Joe,

FYI, they do. It was codified at their First Vatican Council in the 1800s as the doctrine commonly known as Papal Infallibility, that God has guaranteed that “ex cathedra statements” of the Pope of Rome “on faith and morals” will not err. That Papacy managed to defeat the last uprising of what it has called “the heresy of conciliarism” in his Patriarchate in the early-to-mid-1400s, around the same time as the short-lived Florentine Union with (Mediterranean) Orthodoxy, and not long before the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation … so you see how well it worked!

Actually proof that a version of this claim goes back at least some way into the first millennium comes from Patriarch St. Photios the Great of Constantinople (9th century), who labeled it Semi-Appollinarianism. REAL Appollinarianism was the Early Church heresy that philosophized that the Divine Logos replaced the human reason of Jesus of Nazareth. St. Photios was half being sarcastic I think, suggesting Rome believed the Divine Logos, or perhaps the Holy Spirit - I forget which - replaced the Pope’s potentially faulty human reason. And it occurs to me just now that may have been a double insult, since although o/Orthodoxy is “rational” as we (and Eastern Catholics of Byzantine Rite) say in the Liturgy, it’s not about “human reason” of ANY kind sitting around coming up with doctrines and philosophizing, as Photios, perhaps Christianity’s greatest theologian regarding the All-Holy Spirit of God, well knew!

In any case, Orthodox don’t even believe ANY “council fathers” are ipso facto infallible, either. A Council’s o/Orthodoxy is proved by its reception by the whole Orthodox Church, the whole Body of which we believe is filled with the Spirit of God as the Body of Christ on Earth, just as His Incarnate Body on Earth was so filled (and still is, in Heaven) … though I am the worst of sinners. Sometimes for a while it has come down to the loyalty to and vision of the Truth, of just a very few, like St. Athanasius the Great or St. Maximos the Confessor. This approach sometimes takes time, but as even Rome believes, it worked in the first millennium … and has continued to keep the OC faithful to the Truth … if not to Rome’s “obedience.” Why should the second or third millennia be any different from the first, one must ask Rome?

I don’t get the logic here. It seems to me that “300 council fathers” are much less likely to err than one pope, *unless* you believe the pope by himself has a special charism that prevents him from erring, which is precisely the question to be answered. I find it much easier to believe that the body of bishops together has such a charism than that one bishop, even the bishop of Rome, does so. See Acts 15. Joe

I am Russian Orthodox (ROCOR) and interested in all things Eastern Christian, and lately in the phenomenon (from my perspective) of Eastern Catholicism, about which I know little outside of polemic from my side and (possibly) polemic from yours.

I’d like to know more about how Eastern Catholics understand themselves/each other, and contrast this with understandings I find in my own tradition. Any recommendations or words of wisdom? Books?

I find it ironic how the fundamentally psychological and sociological questions of identity, of who we are are universal, even among antagonistic groups. For example, so much fretting about an Eastern Catholic “doxing.” I know many Orthodox who would feel the exact same way about one of us going to Catholicism–perhaps more upset if they went to Eastern Catholicism than to the Latin Rite.

Incidentally, I attend a Catholic college, and because of my wife and our low-incomes, I work as a sacristan for a Latin-Rite Novus Ordo priest who is a teacher of mine. I find the music pleasant; but the liturgy as a whole doesn’t put the love or the fear of God into me. Why criticize the Old Believers too harshly? Yes, there was A LOT of over-reaction on both sides. But a certain rite or form can become a part of us in good and bad ways. It can hold the key to our hearts, and unlock what is good hidden within. The insensitive denial of this fact by any religious authority can also unleash the ebast dwelling within us–as it has in the Old Believer schism and, more recently, among the Latin Rite’s traditionalist (SSPX and the like) wing.

Moreover, my teacher, a huge supporter of Vatican II–which did some good things from my perspective but which I find problematic in other ways–has some ideas that can only bother me as an Eastern Christian, to say nothing of being an Orthodox Christian. His seemingly lax attitude toward fasting doesn’t bode well for my sense that Rome and the East can have much to do with each other. Another example: his expression of dismay when one of our fellow students returned from Rome after attending Paschal services at the Vatican and finding out that the service was 3 hours long (too long, he said, the Pope could’ve shortened it…). We Orthodox I guess tend to see such attitudes as an increasingly lax and diluted attitude toward our Eastern tradition, which we share with you Eastern Catholics at least on the level of praxis, if not always the same in theology and ecclesiology.

