not follow that Rome is exclusively the successor of Peter (in fact, most early theologians felt that all bishops who also confessed Christ to be the Son of God were successors of Peter). There is excellent evidence that there wasn't even a monarchial-bishop IN Rome until the late 2nd century. It also doesn't follow that if the bishop of Rome succeeds from Peter, that the passage in Matt 16 guarantees that bishop any sort of infallibility, nor that the bishop succeeds directly from Peter (that wasn't even dreamed of before the 5th c. AD), nor that the exclusive possession of Peter's seat guarantees a Monarchial form of Church government (wherein the Pope acts as prince), because it isn't at all clear from Matt 16 that Peter was the prince of the Apostles in an "I rule over you" sense - far from it; the Book of Acts reveals a more conciliar form of Church government, as do several early stories of the Church (and the early form of Church decision making at Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon).

I'm so glad you said this, Macarius. To many of us (Orthodox) work so hard on building our "case" against the later western Papal dogmas based on this verse when really, when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter how this verse is understood. It still does not logically follow that the Pope is the Universal Pontiff or that he is infallibile. This verse, is neither here nor there.
 
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Dominic Korozya

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I'm so glad you said this, Macarius. To many of us (Orthodox) work so hard on building our "case" against the later western Papal dogmas based on this verse when really, when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter how this verse is understood. It still does not logically follow that the Pope is the Universal Pontiff or that he is infallibile. This verse, is neither here nor there.

I think it is fantastic to have forums where you can constantly get spiritual and scriptural guidance and help from others of you own denomination, huh? :D
 
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Macarius

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Okay. In your view what are the most obviously invented doctrines of the Catholic church that are unsupported by the bible?

I would chose to say "unsupported by tradition." We (the Orthodox) are certainly not sola scriptura; many many Catholic teachings we disagree with can be supported by the Bible because of the flexible nature of the Bible and its interpretation. It isn't that a Catholic cannot find verses that seem (or can be interpreted to seem) to support his or her position. The question is, "are those interpretations traditional?"

The big issues that Catholics today believe that we find unsupported historically (in order of importance to me) are:
  1. Papal infallibility
  2. Papal authoritarianism (separate issue)
  3. Scholasticism (the attempt to reconcile humanist philosophy and revealed truth)
  4. Purgatory
  5. Satisfactionalism / Penal Substitution (Anselm's version in particular)
  6. Indulgences & the "bank" of merits
  7. Filioque clause in the creed
  8. Enforced Clerical Celibacy
  9. Augustinian original sin
  10. Refusal to recognize divorce
  11. Immaculate Conception
I may be missing a few... The biggie is the papacy, and I find the capitulation to humanist philosophy inherent in medieval and renaissance western theology to be a HUGE deal as well, and underemphasized.

In Christ,
Macarius
 
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Dominic Korozya

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I would chose to say "unsupported by tradition." We (the Orthodox) are certainly not sola scriptura; many many Catholic teachings we disagree with can be supported by the Bible because of the flexible nature of the Bible and its interpretation. It isn't that a Catholic cannot find verses that seem (or can be interpreted to seem) to support his or her position. The question is, "are those interpretations traditional?"



The big issues that Catholics today believe that we find unsupported historically (in order of importance to me) are:
  1. Papal infallibility
  2. Papal authoritarianism (separate issue)
  3. Scholasticism (the attempt to reconcile humanist philosophy and revealed truth)
  4. Purgatory
  5. Satisfactionalism / Penal Substitution (Anselm's version in particular)
  6. Indulgences & the "bank" of merits
  7. Filioque clause in the creed
  8. Enforced Clerical Celibacy
  9. Augustinian original sin
  10. Refusal to recognize divorce
  11. Immaculate Conception
I may be missing a few... The biggie is the papacy, and I find the capitulation to humanist philosophy inherent in medieval and renaissance western theology to be a HUGE deal as well, and underemphasized.

In Christ,
Macarius

What's all this about the CC and human philosophy? I've not heard of it. :sorry:
 
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Joshua G.

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I think it is fantastic to have forums where you can constantly get spiritual and scriptural guidance and help from others of you own denomination, huh? :D
guidance with a lowercase "g". ;) Even to you, being Catholic, I would say that anything that turns out to be truly spiritual, I would say get it from your priest. Historical facts, etc... whatever. But how to work out your spiritual life... go to your priest or a Catholic priest and.. of course I would never disuade you from going to an Orthodox priest (but IN person) lol but that would be another thread ;)
 
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Macarius

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What's all this about the CC and human philosophy? I've not heard of it. :sorry:

In brief? Hooo boy... Well, to way oversimplify things, the Western Church "rediscovered" Aristotle in the 11th c (mostly through its renewed encounters with Byzantium, where academic humanism had survived as a separate institution from the church, and from monastery libraries where a few texts had survived, and from contact with the Arabs - who had recieved their texts from the same Byzantine academics).

