Views on the 7 ecumenical councils

[graceandpeace]

It is my understanding that the RCC & the EOC view the early church councils - specifically the first seven - as ecumenical, as equally valid or catholic. Is this correct?

It is also my understanding that the OOC & Anglicans give greater weight to the first 3 (4?) councils, while giving less weight to the ones that follow, due to not considering them truly ecumenical, after the depature of Christian leadership amongst the churches that are known today as the OOC faith. Is this correct?

I'm just trying to get clarification from churches within apostolic succession. It's been a little bit since I've read up on this.

I know somewhat recently the OOC & Anglicans came to an understanding regarding Chalcedon & Christ's nature, I think it was.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Confessional Lutherans accept the seven counsels as well.

It is my understanding that the RCC & the EOC view the early church councils - specifically the first seven - as ecumenical, as equally valid or catholic. Is this correct?

It is also my understanding that the OOC & Anglicans give greater weight to the first 3 (4?) councils, while giving less weight to the ones that follow, due to not considering them truly ecumenical, after the depature of Christian leadership amongst the churches that are known today as the OOC faith. Is this correct?

I'm just trying to get clarification from churches within apostolic succession. It's been a little bit since I've read up on this.

I know somewhat recently the OOC & Anglicans came to an understanding regarding Chalcedon & Christ's nature, I think it was.

 

[Cappadocious]

It is my understanding that the RCC & the EOC view the early church councils - specifically the first seven - as ecumenical, as equally valid or catholic. Is this correct?

The Orthodox Church has 7-9 Ecumenical Councils, depending upon where one draws the timeline of the Empire of the Romans. The Orthodox 8th Ecumenical Council was held in 879 AD, whereas the council recognized by the Roman Catholic Church was held in 869 AD; both occurred in Constantinople. What we call the Ninth Ecumenical Council was held across 1341-1351 AD in Constantinople.

Other authoritative Orthodox councils after the 7th include synods at Blachernae, Iasi, Jerusalem, and others in Constantinople. For the Orthodox, Ecumenical councils were convened within the apparatus of the Empire of the Romans. Great Councils following the collapse of this Empire are commonly referred to as "Pan-Orthodox Councils."

The Roman Catholic Church, by contrast, held that later councils were Ecumenical in virtue of the papacy and magisterium's presence, and counts over twenty of them total. Furthermore, the Roman Catholics do not accept the Orthodox Council of Trullo, which supplied canons for the 6th Ecumenical Council.

It is also my understanding that the OOC & Anglicans give greater weight to the first 3 (4?) councils, while giving less weight to the ones that follow, due to not considering them truly ecumenical, after the depature of Christian leadership amongst the churches that are known today as the OOC faith. Is this correct?

Christian leadership departed surrounding the 3rd Ecumenical Council in what is known as the Ephesian Schism. This was a schism between the putatively-Nestorian Church of the East and the rest of the Churches.

Christian leadership departed again surrounding the 4th Eastern Orthodox/Roman Catholic Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in what is known as the Chalcedonian Schism, where Non-Chalcedonian (OOC), largely provincial segments of the Churches were separated from the Imperial Churches.

The Non-Chalcedonians held a council known as the Second Council of Ephesus, which has sometimes been treated as a Non-Chalcedonian 4th Ecumenical Council.

In other words, the Non-Chalcedonians revere the same 1st, 2nd and 3rd Ecumenical Councils as the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics, and also often revere a different 4th Council. Whereas the Church of the East only reveres the 1st and 2nd Councils, as well as, sometimes, the Council of Chalcedon.

 

[PaladinValer]

Anglicans have historically accepted all Seven in terms of their major theological decisions. Many of the other canons have been adhered to as well, although they aren't considered as important.

The agreement between the Anglicans and the Oriental Orthodox is extraordinarily significant, because the agreement specifically uses Chalcedonian language in an affirmative sense, which essentially ends any dispute that their Miaphysite theology is compatible with the Fourth Council; it most certainly is, and they've now said as much.

Now if we could get the Assyrian Church of the East to go that far, that would be amazing!

