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Overcoming gridlock between EOs and OOs over Chalcedon's Formula

To EOs: Which do you consider more preferable? To OOs: May one say Christ is "in two natures"?

  • EO reply: Reunion w OOs, even if the debate on natures is unresolved, IF there is no real difference

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • OO reply: No.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • OO reply: Other

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    6
  • Poll closed .

Sirlanky

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If he believes Christ only is divine he is a heretic.
 
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Sirlanky

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The EO should not give up on chalcedon. I believe the oriental orthodox should accept 'in two natures' as being orthodox and accept the tome of St Leo.
 
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ArmyMatt

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He is a st. St Leo the great. But I do have a question for you. Do you believe everything that the holy councils said it infallible?

Yes as far as the statements of faith, anathemas, and doctrinal definitions go.

And you are the first non Chalcedonian who calls St Leo a saint
 
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rakovsky

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Do you believe everything that the holy councils said it infallible?
That could be an overgeneralization or oversimplification, since some canons EOs don't follow today. It's clearer to me to just say that the main formulas are true and that the canons contain truth, but the infallibility is not individually total and monolithic about each canon.
 
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Sirlanky

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Yes as far as the statements of faith, anathemas, and doctrinal definitions go.

And you are the first non Chalcedonian who calls St Leo a saint

I am unusual when it comes to oriental orthodox. However there are others who agree with me that the tome of St Leo is orthodox. My point as to why I'm not Eastern Orthodox is that I am orthodox already and see no point in repeating sacraments. I pray that the schism between oriental and Eastern Orthodox ends, but sadly I don't see it happening in this life anymore. I used to, but I'm a little bit more realistic now then I used to be. What I do see happening however is a greater allowance for intercommunion of laity between eastern and oriental orthodoxy
 
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Sirlanky

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One possible action I see as a posibility for reunion would be the oriental orthodox accepting Chalcedon, and all subsequent councils, in exchange a reunified church would lift the anathemas against oriental orthodox saints, and would also list the anathemas against Eastern Orthodox saints.
 
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ArmyMatt

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That will never happen. The Church did not misspeak in condemning Severus. If you accept the councils, you cannot cherry pick what is true and what is not. If our councils are true, Severus is a heretic
 
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rakovsky

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If you accept the councils, you cannot cherry pick what is true and what is not. If our councils are true, Severus is a heretic
But then we have the fact that some canons of past councils are not imposed any more, and there were Council canons that were never accepted by certain EO churches.. There is a canon against having a Jewish doctor.

Rev John H Erickson, an Orthodox dean, claims:
http://www.svots.edu/content/beyond-dialogue-quest-eastern-and-oriental-orthodox-unity-today

Saying that Severus is idiosyncratic is a euphemestic way of reflecting the semantic problems with Severus' writings. I agree that it's wrong to deny that Christ is in two natures or to assert that Christ is a unity of two hypostases. But if you look at the substance of his beliefs, I think he did not actually think what he was expressing.

So this leads to the question: If someone's mistake is semantic, is she/he heretical? Hypostasis etymologically means "substance", not necessarily a person's whole united being itself. For example, Hebrews 11 says: "Now faith is the substance (hypostasis) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." But hypostasis eventually came to be used to mean a whole united being, even though I think that etymologically that change was a mistake.

Blessed Theodoret Cyrene, in his debate with St. Cyril, noted that hypostasis meant nature, and that since there were two "hypostases", there must be two natures.

Just compare:
Theodoret would be under anathema per an anathema accepted at an ecumenical council, since he divided the "hypostases". But in doing so he meant substance, not "hypostasis" as we understand it today.

The 2nd Council of Nicea says about Severus:
What is " the unlawful art of painting living creatures"? It seems that churches do sometimes paint animals.

I don't have a strong opinion on whether the anathemas should be lifted, but I note that councils have been acceded to without every canon being affirmed. The main thing should be the faith formulas, eg. "in two natures".
 
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ArmyMatt

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Again, the Church guided by the Holy Spirit would not have anathematized someone who was just in some semantic error.

And we are not talking about the canons as much as the doctrinal statements. Severus was anathematized in his person, which makes him a heretic and he will always be a heretic.
 
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rakovsky

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Again, the Church guided by the Holy Spirit would not have anathematized someone who was just in some semantic error.
The premise seems to be that every decision out of thousands made by the councils must be correct in every way.

But as I understand it, we only say that each canon only has an underlying truth.
And so some canons aren't followed.
And we are not talking about the canons as much as the doctrinal statements. Severus was anathematized in his person, which makes him a heretic and he will always be a heretic.
Cyril 12 anathema are directed against the person of anyone who breaks them, ie Let him be anathema. But Cyril was in dispute with Blessed Theodoret, and I'm hesitant to impose every anathema of every council.

What do you think about a situation where a person makes a semantically fake teaching that he himself does not literally believe? Does that make him a heretic?

I am not asking that rhetorically. I am not sure.

I think Dioscorus failed to understand the semantic logic of in two natures, as do many OOs. But once those OOS understand the semantics they are ok.

I have seen repeatedly numerous educated OOS fail to give a fully consistent, coherent definition of nature.
 
