What exactly is the "Church"?

[prodromos]

you guys sure didn't treat him very well

What a stupid comment.
St John Chrysostom was incredibly popular. You seem to be conflating one emperor with the whole of the Orthodox Church.

 

[kepha31]

The only contemporary source for the "Massacre of the Latins" is William of Tyre, who was extremely anti-Greek. Contemporary Genoese and Venetian sources only mention usurers and merchants being expelled from the city.

The sack of Constantinople was lead and urged by Latin clergy, and loot from it, including the relics of saints, remain in the Vatican to this day. Furthermore, a Latin Empire, which deposed the Orthodox bishops and replaced with Latin bishops, was fully supported and sanctioned by the Pope: Latin Empire - Wikipedia The people who sacked and raped us, were put in charge over us by the Pope.

Most of the Orthodox Church (including the Patriarch you picture embracing the Pope) rejected the meeting you link to. The Russian Church also has good relations with Franklin Graham (even better than with the Pope, I daresay), that doesn't mean we're on the same page as Protestants.

2. No one is unaware of the challenge which all this poses to believers. They cannot fail to meet this challenge. Indeed, how could they refuse to do everything possible, with God's help, to break down the walls of division and distrust, to overcome obstacles and prejudices which thwart the proclamation of the Gospel of salvation in the Cross of Jesus, the one Redeemer of man, of every individual?

I thank the Lord that he has led us to make progress along the path of unity and communion between Christians, a path difficult but so full of joy. Interconfessional dialogues at the theological level have produced positive and tangible results: this encourages us to move forward.

Nevertheless, besides the doctrinal differences needing to be resolved, Christians cannot underestimate the burden of long-standing misgivings inherited from the past, and of mutual misunderstandings and prejudices. Complacency, indifference and insufficient knowledge of one another often make this situation worse. Consequently, the commitment to ecumenism must be based upon the conversion of hearts and upon prayer, which will also lead to the necessary purification of past memories. With the grace of the Holy Spirit, the Lord's disciples, inspired by love, by the power of the truth and by a sincere desire for mutual forgiveness and reconciliation, are called to re-examine together their painful past and the hurt which that past regrettably continues to provoke even today. All together, they are invited by the ever fresh power of the Gospel to acknowledge with sincere and total objectivity the mistakes made and the contingent factors at work at the origins of their deplorable divisions. What is needed is a calm, clear-sighted and truthful vision of things, a vision enlivened by divine mercy and capable of freeing people's minds and of inspiring in everyone a renewed willingness, precisely with a view to proclaiming the Gospel to the men and women of every people and nation.
Ut Unum Sint (25 May 1995) | John Paul II

 

[bbbbbbb]

The only contemporary source for the "Massacre of the Latins" is William of Tyre, who was extremely anti-Greek. Contemporary Genoese and Venetian sources only mention usurers and merchants being expelled from the city.

The sack of Constantinople was lead and urged by Latin clergy, and loot from it, including the relics of saints, remain in the Vatican to this day. Furthermore, a Latin Empire, which deposed the Orthodox bishops and replaced with Latin bishops, was fully supported and sanctioned by the Pope: Latin Empire - Wikipedia The people who sacked and raped us, were put in charge over us by the Pope.

Most of the Orthodox Church (including the Patriarch you picture embracing the Pope) rejected the meeting you link to. The Russian Church also has good relations with Franklin Graham (even better than with the Pope, I daresay), that doesn't mean we're on the same page as Protestants.

Just one small correction here. It was Billy Graham, the father of Franklin, who had good relations with the Russian Church. Given the current hostility by the Russian Church against Evangelicals, it certainly did mean that they were definitely not on the same page.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Since the OO haven't changed since the schism (unlike Catholics, who have changed a lot), a merger is not only a possibility, it's pretty much completely agreed on both sides it is going to happen. It's a lot of paperwork, so to speak, because there's a lot to go over after this long, but in many circumstances we are already functionally One. The main issue when we separated is there were a lot of crypto-Euthychians in their camp (saying Christ's humanity became so sublated by his divinity that it ceased to exist as humanity), and a lot of crypto-Nestorians in ours (those denying the Word was crucified, saying only Christ's humanity was). Both of us we rightfully considered about one of those elements gaining control or being sanctioned. Since then, we've each purged the respective heretical elements on our camps.

We're not interested in uniting with Rome, we've seen how Rome treats uniates.