 

[ViaCrucis]

It seems pretty hard to get around that all seven of the Ecumenical Councils were incredibly essential in addressing matters of serious theological importance. While it might be easy to say just the first four were really important, both the fifth and sixth continued to emphasize the importance of the Hypostatic Union as Christological dogma. The seventh, which may not at first seem as important, is just as important because the theology of icons is intrinsically tied to the theology of the Incarnation.

I might point to the fact where emphatic Iconoclasm, deeply present in the last several hundred years of Western Christian history, has also coincided with theologies and a Christology that are quasi-Gnostic and often approaching Docetic. A belief in a rather "heavenly Christ" who sitting above the world is not particularly involved in the world, is not actively at work in the Church through His Sacraments, and the importance of the world and creation is shrugged away as irrelevant as eyes are set not to a future resurrection of the body, but an ethereal realm of eternal bliss somewhere skipping on clouds.

I'm not going to say post-Reformation Iconoclasm = modern semi-Gnosticism. But Iconoclasm certainly didn't hurt the shift in that direction which we've seen in Western Christendom.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Shane R]

The fourth council, Chalcedon, was poorly conceived and even more poorly executed. Chalcedon was more political than theological. Neither side was without fault: St. Cyril of Alexandria got greedy and over-played his hand and some of the other patriarchs were out to flex their muscle as well. Chalcedon is a travesty in church history, and its definition is not particularly helpful, but rather somewhat ambiguous. One can only speculate what church history would have looked like if the decisions at Ephesus had been left alone, rather than further developed at Chalcedon.

 

[Cappadocious]

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[Cappadocious]

Chalcedon is a travesty in church history, and its definition is not particularly helpful, but rather somewhat ambiguous. One can only speculate what church history would have looked like if the decisions at Ephesus had been left alone, rather than further developed at Chalcedon.

This is the popular contemporary position, but I am not convinced, because of a few things:

1. Monothelitism's popularity a century later, and the Christological expositions of the monothelites, the justifications of their doctrines, etc.
2. The logic of aphtharto-docetism, or Julianism, which relies on an existential confusion of the divine and human in Christ.
3. What members of the very small Neo-Patristic Oriental Orthodox movement end up saying about Christ.
4. The minutes of the council that condemned Eutyches.
5. The confusion between a teaching's being in line with Orthodoxy, and being a sufficient, or resilient, Orthodox teaching.

 

[graceandpeace]

Thanks so much for the input so far.

To clarify, I was trying to better understand which councils are considered ecumenical, or as representing all Christians, if that makes sense. I did know that Anglicans generally accept the theology from the first 7, but I wasn't clear about whether councils after Chalcedon were considered ecumenical, again because of the OOC situation. I'm sorry if I'm not making sense, my brain is seriously tired.

 

[Cappadocious]

To clarify, I was trying to better understand which councils are considered...as representing all Christians, if that makes sense.

Well... the Council of Jerusalem held by the Apostles (maybe)?

Or maybe the first and second, because the third is rejected by the Church of the East?

There's no easy answer to this question. It depends on who you consider Christian.

 

[graceandpeace]

Well... the Council of Jerusalem held by the Apostles (maybe)?

Or maybe the first and second, because the third is rejected by the Church of the East?

There's no easy answer to this question. It depends on who you consider Christian.

That's true. Sometimes when I try to read about the schisms or disagreements over the early councils, it seems much of it originated from misunderstandings. I don't know, it's tough. I'm rather accepting of a diversity of churches being considered Christian, though some churches I think better match Scripture & tradition than others.

 

[Cappadocious]

Sometimes when I try to read about the schisms or disagreements over the early councils, it seems much of it originated from misunderstandings.

That is a popular view today among the very small segment of scholars in recent years who've looked at these issues (the late Fr. V. C. Samuel is one, though I'm not as familiar with his work as I ought to be). At the level of high doctrinal formulation, it often seems that way to me, too.

But I've corresponded with at least one theologian and a few theologically-minded people from certain churches affected by these schisms. And sometimes they've told me things like this, with ample supposed justification from their tradition:

When Christ 'fasted' in the desert, he felt no hunger because his divinity and humanity are only distinguished hypothetically. When Christ wanted to finish fasting, he dialed back his divinity in order to hunger. The same went for things like Christ's human ignorance, his grief at Lazarus's funeral, his weariness at the well.

