Theonymic wrote:

What is filioque? I am extremely new to EC myself, and have never had to learn about these things before. I didn't even know what EC was until last year, when a few members of Firestream were discussing it.

Good question--I'm sure many, if not most, people reading the thread are not familiar either.

Basically, at Nicea, the Creed was established, but it was further developed at the council of Constantinople I. Originally, this was a local synod, but at the third ecumenical council (Ephesus) its decisions were reviewed, and it was accepted for the whole church. The additions to the Creed dealt with thye role of the Holy Spirit, which had niot received as much detail at Nicea, which was more focused on articulating the divinity of the Son.

In the Nicene-Constantinpolitan Creed, in the section regarding the Holy Spirit,
it was stated that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father, and with the Father and Son together is worshipped and glorified."

At the end of Ephesus, it was decreed that no alterations were to be made to the Creed, at pain of anathema. (Bear in mind that Ephesus was focusing on the aquestion of the Theotokos--was Mary the mother of God, or simply of "Christ." It was held that to deny her Mother of God as a title would imply that Christ was not God. I mention this because Ephesus' concerns were still largely
Christological, which may or may not be relevant in assessing the filioque dispute.)

NOW, jump ahead about 500 years. In certain areas of Europe, a move toward Arianism had re-started (defeated 600 years earlier at Nicea). Because of the questioning of the Son;s divinity, certain local Latin bishops demanded that the words "and the Son" (filioque in Latin) be added to the Creed when discussing the procession of the Spirit. The intent was to stress the divinity of Christ.
However, this meant adding a word to the Creed. This usage was widely embraced in Toledo, Spain. Thye Pope got wind of this (I forget who the Pope was) and what to bring the quesiton to review. He judged that whiloe the theologuy was acceptablpe, it should not be stated, because Ephesuis had asked that no alterations to the Creed occur. The Pope actually had a plate made up wuth the Creed, which di NOT include the aditional wrods.

What happened in time is that use became so widespread in the West that the Pope eventually called for it to beformally accepted. Once agian, the hope was to stress the divinity and Christ, and to achieve unfiormity in ther Western liturgy. What';s funny is that while people often cite this as an example of papapl arrogance, in some respects, it shows the limited authoruity the Pope even had among the other Latin bishops. There was an element of "if you cannot beat them, join them"

In time, news reached the East. This decision ewas denounced on multiple grounds. First, it violated the agreemetnt of Ephesus. Secondly, some saw it as actualy advoacting a false thology (I'll get to that in a later post). Finally, some did not like it because they thought the Pope s decision to add it showed a kind of arogance--however, keep in min d that it was only beingf added at that time for the Western church. Later Popes, however, did make someeffort to force the East to accept it. At the heght of the eary stages of this controversy, St. Anselm wrote a price defending it, and St. Photius of the East wrote a piece rejecting it, on theological and not merely canonical grounds.
That's the gist. I'll follow up with morelater. Bear in mind, htouygh, htat Orhtodsox reaction has been mixed. In addition, one can find some Fathers who seem to support the ideasof dual procession. Some Eastern (early) Fathers sepak of te Spirit proceeding FROM the Father, THROUGH the some, wjhch some Orhtodox say they wpaccept, and others not even that. The West claims that essentially that is what they maean by the statement.

Peace, graybeardheadbanger

tl:dr : The divinity of Christ in relation to the father, and whether the holy spirit came from Just the father (Orthodox position), or if it came from the father and the son (Catholic position).

olias wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filioque

Thank you--that link was highloy informative. It also appears I was slightly in error---note that the acts of Constantinop,ke were reviewed at Chalcedon, not Ephesus, as I said. However, this article also had one slight error--it said that ECs have never used with the filioque, which is not true--at least in some placfes, it has been used by certain jurisdicitons for a time, though as I` said, I have seen a move by those groups to get away from it, partluy,I think, to stress their own liturgical heritage, and perhaps in hopes of establihsing a sense of unity with the Orthodox, even if an imperfect one.