Aristotle had come to the conclusion that there existed a God - and actually one that was semi-close to the Christian sense of God. He had done so through rationalistic argument (not through direct revelation by God in Christ, as the church had recieved it).

So a theory developed, now called "scholasticism," that theology could and ought to be subjected to rationalist inquiry. Aristotles method of logic (syllogisms) became, for SOME elements in the West (it was hotly disagreed with at the time), the primary means of furthering inquiry into theology.

Theology, in other words, became academic (rather than mystic). This doesn't mean that reason had no place in theology prior to this - but rather that the idea that we could use revelation as a foundation from which to conclude new theologies, or that we could use deduction to justify (as if from a purely agnostic starting point) Christian theology... this was new.

This is the legacy of Anselm of Canterbury (who used deduction, presented in classic-style dialogue, to argue that God became man in order to pay a sufficient sacrifice to cover the penalty of sin in his text "cur deus homo"; he also used logic to attempt to prove God's existence in his ontological proof), and of Thomas Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas was controversial in his day, but came to absoluletly dominate Western theology (especially after Trent), which is why scholasticism is such a difference between East and West.

In theory, I don't have an issue with using reason to meditate on the faith (which was the goal of the scholastics), because they attempted always to adhere to the faith if reason didn't suffice to prove it (they assumed their reasoning was at fault, not the faith). But a few critical things occured as a result that I'm not ok with:
  1. They sought to use reason to further develop the faith - as if the faith were not a revelation, but a starting point which could stand up to rationalist inquiry and thereby be developed (like any other academic field).
  2. Once subjected to reason, the question of "which is right if they conflict?" becomes inevitable. The scholastics answered "the faith" and by this remained Catholic. Later humanists would answer "reason" and by this created the "Age of Enlightenment" and the now-almost-complete destruction of Christian culture in Western Europe.
  3. They began to glorify human reason (as this was the legacy of the humanist pagans they were imitating) - this led to renaissance humanism, which is the root of an awful lot of modern ills.
For our purposes, though, the reason this presents a difference between East and West is because the exact same humanist tradition was, over time, rejected by the Church in the East. Eastern Christians were fine so long as their study of Aristotle or Plato was purely academic (i.e. much in the way we may study Buddhism as a separate set of ideas because encountering new ideas has academic merit).

When humanists began to try and reconcile their philosophy with Orthodoxy (often having to shift or modify Orthodoxy in the process), they were soundly rejected. The most pronounced case of this occured in the 14th century, when the humanist Barlaam was excommunicated (and then became Catholic; a common theme of this time period that, in all acutallity, caused the Renaissance). The Byzantine humanists we rejected became heroes of the early Renaissance in Italy. It isn't like humanism died in one place and arose in the other. It was a direct transfer of succession. Only in the West there was capitulation to it (to a point - the Catholics certainly reject the hardcore rationalism of the late Renaissance).

So what's the alternative if not rational inquiry? Obedience and mysticism. We recieve the faith, and we hand it on - that's obedience to the tradition. And most of our theological works aren't about a philosophy of theology - they are about prayer. Because prayer is how we come to know God. And what we learn there cannot be put into words like a philosophy, because words cannot contain the Word. Rather, we allow for several wordings because of the divine mystery. This is true to a point in Catholicism, but you've seen the catechism - there are many "developed" (rationally theorized) doctrines one must adhere to. There's no way the early church believed in a bank of merits controlled by the pope to be dispensed through indulgences. Yet that is in the catechism because it was deduced, using scholastic inquiry, in the medieval era.

The overemphasis on rationalism in the West has led to a gradual decline of mysticism. This is most obvious in the (even more rationalist, though using the Scriptures as the foundation / starting point) protestant traditions, but even in Catholicism there has been a decline in asceticism. Mystics and theologians, in the west, are seen as two categories. In the east, the mystics ARE the theologians.