After some pressing, I (with no small amount of horror and reluctance) was forced to admit that they really thought something like this as far as I can tell, at least in their intellectual formulations. And those teachings, as far as I can tell, are not misunderstandings. They're something a lot worse.

 

[ViaCrucis]

That is a popular view today among the very small segment of scholars in recent years who've looked at these issues (the late Fr. V. C. Samuel is one, though I'm not as familiar with his work as I ought to be). At the level of high doctrinal formulation, it often seems that way to me, too.

But I've corresponded with at least one theologian and a few theologically-minded people from certain churches affected by these schisms. And sometimes they've told me things like this, with ample supposed justification from their tradition:

When Christ 'fasted' in the desert, he felt no hunger because his divinity and humanity are only distinguished hypothetically. When Christ wanted to finish fasting, he dialed back his divinity in order to hunger. The same went for things like Christ's human ignorance, his grief at Lazarus's funeral, his weariness at the well.

After some pressing, I (with no small amount of horror and reluctance) was forced to admit that they really thought something like this as far as I can tell, at least in their intellectual formulations. And those teachings, as far as I can tell, are not misunderstandings. They're something a lot worse.

As I'm always interested to learn more about theology and the history of the faith I'm quite thankful for your post where you mentioned the Apthartodocetae and Julian of Halicarnassus. I had never heard of this before.

But found it fascinating, largely because Aphthartodocetism seems like a pretty good term to describe a common Christological error that seems to crop up a lot these days. A desire to deny the real, actual humanity of Jesus and insist that Jesus be seen as only divine. Sort of what I was mentioning in my earlier post when I mentioned how often people want to imagine Christ as being only a "heavenly Christ". And additionally just how astonishingly often many modern Christians are so willing to dismiss and reject the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body by insisting that flesh won't rise, and thus we must receive "new 'spiritual' bodies".

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Cappadocious]

It's a popular one, indeed. But this distinguishes Aphthartodocetism from Eutychianism:

1. Eutychianism says that the humanity is naturally confused with the divinity.

2. Aphthartodocetists (though not the heresy's founder) often make a weaker claim: Christ technically does have two natures, divine and human; however, in actuality, they are confused in such a way that the divinity suppresses the humanity.
This is a manipulation of the Orthodox claim that we can only 'divide' Christ's natures in thought alone (the same way that we can consider a triangle without particular side lengths, even though such a thing could never exist in the actual world).
The Orthodox claim refers to actual unity, the heretical claim refers to actual homogeneity.

I believe this is why the 6th Ecumenical Council said that "...[Christ's] most holy and immaculate animated flesh was not destroyed because it was deified but continued in its own state and nature..." in order to guard against those who only affirm a true humanity in terms of abstract nature, but not actually.

Furthermore I believe the Aphthartodocetism is a symptom of our fallen rejection of Difference Without Division, which is a Christian principle that Orthodox Metropolitan Zizoulas of Pergamon refers to, and which Maximus the Confessor talks about.

 

[hedrick]

reject the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body by insisting that flesh won't rise, and thus we must receive "new 'spiritual' bodies".

Quite often this is a reference to 1 Cor 15:44. My understanding is that this is flesh, but transformed. Jesus, who is the first fruits of the resurrection, was able to go through walls. He had a body, inviting Thomas to put is hand on the holes, but it was transformed.

I would not interpret Scriptural terminology as heretical unless the context makes it very clear that it's being used in a difference sense.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Quite often this is a reference to 1 Cor 15:44. My understanding is that this is flesh, but transformed. Jesus, who is the first fruits of the resurrection, was able to go through walls. He had a body, inviting Thomas to put is hand on the holes, but it was transformed.

I would not interpret Scriptural terminology as heretical unless the context makes it very clear that it's being used in a difference sense.

Scriptural terminology is explicitly somatic though, both in the Gospels and Paul's writings. So a suggestion that the resurrection body is, ultimately, not a body at all but merely ethereal wind is, indeed, heretical and contrary to Christian teaching. Jesus rather emphatically tells His disciples that He is a solid person of flesh and bone, and as you yourself note, invites St. Thomas to touch and feel Him.

That His body was transformed is not in question, that He did things like pass through walls and appear suddenly is certainly evidence that there was something different; but it is not indicative that Christ became less solid, less human, less physical. Christ did not become less than what He was before, just as we won't become less than we are now in the resurrection.