After the First Vatican Council concluded, an emissary of the Roman Curia was dispatched to secure the signatures of the patriarch and the Melkite delegation. Gregory and the Melkite bishops subscribed to it, but added the qualifying clause used at the Council of Florence: "except the rights and privileges of Eastern patriarchs."[11][14] He earned the enmity of Pope Pius IX for this; during his next visit to the pontiff Gregory was cast to the floor at Pius' feet by the Papal guard and the pope placed his foot on the patriarch's head.[15][16]

1 John 2:19

If Rome wants to overtly renounce Papal Supremacy, then we can begin talks in earnest. Until then, talks between Rome and Orthodoxy aren't going to bring us any closer to reunion, they're just good for alleviating hostility, serving as joint moral witnesses, that sort of thing.

Protestants bodies merging together are mainly merging into a super liberal ball (like the Episcopal union with the ELCA), or just dropping out of denomination and becoming rock churches.

A chunk of Protestant churches have actually merged with us: Evangelical Orthodox Church - Wikipedia

Mimicking Holy Mysteries, is not the same thing as actual Holy Mysteries. Mimicking the Church, doesn't make you the Church, especially if you choose not to choice the Church and make an imitation Church, just so you can start your own school of Christianity, instead of sticking with the one founded by Christ and the Apostles. The Antichrist will come mimicking Christ, that doesn't make him Christ. Satan appears as mimicking an "angel of light", that doesn't make him one. And mimicking the Body of Christ, doesn't make you the Body of Christ. No one is leaving you out in the cold. It is not a matter of conscience, there is no excuse for that today. Because the Orthodox are the only Christians who have existed continuously for 2,000 years; it is indisputable that not Protestants have, so they cannot possibly claim to be the Church Christ founded. And Papist Christianity didn't start in earnest until the "Donation of Constantine" was forged.

Thank you for the link to the Evangelical Orthodox Church. I had been vaguely aware of its existence, but now I know much more about it. If I were Eastern Orthodox I would maintain a healthy skepticism toward it. In my personal dealings with individuals from Campus Crusade for Christ I found them to be surprisingly shallow and easily led in various directions.

 

[victorinus]

What a stupid comment.
St John Chrysostom was incredibly popular. You seem to be conflating one emperor with the whole of the Orthodox Church.

they were all bishops led by the bishop of alexandria

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

they were all bishops led by the bishop of alexandria

Yes, so? Most Orthodox aren't bishops, and most of Chrysostom's flock loved him enormously. Even the empress's daughter, Saint Pulcheria, loved him, and was the major impetus behind his canonization (along with Saint Cyril, the nephew of the Pope of Alexandria who was Chrysostom's enemy). Chrysostom had so many enemies largely because of his influence: he was seen as a threat, he hurled tremendous invective regarding wealth amidst so much poverty, and set an example of asceticism and poverty that made the other bishops look bad.

 

[victorinus]

Yes, so? Most Orthodox aren't bishops

the bishops were the ones who ran him out of town

 

[prodromos]

the bishops were the ones who ran him out of town

We don't remember any of those bishops as Saints, do we.
Saint Nektarios Pentapolis suffered similarly at the hands of other bishops. It simply afforded him an opportunity to grow in humility and obedience, becoming perfected in Christ.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

the bishops were the ones who ran him out of town

So? We don't see bishops doing something, as necessarily representative of the Church doing it. The bishops, in doing that, did it illegally, covertly, and at complete odds with Chrysostom's flock. We don't see these bishops are speaking for our Church, we see them as dissenting from it. As I've made clear in the OP, our clergy preside in the Church, the Church is not "under" them. 1 Peter 5:3 says the clergy are not to be lords over God's inheritance, but as patterns and types for her to be perfected in.

This highlights how Rome and us conceive differently of the Church. For Rome, the Church is an almost political entity, and the clergy are the rulers; so if the rulers do something, it is equated with that political entity doing it. For us, it is completely different.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

Hence, where does this leave us? I guess we are left with individuals looking at their own consciences and deciding where they can best obtain salvation.

I might also add that this includes all religions, as well as atheism. That doesn't mean we have to accept all religions and atheism as true or salvific. I don't claim to know who will or will not be saved, as an Orthodox my personal perspective should be that everyone else will be saved, only I will be damned. Nonetheless, that doesn't mean I have to accept schools that sprout out externally to the Church, as part of the Church; being part of the Church means joining her, and that can only be done through the Church, not by copying the Church.