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rakovsky

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If someone objects to saying that a "nature acted", is their mistaken objection semantic or heretical? It seems to me that this objection is semantic.
So for example the OO Dzheremi objects to saying that "Christ's human nature suffered", that by making this statement we consider the human nature to be a separate being. This mistaken objection seems to be at root a semantic one. Dzheremi is not denying that Christ was a human who suffered, or that he suffered in the flesh as opposed to the godhead.

I have seen over a hundred pages of EO and OO debates that directly or indirectly revolve around the use and meaning of the word "nature", such that EOs and OOs agree with each other when using various definitions of the word (eg. essences or properties) as opposed to the word itself.
 
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ArmyMatt

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The premise seems to be that every decision out of thousands made by the councils must be correct in every way.

But as I understand it, we only say that each canon only has an underlying truth.
And so some canons aren't followed.

we're not talking about the canons.

Cyril 12 anathema are directed against the person of anyone who breaks them, ie Let him be anathema. But Cyril was in dispute with Blessed Theodoret, and I'm hesitant to impose every anathema of every council.

actually he was in dispute with Nestorius, and he affirmed to John of Antioch that his anathemas were directed at the Nestorian heresy, not at the Antiochian school of Christology.

What do you think about a situation where a person makes a semantically fake teaching that he himself does not literally believe? Does that make him a heretic?

I am not asking that rhetorically. I am not sure.

if that is the case, the Church would not name him a heretic in the first place. check out the Three Chapters. Ibas' writing was condemned, but Ibas himself was not.

I think Dioscorus failed to understand the semantic logic of in two natures, as do many OOs. But once those OOS understand the semantics they are ok.

if they understand and affirm that, they would have no issue with the definition of Chalcedon or the Tome of St Leo.

I have seen repeatedly numerous educated OOS fail to give a fully consistent, coherent definition of nature.

same with us (meaning EOs giving coherent definitions), that is why Chalcedon and Constantinople 2 and 3 are MUSTS for true Christology.

If someone objects to saying that a "nature acted", is their mistaken objection semantic or heretical? It seems to me that this objection is semantic.

it certainly could be.


if he would say that I would agree. I had a good personal discussion with him about that.


hence Constantinople 2 which affirmed that correct understanding is key, not merely the words. the Church would not have been split for so long over just semantics. both sides claim that they were genuinely seeking to preserve the Truth. this basically means that semantics are stronger than the work of the Holy Spirit with two camps of faithful people.
 
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Sirlanky

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The church would declare him as heretic of intolerance was at such a high level that complete dialogue broke down. Up until the 20th century the Eastern Orthodox considered us to be monophysites. Now, we are largely considered to be orthodox in christology but in schism for rejecting chalcedon. So that means if our christology is the same, the Eastern Orthodox Church was wrong on about us for 1500 years. The oriental Orthodox Church was wrong for 1500 years. Intolerance and lack of compassion do much damage
 
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rakovsky

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Matt!

I know. I have nice discussions with Dzheremi, which reflects how I would like the churches to come to agreement.
Over and over the discussions keep returning to grammatical and semantic issues. For example, he says that to ascribe an action to humanity or a nature means that humanity or nature is a person. So he interprets statements by EOs that a nature performed an action or had an experience (like suffering), then it means we are talking about two persons when we say two natures. This mistaken objection is inherently grammatical. He is making an objection that we assert two persons, which we don't. He is not denying what we intend to say, ie. that Christ has two substances.

Dzheremi's semantic arguments are exactly the same ones that Dioscorus and Severus mistakenly made against two natures. They both asserted that Christ having or being in two natures implied that he is in two person, which it doesn't. They always claimed that Christ was human and divine, they just could not handle talking about two "natures", at root a mental, grammatical irrational mistake about what the implications are about saying something has two natures.

Let me give you some good illustrations from my latest discussions about this, revolving around what are the semantic implications of saying "two natures":

The situation woul be analogous to millions of Christians refusing to affirm the Nicene Creed because it says Jesus was "not made", because they considered the phrase to be a denial of the incarnation (Athanasius wrote that Christ was "made" in the incarnation, elsewhere). The appropriate solution would be for them to understand "not made" in context.

The same thing goes for the OOs. The solution would be for them to read "two natures" in agreement with Chalcedon's phrases "two essences" and "one hypostasis". This reading of "one being in two natures" is possible as a matter of elementary grammar which they fail to grasp.
 
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rakovsky

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Now, we are largely considered to be orthodox in christology but in schism for rejecting chalcedon. So that means if our christology is the same,
Can a semantically mistaken statement on Christology be Christologically correct?

Was it heretical to deny that Mary was the "Theotokos", because the term's opponents thought that this implied that she gave birth to divinity itself?

I don't have a strict answer to these two questions.
 
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ArmyMatt

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And I think we would say that you are moving toward us, and that communion is returning to her Apostolic roots
 
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ArmyMatt

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yeah, it might be a lot of semantic stuff now, but theologically they would have to accept all of the Ecumenical Councils which would include the anathemas of Severus. that is theology and not semantics. if it were merely semantics, Chalcedon would not divide.
 
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ArmyMatt

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Can a semantically mistaken statement on Christology be Christologically correct?

no, if the Church affirms the statement with Orthodox understanding, it was not semantically mistaken (ie "of two Natures" and "in two Natures")

Was it heretical to deny that Mary was the "Theotokos", because the term's opponents thought that this implied that she gave birth to divinity itself?

after Ephesus, yes.
 
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