The article does a nice job of showing the complexity of trhe issues, as well as various grounds fo obvjecting and defending it, as well as the mixed Patrsitc evidence for an against it. Maximus' quasi-defense of it is huge, IMO, in that he is among the most esteemed fathers in the East. He also was an ardent defender of papal guidance (though primacy as such had not been defined yet), b ut this poijnt never seems to be adequately acknowledged by the Orthodox, who from what I see tend to explain it away. However, it would also be artidfiical for Catholicsw to try to get TOO much mileage from this, for as I said, we cannot know how Maximus would have reacted to the particular expressions of Vatican I hundreds of years later (well over 1,000, in fact). But the esteem with which he holds the papacy is not insignificant, IMO.

graybeardheadbanger

olias wrote:

hey mark. Are you roman Catholic? Just curious, that why I don't feel left out.

Extremely Roman Catholic. I'd call myself an Orthodox Catholic but that has been hijacked by pick-and-choose Catholics posing as fully orthodox.

it is a wikipedia article, so take it with a grain of salt. I would have searched for a different article, but my comp was acting up and would only let me on that page for some reason.

Mark wrote:

I'd call myself an Orthodox Catholic but that has been hijacked by pick-and-choose Catholics posing as fully orthodox.

AMEN TO THAT MAH BRUTHA!

*High five*

I had a friend who was much like you said. Cafeteria Catholic, I mean. Said he disagreed with the Church. On his facebook he said he was a "Liberal Catholic" (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean). Years later, the guy turns out to be a homo, and leaves the church entirely. I suspect he is an atheist now, as the LBGT crowd tends to hostile to anything even remotely judeo-christian.

Sucks.
Obviously, of course, you have to accept everything taught by Rome or you aren't truly Catholic. It isn't a cafeteria. (I am also uncomfortable about using the term Cafeteria Catholic, as it has been hijacked by cafeteria Catholics accusing others of doing so.)

lol. I have never heard that, but I'll take your word for it.

Sorry about quoting myself earlier, lol. I had meant to hit "edit." Thanks for the clarification. So there seem to be various sides to the story of the Schism...I'd been told that the RCC cut itself off from the OC.

Theonymic wrote:

Sorry about quoting myself earlier, lol. I had meant to hit "edit." Thanks for the clarification. So there seem to be various sides to the story of the Schism...I'd been told that the RCC cut itself off from the OC.

The question of who schismed with whom is complex--it seems most fair to say it was mutual.
I've met Catholics and Orthodox alike who take way too one sided of a view, IMo--or at least make it sound obvious that it is one sided. And of course, that doesn't even get into the question of the earlier schisms re: Nestorianism (the first among churches in apostolic succession) and the so-called monophysite schism with the Copts, Armenians, etc.

graybeardheadbanger

olias wrote:

it is a wikipedia article, so take it with a grain of salt. I would have searched for a different article, but my comp was acting up and would only let me on that page for some reason.

No, the article was impressively well informed. I have pretty decent knowledge of the subject at a layperson level, and this accurately matched everything I knew (with the exception of bieng a tad off on the EC quesiton), plus had many details I would not have had at my fingertips. The problem is multi-layered, for sure.

It's too late now, but at some point I'll try to summarize some of the basic theological points of concetion, as I understand them.

graybeardheadbanger

It seems there was at least an attempt at reconciliation with the Copts and the RCC.

Of course, no church is perfect...I feel God is leading me to Orthodoxy. As far as "fullness of truth" goes, that may not be absolutely scientifically discernable.

The Catholic Church is working hard at healing the schism with the Eastern Orthodox.

As we should. After all, it's in our name.

Mark wrote:

The Catholic Church is working hard at healing the schism with the Eastern Orthodox.

I would agree with this--the RC has also had formal dialogues with numerous other groups, incuding Assyrians, Copts, and many Protestant groups.