 

[kepha31]

So? We don't see bishops doing something, as necessarily representative of the Church doing it. The bishops, in doing that, did it illegally, covertly, and at complete odds with Chrysostom's flock. We don't see these bishops are speaking for our Church, we see them as dissenting from it. As I've made clear in the OP, our clergy preside in the Church, the Church is not "under" them. 1 Peter 5:3 says the clergy are not to be lords over God's inheritance, but as patterns and types for her to be perfected in.

This highlights how Rome and us conceive differently of the Church. For Rome, the Church is an almost political entity, and the clergy are the rulers; so if the rulers do something, it is equated with that political entity doing it. For us, it is completely different.

"...it is insufficient to point to the first seven ecumenical councils as the criterion of Eastern Orthodoxy, as these councils can better be adduced in proof of the Catholic position. In fact, a real consideration of what constitutes an ecumenical council is not helpful at all to today's Eastern Orthodoxy, it seems to me.
Are there not disagreements even among among Eastern Orthodox as to which councils are ecumenical?
Why are there only seven for some EO's, but more for others?
Who finally decides whether a given council is ecumenical or not?
What about the Robber Council of Ephesus?
Why has the separated East failed to have any more ecumenical councils, if
(1) she says they alone are the highest authority, and
(2) she had them formerly at the rate of one per century?

What happened, are there no more threats to the faith? Can it be that without Rome Eastern Orthodoxy is not the same church that she was before the separation from Rome?

It seems to me that the real criterion of Eastern Orthodoxy, i.e., what sets it apart from Catholicism (though this also makes it kindred with Protestants), is something over and beyond the ("first seven"?) ecumenical councils. The root of it is what I'll call here the "anti-Roman animus", a reflexive refusal to admit any Roman teaching, and this despite the fact that no witness of ecumenical councils against Roman teaching can be found. Indeed no such witness can be found since the early ecumenical councils are better witnesses to Roman teaching than they are to the modern EO denial of it.

So what the EO are stuck with is this popular anti-Roman animus founded ultimately on Eastern nationalism and ethnocentrism and fed by lurid claims of Western injustices or heresies. But justifications for the EO denial of Catholic doctrine seem to me always to be insufficient even by an EO yardstick: for the EO's with no ecumenical councils for the past 13 centuries there is no definitive infallible EO judgement in this matter, only individual rejections and private theories and local catechisms that even by EO principles might logically be wrong or heretical and are even assailed as such be some Eastern Orthodox, so that, quite logically by EO principles, Rome's teaching (or anyone else's) might indeed be the correct one. I have been told by some EO's that an EO could accept the Catholic doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Roman Primacy (!) without being a formal heretic, and we know that the EO hierarchy at the Council of Florence accepted the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory before they went back on their word later after they had returned home, all this yet another illustration that the EO's without Rome cannot be sure of the correctness of their own doctrinal teaching.

"...three successive editions of Kallistos Ware's book on Orthodoxy betray the recent decades' change in EO teaching on contraception (paralleling the earlier Protestant collapse on the same issue); one may say that Ware is not authoritative, but he is an EO bishop, and what more authoritative source is one likely to have? A Russian Orthodox priest I know who is also a professor of history and classics, even told me privately that he as an EO priest was ashamed of the EO practice of remarrying divorced people, since even the muted way it is done among today's EO's testifies to their failure to uphold the apostolic teaching. So, anyway, EO claims that Eastern Orthodoxy does not teach this or that have to be taken with a grain of salt. Is it their doctrine, or just dyspepsia in the face of Rome's teaching?

Are these tough comments? You bet! I have said them, however, not because I dislike the East or the Eastern Orthodox or non-Catholics in general, nor because I am a Western "legalist" who can't understand "the spirit of the East". No, I've said these things because true regard for the Eastern Orthodox means I have to tell them the truth, viz., that they need Rome today just as much as their ancestors of the first millenium needed Rome then. Rome, in the words of the great Vladimir Soloviev, a "Russian Orthodox in union with the Apostolic See of Rome," is that "miraculous icon of universal Christianity." With Rome the Eastern Orthodox would again be complete and Catholic, and one with the same Undivided Church to which they once belonged.