Regarding Petrine Claims: The thought of Soloviev and Dante is tempting to a monarchist like myself. Tempting, but I’m not sure if it is wise, realistic, or traditional. We all tend to be limited by our identities. When identity is communicated to another, that person’s boundaries are set for them. You cannot imagine a Christianity without a construction of authority in terms of the Papal Primacy; likewise I cannot wrap my head around a non-Conciliar process of authority. One thing I suspect in my heart of hearts–I speak only now as a human being living in a postmodern age, not as an Orthodox Christian–we cannot truly know about the infallibility of our processes of constructing authority. I am not denying that there is authority and truth: I am merely pointing out what I see as a cloud of unknowing surrounding our limited being. I wish I could articulate this better. Suffice to say: whether Papal Primacy or Conciliarity is best can be known only to God; our egos are too invested in our personal faith-communities to make any non-biased judgment. I will always suspect Roman Catholicism of, if not of wanting to Latinize our tradition, of wanting to dominate us. I mean no offense, but I speak from the heart because our division saddens me: is the Roman Catholic Church truly Catholic–Universal–when none of these infallible Popes, to my knowledge, has ever been in the Eastern-Rite? How represented is the East?

We Orthodox are just discovering the jewels of the West, particularly the pre-schism West, but also the sometimes ambiguous post-schismatic (1054) West, at least on a personal level. East and West need each other. Thank God for you Eastern Catholics: you are needed by the Western Rites. We too have small enclaves of the West among us which we need. But I worry that at the end of the day East and West do not really understand or respect each other. I worry that you are not taken seriously by your Latin-Rite Holy Fathers, and that therefore your Church is losing sight of the concept of catholicity.

What do you think? Enlighten me, since I readilly admit I have no answers. All I seem to be able to do is ask questions.

I ask your forgiveness if anything I have said is a cause for offense to you, your tradition, or your own sense of identity. It is not my intent to be snide, which maybe I am unconsciously. I do, at the end of the day, respect Western Christianity. I also respect our Eastern brethren in communion with Rome. I even respect your deep devotion to the Pope, and to your belief in his special authority. But we see the world from different vantage points. Help me to understand yours.

Vo Istinu Voskrese!

Sorry, I should have added “only by the Graciousness of God and through no goodness of our own…especially mine.”

Dear Friends,

If this discussion is typical of the current state of Byzantine Catholic theology, I am more disappointed than I expected to be. Key to “Orthodox spiritual heritage” is the reality of the All-Holy Spirit in the entire Body of Christ/Body of the (o/Orthodox) Church…not just in the First Among Equals, or even Council Fathers. This experience takes place across space and time, so it’s ‘messier’ than placing all one’s f/Faith in one’s primate of the day. If the Holy Spirit isn’t in the entire Body but only its ‘head,’ then only that ‘head’ can be sanctified - “What is not assumed is not healed.” The fact is that the o/Orthodox Body DOES “already know the answer to the question,” and if you don’t remember that this doesn’t mean ‘democracy’ but rather the timely prevailing of Truth and the non-prevailing of the Gates of Hades against that Church, then what exactly is your “Orthodox spiritual heritage”? What purifies, illumines, and glorifies you, if not the Holy Spirit in you? If you’re not part of a Body that “already knows the answer,” and are placing your f/Faith in a ‘head’ who remains separate from, and teaching differently from, a Church even he affirms teaches the Truth - ie, the Orthodox Church - what is your f/Faith about? Will the Bishop of Rome purify, illumine, and glorify you? Will your communion with ‘different teaching’ save you?

I won’t stick around, because I know how that can be perceived. I’m honestly and sincerely not trying to make trouble, just posing questions for you to consider about just how o/Orthodox Byzantine Catholics claim to be, and are, and we Orthodox are.

I wish you a profitable Great Fast.

I see lots of people adding to and taking away from the acutal view of the Catholic Church on the Papacy for polemical purposes (whether arguing for it or against it.) Of course, merely having a Bishop (like the Pope) with special perogatives which aid in the settling cases such as these would help and not contradict my ecclesiology one bit; however, this falls far short of what Eternal Pastor and Satis Cognitum call for… I’m not scared nor do I flinch at the thought of a restored Papacy. I would love to have a Restored Orthodox Papacy; it would be quite useful and wonderful for the Church, but we both know it’s not that simple.

Now you want to defend a liturgical form that has been responsible for madness in the Church and state that it is Catholic????

Give me a physical break!!!

The Fathers of the Church would run howling out of any Church where they saw a Novus Ordo ceremony. There is nothing recognizably Catholic about it anymore except the wording, and that is getting hacked to bits, little by little. The architecture is changed in the Church, the Liturgy looks much more Protestant than Catholic, and yet I am supposed to welcome such changes (abuses) into my beloved EC parish without a whimper???

Get real!!!

Brother Ed

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=121708

Mike