The difficulty with substantial headway with the Orthodox in part is due to their desire/need/requiorement to make all decisions in uniform agreement. There are 20+ Orthodox jurisdicitons. What if 1, or 5, or all but one wanted to reunite with Rome? By the "all things in unison for those in communion" rule, it seems one
group not agreeing to reunion would be enough to nix the deal. This is one of the complicaitons of the fully collegial model. It sounds great, because it suggests that no one can be an "autocratic" authoruty, as the Pope of Rome is sometimes caricatured as. But, in fact, the all things in unison only principle also involves a potential for a kind of autocracy--suppose one group does not want something, in effect, they are exercising power over all the other groups, as nothing can be done (in theory--it hasn't always happened that way in fact) without 100% assent/consent, as this single dissenting voice can prevent every other group fromn getting what they want. Indeed, one could argue that in practice it is actually far more likely that a kind of autocracy arises on this model as it is virtually guaranteed that there will not be uniformity on virtually anything, whereas where one group (e.g. Rome) is designated as having primacy, in fact there are not very many times when it is exercised.

This principle is in fact part of the puzzle regarding UNiatism. The ECs reunited under bishops, and sometimes under Patriarchs. One view is, why shouldn't the patrairch of each group, if they are truly autonomous (the non-primacy model dictates,in theory, that every group has autonomy, with no group exercising direct power over another), be able to reunite with Rome if he decides that there is not sufficient rerason to stay out of communion? If other groups say, you can't reunite because there isn't a uniform decision to do so, it seems that individual groups really don't have autonomy--or at least they lack it in important matters. So, i ntoehr words, the Orthodox ideals of autonomy on hte one hand, and the need for unfirom agreement on hte other, may be at odds with each other.

The rebuttal to this is that groups have autonomy in how they enforce canonical discipline, BUT they do nopt have autonomy in doctrine. Re-entering into communion with a group considered heretical.schismatic (Rome) would be considered itself a shcism, so autonomy does not carry over to this matter. This response seems to me to beg the question, though. It is true that autonomy among patriarchs does not mean autonomy in doctrine. However, the key question is, who decides whether a given group is heretical or not? Is the fact that all jurisidctions in the past considered Rome heretical enough to mean that all future patriarchs must agree with those past decisions? But this seems artificial as well, because the groups did not necessarily fall out of communion with Rome all at once--it began as a schism between the Greeks and Latin, and only over time extended to all Orthodox churches. So, were the Greeks violating the principle of unfiromity to break union with hte Romans before other Orthodox jurisdictions had done so?
And of the Greeks could act unilaterally at first, why couldn't later Orthodox bishops and patriarchs act unilaterally to establish reunion, as the Uniates did?

Put differently, uniformity seems to preclude uniatism, but autonomy seems to allow for it.
The claim that autonomy does not extend to doctrine begs the question as to who decides whether a particular group is heretical or not? In fact (and this is REALLY worht considering) how could there be uniformity in deciding Rome was heretical, since until that happened Rome itself would be part of the uniformity, and obviously Rome would not see itself as heretical. So hgow can onme group within a union ever come to be regarded by the others as heretical (if uniformity is needed?), since
uniformity would require that that group itself agreed to the charge of heresy, which of course would not happen. (One could raise similar points in relation to the decision to acknowledge the Assyrians and non-Chalcedonians as heretics as well--obviously the Orthodox did not demand unanimity with the Copts and Nestorians in declaring them heretical).

I can understand Orthodox reservations about Catholicism, and perhaps especially about uniatism. However, these are the kinds of difficultiues that I find Orthodox often unwillign to look at honestly and fairly, including converts. Many converts from Protestantism cannot handle the perceived autocracy of Roman primacy, so htey drift toward Orthodoxy and develop a fairly pronounced anti-Roman stance. And yet,
the very principles they appeal to against Rome seem to have been compromised in the very denunciation of Rome itself--or at least much better explanation needs to be given for how this is to be avoided. I think those looking at conversion into Orthodoxy should at least reflect seriously on these questions, though in the end I still consider such decision to have many benefits. I just ask that one not do so with too simplistic of an anti-Catholicism as a motive, given the conceptual difficultiues facing Orthodoxy itself in respect to these positions.

Peace, graybeardheadbanger

Well, rest assured, I'm not entering Orthodoxy with an "anti-Rome" view, I just believe I'm being led that way.

Theonymic wrote:

Well, rest assured, I'm not entering Orthodoxy with an "anti-Rome" view, I just believe I'm being led that way.