Biblical Evidence for Catholicism: Critique of Orthodoxy (John McAlpine)

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

 

[Basil the Great]

Yes, it is true that almost all EO Bishops agreed to a reunion at Florence. However, St. Mark of Ephesus refused to accept the Catholic teaching on Purgatory and thus was not for reunion. Apparently when news of the reunion reach the East, the laity rejected the vote of approval by the Orthodox Bishops. This seems to be a demonstration of Sensus Fidelium or sense of the faithful, a concept that even Rome even referred to at Vatican II.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

Yes, it is true that almost all EO Bishops agreed to a reunion at Florence. However, St. Mark of Ephesus refused to accept the Catholic teaching on Purgatory and thus was not for reunion. Apparently when news of the reunion reach the East, the laity rejected the vote of approval by the Orthodox Bishops. This seems to be a demonstration of Sensus Fidelium or sense of the faithful, a concept that even Rome even referred to at Vatican II.

Rome's misunderstanding of Florence stems fundamentally from our different approach to councils than theirs. We see the laity's reception as required, they don't see the laity as involved at all.

 

[prodromos]

Yes, it is true that almost all EO Bishops agreed to a reunion at Florence.

The bishops who were present at the council, yes, after months of being under literal house arrest. There were many, many more bishops from the East who were not at the council and rejected the outcome. There were others who had their own means such that they were able to leave before the council concluded. Then there is the forged letter supposedly from the patriarch of Constantinople, that only showed up long after he had died. Florence is not an example of the Orthodox Church accepting the terms of the council and then backing out, it was never accepted. It never achieved the status of general council but was wholly rejected.

 

[Erose]

The bishops who were present at the council, yes, after months of being under literal house arrest. There were many, many more bishops from the East who were not at the council and rejected the outcome. There were others who had their own means such that they were able to leave before the council concluded. Then there is the forged letter supposedly from the patriarch of Constantinople, that only showed up long after he had died. Florence is not an example of the Orthodox Church accepting the terms of the council and then backing out, it was never accepted. It never achieved the status of general council but was wholly rejected.

Not wholly. Here is the problem I see today in Orthodoxy. I personally think that the Patriarchs, except for Russia, would be more than happy to reunite the Church. The problem is that over the centuries Rome has been demagogued so badly in Orthodoxy that it has basically become doctrine to hate all things Latin. Quite honestly it isn't doctrine that keeps us apart, it is ancient prejudices.

Too bad we no longer have an emperor in Istanbul, if we did, he would be the only person Rome would have to convince.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Not wholly. Here is the problem I see today in Orthodoxy. I personally think that the Patriarchs, except for Russia, would be more than happy to reunite the Church. The problem is that over the centuries Rome has been demagogued so badly in Orthodoxy that it has basically become doctrine to hate all things Latin. Quite honestly it isn't doctrine that keeps us apart, it is ancient prejudices.

Too bad we no longer have an emperor in Istanbul, if we did, he would be the only person Rome would have to convince.

Exactly who or what is "Rome"? Is this a euphemism for the Pope?

 

[Erose]

Exactly who or what is "Rome"? Is this a euphemism for the Pope?

Interesting question. Is this not the term that you guys use for all things Catholic?

 

[prodromos]

Not wholly.

The only bishops who accepted the council, abandoned their flocks and relocated to the West.

Here is the problem I see today in Orthodoxy. I personally think that the Patriarchs, except for Russia, would be more than happy to reunite the Church.

Patriarch Bartholomew in his address to Georgetown University, said that we have become ontologically different. Does that sound like hope for reunion to you?

The problem is that over the centuries Rome has been demagogued so badly in Orthodoxy that it has basically become doctrine to hate all things Latin. Quite honestly it isn't doctrine that keeps us apart, it is ancient prejudices.

No, it is doctrine that keeps us apart, and as long as Catholics refuse to accept that and keep presenting false caricatures like the above, nothing is going to change

Too bad we no longer have an emperor in Istanbul, if we did, he would be the only person Rome would have to convince.

Another false caricature. It was the emperor who pushed for reunion at Florence on the promise of military aid, and we all know how that ended.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Interesting question. Is this not the term that you guys use for all things Catholic?

Yes, it is frequently used in that manner. Thus, your statement concerning "Rome" having to convince only one member of the Orthodox Church falls quite flat. If all Roman Catholics were polled on the issue there would be a substantial minority who would be against it. Thus it would remain the hot theological football it has always been and negotiations with Constantinople's patriarch would continue to go nowhere.