One of the images that Lewis paints in The Great Divorce which I really like is when he talks about how "the ghosts" were unable to walk upon the grass properly, it was sharp and painful to them because it was more solid than they, but the "spirits" when they walked upon the same grass it bent under their feet. That is, that redeemed reality--and they being part of that redeemed reality--was fundamentally more solid, more real.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[hedrick]

That is a popular view today among the very small segment of scholars in recent years who've looked at these issues (the late Fr. V. C. Samuel is one, though I'm not as familiar with his work as I ought to be). At the level of high doctrinal formulation, it often seems that way to me, too.

But I've corresponded with at least one theologian and a few theologically-minded people from certain churches affected by these schisms. And sometimes they've told me things like this, with ample supposed justification from their tradition:

When Christ 'fasted' in the desert, he felt no hunger because his divinity and humanity are only distinguished hypothetically. When Christ wanted to finish fasting, he dialed back his divinity in order to hunger. The same went for things like Christ's human ignorance, his grief at Lazarus's funeral, his weariness at the well.

After some pressing, I (with no small amount of horror and reluctance) was forced to admit that they really thought something like this as far as I can tell, at least in their intellectual formulations. And those teachings, as far as I can tell, are not misunderstandings. They're something a lot worse.

Misunderstanding isn’t the only thing that was going on. First, there was a lot of politics. E.g. I’m convinced that majority didn’t want to understand Theodore, because they wanted him to be heretical for political reasons. Second, some of the reason for misunderstanding is likely that the person they’re misunderstanding had shortcomings in the way they formulated their ideas. This person argues that this is true of Athanasius: https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/st-athanasius-the-great-the-body-of-god/. (My own reaction on reading Athanaius is less kind.)

Today’s scholars no longer have the same axes to grind, and they also tend to be more willing to look at a person’s intent, and thus less willing to cry “heretic.” Given how Jesus taught us to treat each other, this seems like a good thing.

 

[Cappadocious]

What I described in my post 12 doesn't sound like a misunderstanding. Let bygones be bygones, but if that's what's being taught now, and that's what the neopatristic crowd wants to own as theirs, I have beef.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Sometimes when I try to read about the schisms or disagreements over the early councils, it seems much of it originated from misunderstandings. I don't know, it's tough. I'm rather accepting of a diversity of churches being considered Christian, though some churches I think better match Scripture & tradition than others.

The diversity in many ways allowed for the Gospel to go into further places than it ever went before and it is interesting to see the ways that things developed.

I thought the book "Jesus Wars" by Dr. Philip Jenkins in what he noted when it came to how things went.

• Phillip Jenkins book “Jesus Wars” seen from a Jungian view | stOttilien

• Jesus Wars

​

As he said:

“What ultimately became accepted as Christian orthodoxy was hammered out in a process that was painfully slow, gradual, and often bloody. This conflict was marked by repeated struggles, coups, and open warfare spread over centuries. It is easy to imagine another outcome in which the so-called Orthodox would have been scorned as heretics, with incalculable consequences for mainstream political history, not to mention all later Christian thought and devotion."...There was a time when the two-nature or God/man description of Jesus was a heresy. Doctrinal shifts went back and forth like a seesaw. The fact that it is now orthodoxy should lead to an examination of how it came to be that way, and Jenkins shows that all was not well. In fact the course of history depended not on just one man, but upon one horse! The horse of emperor Theodosius II stumbled, killing him. Had he lived he could easily have reigned another twenty years and Jenkins feels that the history of the world might have been quite different.​

And for a brief excerpt from the beginning of the book itself:

We cannot speak of Christ without declaring his full human nature, which was not even slightly diluted or abolished by the presence of divinity. That Chalcedonian definition today stands as the official formula for the vast majority of Christians, whether they are Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox — although how many of those believers could explain the definition clearly is open to debate. But as we are told, Chalcedon settled any controversy about the identity of Christ, so that henceforward any troublesome passages in the Bible or early tradition had to be read in the spirit of those powerful words. For over 1,500 years now, Chalcedon has provided the answer to Jesus' great question.