The liturgy of Orthodoxy is a very strong attractant indeed. Out of curiosity, what has led you this way, and what are some reasons you have decided against considering union with Rome? In my own journey, I spent at least as much time, if not more, among Orthodox, so my assessments are based primarily on personal relationships and reading, though I was certainly myself torn between the two traditions (or more than two, if one considers EC a separate tradition). I have a pretty good sense of what the main objections to Roman union are, and I find most of them relatively well-rooted, but sometimes not as
well-rounded in the considerations of all issues. In some cases, there was an assumption fro the begnning that Catholicism couldn't be right (often due to
issues with the idea of papal primacy), so Orhtodoxy came to be considered a good alternative. At times, I found this assumption to be misdirected and not carefully considered. At the same time, I certainly know many who became Catholic who had virtually no awareness of Orthodoxy as a possibility, and were not in a position to give it due consideration. My biggest interest is making sure that people do not move down a certain path based on inaccurate, or limited,
understandings of other possibilities. I should add that I consiuder the case of those raised Orthodox somewhat different than those considering entering Orthodoxy from another tradition.

graybeardheadbanger

Part of it has to do with the liturgy, before and after having attended several services. It began mostly with discovering its existence and reading about the doctrines and views that Orthodoxy holds, and how my own fit best (to my knowledge) within that.

Mark wrote:

Orthodox has the Russian Orthodox Church, run by one patriarch, the Greek Orthodox Church, run by another patriarch, etc.

With Catholics, one bishop has control over all 23 Catholic Churches.

I'm sorry Mark, this is possibly the worst post I've ever seen from an otherwise decent user. Please learn about our ecclesiology before projecting your preconceived ideas onto it.

Anastasis wrote:

Mark wrote:

Orthodox has the Russian Orthodox Church, run by one patriarch, the Greek Orthodox Church, run by another patriarch, etc.

With Catholics, one bishop has control over all 23 Catholic Churches.

I'm sorry Mark, this is possibly the worst post I've ever seen from an otherwise decent user. Please learn about our ecclesiology before projecting your preconceived ideas onto it.

His statements are not fundamentally incorrect, as far as I can tell--just
sketchy. (Well, the Catholic part is somewhat incorrect.) The office of patriarchate is a development, but for those groups having them (others having Metropolitans), there is a sense in which they "run" their jurisdictions. Mark does fail to mention the bishops here--is this what bothers you? I am not completely clear on the precise relationship between bishops and patriarchs (though in a general sense, the patriarchs have juridical authority of some kind over bishops in their jurisdiction--I am not clear on to what extent the bishops can remain autnomous in resisting patriarchal mandates, etc.), though obviously there are times when bishops act contrary to patriarchal
mandates, such as those Russians who broke away from the Moscow Patriarchate under Sergius in the communist revolution (i.e. forming Russian Church Outside of Russia--though htis schism has been essentially healed). The churches have indepedent leadership which, ideally, are "in union" with one another.

I would disagree somewaht with the characterization of the Bioshop of Rome (in Catholicism) "controlling" all of the rites. It is true that Vatican I recognizes that the bishop of Rome can exercise "immediate" and "direct" power over any other bishop, including those of other rites, BUT saying this can be done is not the equivalent to making him in "control" of these churches in normal circumstances.
In fact, Vatican I also says that this teaching is not intended to deny bishops (whether RC or EC) the privileges and responsibilities properly accorded to them.
There may be question as to exactly understand this latter caveat in line with the previous declaration, but it is misleading, IMO, to think of the Pope as being like the top of a pyramid. What is more properly understood is that churches are "controlled" (guided and served are better words) by their own heads, in communion with the bishop of Rome, who has the authority to intervene in matters when necessary (i.e. in cases of breakdown in doctrinal teaching, or to hear appeals to juridical decisions made in other churches, as was even done prior to the East-West schism by the Bioshop of Rome). Still, the standard and "normal" condition is that churches (by rite) guide themselves, with Rome intervening only in unusual circumstances.

What, Anastasis, were your main objections to his characterization of Orthodox ecclesiology? graybeardheadbanger