bishops accepting correction or being overruled

archer75

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I have had several Orthodox people mentio proudly how after Florence, the bishops' actions were not accepted at home by the bulk of the monks and laity.

Is there room for this today? If the bishop represents the teaching authority of Christ, how does this work? If a set of bishops in a jurisdiction were in disagreement and no one wanted to be the "schismatic," would the jurisdiction end up "divided against itself"?
 

ArmyMatt

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yes. the people are the final check when considering dogma. the bishop only represents Christ insofar as he rightly divides the word of truth. so if he ceases to do that, we are not obliged to follow. if people were divided but not seeking to break, the Holy Spirit would lead the faithful to the truth, and those in error would repent.
 
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prodromos

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I have had several Orthodox people mentio proudly how after Florence, the bishops' actions were not accepted at home by the bulk of the monks and laity.
I think some people forget that there were also a great many bishops who did not attend Florence and who were opposed to the outcome. This often gets depicted as the laity versus the bishops, which does not truly represent the situation.
 
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archer75

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I think some people forget that there were also a great many bishops who did not attend Florence and who were opposed to the outcome. This often gets depicted as the laity versus the bishops, which does not truly represent the situation.
Is it accurate to say that those bishops who did attend Florence and agree there were "corrected" by their own laity on returning home?
 
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E.C.

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Is there room for this today? If the bishop represents the teaching authority of Christ, how does this work? If a set of bishops in a jurisdiction were in disagreement and no one wanted to be the "schismatic," would the jurisdiction end up "divided against itself"?
Yes, there is room for this today.

I can think of two contemporary situations. The first being the Calendar and the second being the more recent meeting in Crete.

With the Calendar we can see some autocephalous Churches (OCA, Greece, Antiochian) celebrate with the New Calendar while some (Russian, Jerusalem) celebrate with the Old, yet they are still in Communion with each other. However, there are some countries, such as Bulgaria, which celebrate one, but have schismatic groups that celebrate the other. Within the OCA the only diocese, to my knowledge, that celebrates on the Old Calendar completely is the Diocese of Alaska.


Now, the meeting in Crete that took place a year or so ago, frankly, we shall see. There are some synods who accept the decisions made there and others who do not. Sure there are bishops who have opinions about it, but a great deal of that is coming from their flock.
 
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buzuxi02

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Is it accurate to say that those bishops who did attend Florence and agree there were "corrected" by their own laity on returning home?
The reason why in Greece the Church doesnt use modern greek in church to read the gospel is because the laity protested against it.

But Florence is more of a complicated historical question. The eastern bishops were on house arrest during the council which lasted over 17 years. It lasted so long the Patriarch of Constantinople died of old age right before it came to an end and thus never signed. Some signed to just get it over with and recanted when they came back. Others held council with their synod within a few months and rejected Florence. Some of the Laity sided with St. Mark of Ephesus and they protested and did not hold communion with other bishops.
In Constantinople things get even more tricky. The reason why was the majority of the everyday people had no idea what took place. The authorities kept it a secret everyone figured all was good, the Latins came to their senses. They knew the laity would violently protest if they made public the outcome. This is why the decisions of the council were not read publicly for 3 or 4 years. When the acts were finally read Constantinople was captured by the Turks within weeks. This is why there is an Orthodox saying that Rome collapsed due to heresy and Constantinople due to sin (the sin of pseudo unity at florence).
 
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