But Chalcedon was not the only possible solution, nor was it an obvious or, perhaps, a logical one. Only the political victory of Chalcedon's supporters allowed that council's ideas to become the inevitable lens through which later generations interpret the Christian message. It remains quite possible to read the New Testament and find very different Christologies, which by definition arose from churches very close to Jesus' time, and to his thought world. In particular, we easily find passages that suggest that the man

Jesus achieved Godhood at a specific moment during his life, or indeed after his earthly death.

In political terms, the most important critics of Chalcedon were those who stressed Christ's one divine nature, and from the Greek words for "one nature," we call them Monophysites. Not only were Monophysites numerous and influential, but they dominated much of the Christian world and the Roman Empire long after Chalcedon had done its work, and they were only defeated after decades of bloody struggle. Centuries after Chalcedon, Monophysites continued to prevail in the most ancient regions of Christianity, such as Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. The heirs of the very oldest churches, the ones with the most direct and authentic ties to the apostolic age, found their distinctive interpretation of Christ ruled as heretical. Pedigree counted for little in these struggles.

Each side persecuted its rivals when it had the opportunity to do so, and tens of thousands — at least — perished. Christ's nature was a cause for which people were prepared to kill and to die, to persecute or to suffer martyrdom. Modern Christians rarely feel much sympathy for either side in such bygone religious wars. Did the issues at stake really matter enough to justify bloodshed? Yet obviously, people at the time had no such qualms and cared passionately about how believers were supposed to understand the Christ they worshipped. Failing to understand Christ's natures properly made nonsense of everything Christians treasured: the content of salvation and redemption, the character of liturgy and Eucharist, the figure of the Virgin Mary. Each side had its absolute truth, faith in which was essential to salvation.

Horror stories about Christian violence abound in other eras, with the Crusades and Inquisition as prime exhibits; but the intra- Christian violence of the fifth- and sixth-century debates was on a far larger and more systematic scale than anything produced by the Inquisition and occurred at a much earlier stage of church history. When Edward Gibbon wrote his classic account of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, he reported countless examples of Christian violence and fanaticism. This is his account of the immediate aftermath of Chalcedon:

Jerusalem was occupied by an army of [Monophysite] monks; in the name of the one incarnate Nature, they pillaged, they burnt, they murdered; the sepulchre of Christ was defiled with blood. . . . On the third day before the festival of Easter, the [Alexandrian] patriarch was besieged in the cathedral, and murdered in the baptistery. The remains of his mangled corpse were delivered to the flames, and his ashes to the wind; and the deed was inspired by the vision of a pretended angel. . . . This deadly superstition was inflamed, on either side, by the principle and the practice of retaliation: in the pursuit of a metaphysical quarrel, many thousands were slain.

Chalcedonians behaved at least as badly in their campaigns to enforce their particular orthodoxy. In the eastern city of Amida, a Chalcedonian bishop dragooned dissidents, to the point of burning them alive. His most diabolical scheme involving taking lepers, "hands festering and dripping with blood and pus," and billeting them on the Monophysite faithful until they saw reason.

Even the Eucharist became a vital component of religious terror. Throughout the long religious wars, people were regularly (and frequently) reading others out of the church, declaring formal anathemas, and the sign for this was admitting or not admitting people to communion. In extreme episodes, communion was enforced by physical violence, so that the Eucharist, which is based upon ideas of self-giving and self-sacrifice, became an instrument of oppression. A sixth-century historian records how the forces of Constantinople's Chalcedonian patriarch struck at Monophysite religious houses in the capital. Furnished with supplies of consecrated bread, the patriarch's clergy were armed and dangerous. They "dragged and pulled [the nuns] by main force to make them receive the communion at their hands. And they all fled like birds before the hawk, and cowered down in corners, wailing and saying, 'We cannot communicate with the synod of Chalcedon, which divides Christ our God into two Natures after the union, and teaches a Quaternity instead of the Holy Trinity.'" But their protests were useless. "They were dragged up to communicate; and when they held their hands above their heads, in spite of their screams their hands were seized, and they were dragged along, uttering shrieks of lamentation, and sobs, and loud cries, and struggling to escape. And so the sacrament was thrust by force into the mouths of some, in spite of their screams, while others threw themselves on their faces upon the ground, and cursed every one who required them to communicate by force." They might take the Eucharist kicking and screaming — literally — but once they had eaten, they were officially in communion with Chalcedon and with the church that preached that doctrine.​

I appreciated how Jenkins noted that the events in how the Church developed indicated "the idea of Providence, of God’s intervening in history, often through highly improbable agents" and noting that “the process of establishing orthodoxy involved a huge amount of what we might call political accident—depending on the outcome of dynastic succession, on victory or defeat in battle, on the theological tastes of key figures"....in addition to noting that these issues of process look much more troubling [in retrospect]—so troubling, in fact, that they must raise questions about why the churches believe what they do.”