And, to us, the mystical approach is the older. St. Irenaeus of Lyons, in the 2nd century, didn't appeal to philosophy to refute the neo-platonic gnostics - he appealed to traditional interpretations of Scripture, as upheld by the successors of the Apostles (the bishops). This traditionalism, along with the monastic (and prior to that, martyr-centered) mysticism, formed the core of the theology of the 1st millenium church. It used reason to defend the faith from heresy, but not as a primary means of inquiry into the faith.

That is way oversimplified... and I painted with too broad a brush. But I hope it is coherent / lucid enough... Forgive me if the brush was too broad.

In Christ,
Macarius
 
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Dominic Korozya

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In brief? Hooo boy... Well, to way oversimplify things, the Western Church "rediscovered" Aristotle in the 11th c (mostly through its renewed encounters with Byzantium, where academic humanism had survived as a separate institution from the church, and from monastery libraries where a few texts had survived, and from contact with the Arabs - who had recieved their texts from the same Byzantine academics).

Aristotle had come to the conclusion that there existed a God - and actually one that was semi-close to the Christian sense of God. He had done so through rationalistic argument (not through direct revelation by God in Christ, as the church had recieved it).

So a theory developed, now called "scholasticism," that theology could and ought to be subjected to rationalist inquiry. Aristotles method of logic (syllogisms) became, for SOME elements in the West (it was hotly disagreed with at the time), the primary means of furthering inquiry into theology.

Theology, in other words, became academic (rather than mystic). This doesn't mean that reason had no place in theology prior to this - but rather that the idea that we could use revelation as a foundation from which to conclude new theologies, or that we could use deduction to justify (as if from a purely agnostic starting point) Christian theology... this was new.

This is the legacy of Anselm of Canterbury (who used deduction, presented in classic-style dialogue, to argue that God became man in order to pay a sufficient sacrifice to cover the penalty of sin in his text "cur deus homo"; he also used logic to attempt to prove God's existence in his ontological proof), and of Thomas Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas was controversial in his day, but came to absoluletly dominate Western theology (especially after Trent), which is why scholasticism is such a difference between East and West.


In theory, I don't have an issue with using reason to meditate on the faith (which was the goal of the scholastics), because they attempted always to adhere to the faith if reason didn't suffice to prove it (they assumed their reasoning was at fault, not the faith). But a few critical things occured as a result that I'm not ok with:
  1. They sought to use reason to further develop the faith - as if the faith were not a revelation, but a starting point which could stand up to rationalist inquiry and thereby be developed (like any other academic field).
  2. Once subjected to reason, the question of "which is right if they conflict?" becomes inevitable. The scholastics answered "the faith" and by this remained Catholic. Later humanists would answer "reason" and by this created the "Age of Enlightenment" and the now-almost-complete destruction of Christian culture in Western Europe.
  3. They began to glorify human reason (as this was the legacy of the humanist pagans they were imitating) - this led to renaissance humanism, which is the root of an awful lot of modern ills.
For our purposes, though, the reason this presents a difference between East and West is because the exact same humanist tradition was, over time, rejected by the Church in the East. Eastern Christians were fine so long as their study of Aristotle or Plato was purely academic (i.e. much in the way we may study Buddhism as a separate set of ideas because encountering new ideas has academic merit).

When humanists began to try and reconcile their philosophy with Orthodoxy (often having to shift or modify Orthodoxy in the process), they were soundly rejected. The most pronounced case of this occured in the 14th century, when the humanist Barlaam was excommunicated (and then became Catholic; a common theme of this time period that, in all acutallity, caused the Renaissance). The Byzantine humanists we rejected became heroes of the early Renaissance in Italy. It isn't like humanism died in one place and arose in the other. It was a direct transfer of succession. Only in the West there was capitulation to it (to a point - the Catholics certainly reject the hardcore rationalism of the late Renaissance).

So what's the alternative if not rational inquiry? Obedience and mysticism. We recieve the faith, and we hand it on - that's obedience to the tradition. And most of our theological works aren't about a philosophy of theology - they are about prayer. Because prayer is how we come to know God. And what we learn there cannot be put into words like a philosophy, because words cannot contain the Word. Rather, we allow for several wordings because of the divine mystery. This is true to a point in Catholicism, but you've seen the catechism - there are many "developed" (rationally theorized) doctrines one must adhere to. There's no way the early church believed in a bank of merits controlled by the pope to be dispensed through indulgences. Yet that is in the catechism because it was deduced, using scholastic inquiry, in the medieval era.

