Indeed, and the Orthodox believe the same thing albeit without accepting the idea of doctrinal development - the teaching authority of the Orthodox church is ecumenical and derives from conciliarity or sobornost to use a Slavic word which rather elegantly expresses the idea, since our doctrines were received by the entire Orthodox church as a communion between the laity, the clergy and the episcopate with Christ as the head of the Church which is His Body onto which we are mystically grafted, and is also contingent upon our preserving without modification that which was received from the Apostles and the bishops who succeeded them (for which reason the Orthodox will become unhappy even at the idea of change; our allergy to change and conservativism was also at one time more a characteristic of the Roman church than of at least some of the Eastern patriarchates; we see relatively few Latin theologians of note from Rome itself compared to Greek theologians from Antioch and Alexandria, with most scandals in the Latin speaking West and most theologians rising up to oppose them occurring in the provinces; the ancient church in Rome was exceptionally good at refusing change, development or innovation, having said no emphatically to Marcion, Valentinus, Arius, Montanus, Pelagius, Nestorius and many others, while saying yes where it mattered, for example, to the translation of Scripture and the Liturgy to Latin under St. Victor. St. Gregory the Great is unusual in that he is the only bishop of Rome who made a large contribution to both the Western and Eastern liturgical patrimony (but while in Constantinople played a vital role in preserving Orthodoxy by shutting down an argument that Christ in His resurrection (and by extension we in ours) is devoid of physicality, a kind of crypto-docetism that arises every now and then, indeed, the leader of a large American evangelical/charismatic “non-denominational” denomination known for stressing the idea that the pastors of their churches should have unchecked authority, the “Moses model” polity, which suffers from the not inconsiderable problem of lacking any precedent in the early church or New Testament warrant and from the fact that Moses was incontrovertibly a holy prophet whose prophetic office was identified through repeated miracles, did make a statement in which he implied a similar crypto-docetic view of the Resurrection.
The Orthodox instinct for
paradosis as something received, guarded, and lived by the whole Church is something Catholics deeply honour; indeed,
Dei Verbum 8 affirms that the Church “
constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth,” not by altering the apostolic deposit but by the Spirit enabling the Church to understand it more deeply. Where we differ is not in reverence for the Fathers or conciliarity, but in recognising—on the basis of both Scripture (Mt 16:18–19; Lk 22:32; Jn 21:15–17) and the first millennium—that the
Petrine ministry is itself part of that apostolic inheritance, serving the unity of the whole Church. St. Irenaeus appeals to the Church of Rome as possessing a “
pre‑eminent authority” because of its apostolic foundation (
Adv. Haer. 3.3.2), and St. Maximus the Confessor famously defended Rome’s doctrinal primacy during the monothelite crisis (Letter to Peter the Illustrious), not as a later Latin innovation but as a reality recognised in the East.
Catholics also agree that the ancient Roman Church was fiercely conservative in guarding the apostolic faith—its rejection of Marcion, Valentinus, Pelagius, and Nestorius is precisely why the Fathers so often looked to Rome as a doctrinal anchor. But this same conservatism is what Catholics mean by
development: not change, but the Spirit‑guided clarification of what was always there, as St. Vincent of Lérins put it—growth “
according to its own kind” (
Commonitorium 23). The Orthodox concern about novelty is therefore not dismissed but taken with utmost seriousness; the Catholic claim is simply that legitimate development is recognisable precisely because it preserves identity with the apostolic deposit.
Finally, your point about Christ’s true, physical Resurrection is one where Catholics and Orthodox stand shoulder to shoulder. Both reject any docetic or spiritualising tendency, and both confess with St. Gregory the Great that Christ rose in the very body that suffered (Hom. in Evang. 26). Where we continue to hope for healing is not in the faith itself—which is substantially the same—but in the question of how the Church, as Christ’s Body, discerns and speaks that faith with one voice. For Catholics, the papal ministry is not an obstacle to conciliarity but its necessary guarantor; for the Orthodox, conciliarity is the primary expression of the Church’s life. These are real differences, but they are differences within a shared apostolic inheritance, and dialogue continues precisely because both sides recognise that unity is Christ’s will (Jn 17:21).
Sources (open‑access) [provided by MS Copilot]
:
–
Dei Verbum (Vatican II):
Dei verbum (vatican.va in Bing)
– St. Irenaeus,
Against Heresies 3.3.2 (public domain):
CHURCH FATHERS: Against Heresies, III.3 (St. Irenaeus) (newadvent.org in Bing)
– St. Vincent of Lérins,
Commonitorium (public domain):
CHURCH FATHERS: Commonitorium (Vincent of Lerins)
– St. Maximus the Confessor, Letter to Peter (English trans.): [Oh dear, Copilot gave UFABET! a UFA betting site, imagine that, AI slop in the references to a good Catholic's post!!
]
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: St. Maximus of Constantinople