 

[Gxg (G²)]

The fourth council, Chalcedon, was poorly conceived and even more poorly executed. Chalcedon was more political than theological. Neither side was without fault: St. Cyril of Alexandria got greedy and over-played his hand and some of the other patriarchs were out to flex their muscle as well. Chalcedon is a travesty in church history, and its definition is not particularly helpful, but rather somewhat ambiguous. One can only speculate what church history would have looked like if the decisions at Ephesus had been left alone, rather than further developed at Chalcedon.

The councils themselves have a lot of violent history that tends to get lost in the process of understanding what councils were accepted and how each council is dealt with when many Churches claim they are the "One True Church" - although I tend to see common threads in all of them. As said best elsewhere:

GG

My opinion - so probably not "authoritative" - is that the RC and EOC and OOC are all part of the One True Church. I'm liberal enough that I would accept many orthodox protestant churches as part of the One True Church also. Here, we're talking about Churches/Denominations.

But truly I see the "One True Church", or just "The Church", as being the body of believers. I believe there are people who are outwardly members of many churches - RC, EOC, OOC, Protestant, etc - but inwardly are not of a True Faith. Such people are not part of The Church although they appear to be. I also believe that there are people who are not members of an established Church but are still Christians and therefore are part of The Church. For example, a person who hears the Gospel and believes but perhaps lives in a place where no Church is available still is a Christian but can't help the fact that he or she can't join a Church.

So that's my opinion.

Originally Posted by (G²)There are definitely many aspects on what you said which I can more than agree with - as it concerns others not connected to the Church even though they are visibly a part of it (as in outwardly), similar to the saying "Just because you're in a garage doesn't make you a car." Although I do believe and have been taught that Orthodoxy (as the early Church understood it) is truly the fullness of the Faith (from the Sacraments to the expression of the Spiritual Gifts/Charisma to the Divine Liturgy, etc.), I also believe that there are others who are still part of the Body of Christ even when they may either not be aware of the fullness available in Orthodoxy or connected with it - God can have others in many places ...and We know where God is, but we don't know where he isn't. All of the Church is interconnected - some of the language in saying that seeming somewhat similar to Branch Theory (even though I don't adhere to that even as I recognize where the Church is multifaceted and God is not limited) - but The most consistent representation of the early Church, as far as I am aware, really is found within Eastern Christianity - and thus, there's a great need for both OO and EO to reconcile.....which is thankfully happening (more here ), even as others debate the matter. I'm thankful for the work of unification being documented in-depth so that others can be encouraged - as seen in Ecclesiology and the Dialogues Between Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches « Orthodox Unity (Orthodox Joint Commission)

And as it concerns other camps, I think it makes a world of difference to recognize where geography can impact a lot of what is seen to be the ONLY way to go. As said best elsewhere in MONKS AND MERMAIDS (A Benedictine Blog): THE ASSYRIAN CHURCH OF THE EAST AND THE CHALDEAN CATHOLIC CHURCH , for a brief excerpt (AND to be clear, I don't agree with all the conclusions of the author in the article):

The long term effect of the conversion of Constantine and the "Peace of the Church" was to divide Christendom into three blocks, according to the relationship of each with the Byzantine Empire.