The overemphasis on rationalism in the West has led to a gradual decline of mysticism. This is most obvious in the (even more rationalist, though using the Scriptures as the foundation / starting point) protestant traditions, but even in Catholicism there has been a decline in asceticism. Mystics and theologians, in the west, are seen as two categories. In the east, the mystics ARE the theologians.

And, to us, the mystical approach is the older. St. Irenaeus of Lyons, in the 2nd century, didn't appeal to philosophy to refute the neo-platonic gnostics - he appealed to traditional interpretations of Scripture, as upheld by the successors of the Apostles (the bishops). This traditionalism, along with the monastic (and prior to that, martyr-centered) mysticism, formed the core of the theology of the 1st millenium church. It used reason to defend the faith from heresy, but not as a primary means of inquiry into the faith.

That is way oversimplified... and I painted with too broad a brush. But I hope it is coherent / lucid enough... Forgive me if the brush was too broad.

In Christ,
Macarius

So that's what you were talking about! I get it now. :D
 
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Dominic Korozya

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guidance with a lowercase "g". ;) Even to you, being Catholic, I would say that anything that turns out to be truly spiritual, I would say get it from your priest. Historical facts, etc... whatever. But how to work out your spiritual life... go to your priest or a Catholic priest and.. of course I would never disuade you from going to an Orthodox priest (but IN person) lol but that would be another thread ;)


:D 神は賛美する :D
 
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Proof that your historical records (about how and why the church split) are accurate and not bias.

Simple. Go ask your Catholic priest. Show him the text. Ask him who put the Papal Bull of excommunication on who's altar and marched out?

He will agree with +Bishop Kallistos.

(BTW, the book was written before Timothy Ware converted from Anglicanism to Orthodoxy and became a Bishop in the Church.)
 
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Dark_Lite

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Simple. Go ask your Catholic priest. Show him the text. Ask him who put the Papal Bull of excommunication on who's altar and marched out?

He will agree with +Bishop Kallistos.

(BTW, the book was written before Timothy Ware converted from Anglicanism to Orthodoxy and became a Bishop in the Church.)

The excommunication was pretty much mutual. The Patriarch also stalled the papal messenger for several months as well. Neither side is entirely innocent.
 
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zhilan

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However, what I asked was: From your perspective, if Peter was the rock, where did the rock go after the Great Schism? Did the Ecumenical Patriarch become the rock? Did it remain in Rome (but with no authority)? Did it disappear entirely, or something else?

As I said, Peter was dead long before the Schism. He's up in heaven being the rock I guess. I don't necessarily thing he was definitely the rock, I just think he might have been and I don't think it matters. So it didn't go anywhere, I guess, Peter died. He was a leader in the early church, he helped bring Christ message to the early Christians and help clarify issues that came up (such as when God revealed to him that they don't have to keep Kosher laws anymore). He was a leader in the early church.

I cannot speak for zhilan's views, but I would have to ask that IF Peter is the rock of Matt 16 (and I'm not convinced), what says that only Rome succeeds to that role?

@zhilan: you said of Peter that Christ commanded him to "feed my sheep." Every bishop has that command. Yes, Peter was unique in recieving the keys first (binding and loosing), but every apostle recieved those (matt 18). Rome's primacy (not authority) in the mid-first millenium was based on Rome's place as capital of the empire, its antiquity as a tremendous city of martyrs, its apostolic origins, and its important history of theological orthodoxy. The verses talking of St. Peter "feeding sheep" weren't interpreted as granting any unique authority to the Pope until much much later (I would ask RCC proponents who use those verses to find the earliest interpretation they can that follows their current interpretation).

My point is just as I said, that I don't think it really matters. Maybe Jesus did mean Peter because he knew his important role in forming the early church and he revealed a lot to him. Peter to me, seemed to be Christ's "right hand man." So I bring it up more to say, even if we grant to the RCC that Peter is the rock for the sake of argument, from my view, it still gets you nowhere close to current RC beliefs and in no way justifies the papacy.
 
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HandmaidenOfGod

Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!
Sep 11, 2004
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The excommunication was pretty much mutual. The Patriarch also stalled the papal messenger for several months as well. Neither side is entirely innocent.

The irony is that the Papal Messenger had originally been sent to reconcile things between the East and West.

Oops. ^_^

IMHO, (and of course I'm biased ;) ) to me the proof lies in who has changed in doctrine the most since the schism. The answer would be the Roman Catholic Church. The Doctrine regarding the Immaculate Conception of Mary is a perfect example of this.

The Orthodox Church has retained the doctrines established by the Ecumenical Councils and has not added to them.
 
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