Firstly, there were the "Orthodox" who lived in territories at peace with the Byzantine Empire or, after its fall, hoped that the Russian Tsar would replace the emperor as his natural successor. This block lived in the most stable environment where Christianity had the upper hand. They could continue to rely on the emperor to unify the Church within his domain and had little temptation to find an alternative. For them, the emperor (or Tsar) served as the centre of administrative unity. At certain times they showed a respect toward and acceptance of the Roman see as successor of St Peter, especially when emperors adopted heresies or when they needed western intervention; but, in general, the pope lived too far away to be constantly in their thoughts, and the emperor was very much nearer. Because they lived in a stable environment where the Empire functioned, they suffered the illusion that they alone remained faithful to the Gospel and all churches were to be judged according to their distance or nearness to Orthodoxy which, after all, was only a portion of the Church, albeit an important portion

From very early on in the West, the Byzantine Empire was too weak to fulfil even the basic functions of government. It could neither keep order nor defend the West against its enemies, and it certainly could not guarantee the unity of either church or state. The saga of King Arthur and the Round Table has its origins in the retreat of the Empire and the defence of the Romanized Celts against the barbarian hoards from Germany. Historical accident or divine Providence left Gregory the Great as the only person capable of organizing the people of a large part of Italy in such a way that they could live in relative peace and be protected from the invaders. The representative of the Byzantine Emperor could do nothing except look pretty.

In contrast to the Byzantine empire, it became the function of the Church to impose order, even in secular affairs; and it was Rome that made sure that Western Europe, ecclesiatical and civil, did not disintegrate. Because the Byzantine Empire did not function in the West, the Catholic Church had to find a means to unify the Church within its own constitution; and the Bishop of Rome, accepted by all as successor of St Peter, was the obvious candidate. It must be emphasized that this was a question of survival in the west. The fact that, where Roman unity became the norm, there was a flourishing of new religious communities and many saints, and that where it was resisted it was normally for the very worst of reasons, led Rome to believe that, wherever the centralizing power of Rome was resisted, even in the Byzantine Empire where there were different problems. It was for the same corrupt reasons: the Eastern bishops were in the pockets of the civil authority, were doing very nicely and were resisting the rigours of the Gospel. Thus, the West, like the East when it thought of Catholicism, interpreted Orthodoxy from its own limited standpoint. Moreover, the Frankish Empire resented its Eastern counterpart that claimed, with reason, to be the only authentic Roman Empire, and wanted to use any method to discredit it. ..

The third block could be called the "Semitic" block. Its liturgical language was neither Greek nor Latin, but a semitic language. It retained a far stronger Judeao-Christian influence than in the other two blocks (worshipping with head covered, for instance.

Again, the division was along political lines and can be divided between the Assyrian Church of the East, that lived outside the Byzantine Empire and hence did not attend the historic ecumenical councils, and the Coptic Church with Ethiopia and the Syrian Orthodox Church that lived within the Empire but wanted to be free from its yoke. The Assyrian Church, the Syrian Orthodox and the Catholic Maronites had Aramaic, the language of Christ, as their liturgical language - indeed they spoke a more current version of the language in their everyday life and were Syrians by race, while the Copts and Ethiopians celebrated the liturgy in Ge'ez, another Semitic language. It is out of that aprt of the Church that had a strong semitic influence that monasticism sprang. In Syrian Christianity, there was the strange phenomenon of the "Sons and Daughter of the Covenant"in Syria in the 3rd and fourth centuries who only baptized celebates and who shared a strictly communal life; and it was from the Church of Alexandria that was a centre of Jewish spiritual and intellectual life even before Christianity arrived, that the first monks went into the desert. The words "Abbot", "Aba", "Abuna" come neither from Egyptian, Greek or Latin, but from Aramaic.

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For more on the issue, one can go to Adrian Fortescue and the Eastern Christian Churches - Anthony Dragani
. The Church had issues within itself that required questioning and complex dialogue....and sometimes, differences in trajectory which many look back and assume were matters of one side being 100% correct while the other was 100% wrong when it could easily have been a matter of both sides working out perspectives as best as they possibly could. ...be it with many of the Councils or the ways certain groups thrived in other places where other groups perished - and seeing the differences in thinking, like the differences between the Byzantines and the Ghassanids - The Christian Arabs or the Church of the East and other groups. There are excellent books on the issue that really bring the issue home - as seen in the book entitled Christianity in Iraq: Its Origins and Development to the Present Day by Suha Rassam

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There's also the work entitled Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century.

And Father Ernesto also spoke on the issue when it came to commonality being central - as seen here in On theology and set theory | OrthoCuban . At the end of the day, if truly believing the Oriental Orthodox Church is the ONE TRue Apostolic Church, one has to be aware of the fact that there are others operating on remnants of what the Church is about and we should always seek to see God's grace in others.