What Would The Catholic Church Have To Concede?

[Fabio Leite]

This?
http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/photios_mystagogy.html

We need to accept that customs and disciplines in the Orthodox West were different from those in the East even before the schism, and so we cannot just impose our way on them, we need to let them be themselves.

Every time this subject comes up (well, probably every time) I regret getting rid of the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit book by HTM. I remember (rightly, I hope) some quotes from St. Photius in the introduction, from letters he sent to the Pope of Rome, which basically said "You have your customs, like such-and-such, we have ours, why argue?" I don't know if it'd be as interesting as his comments in the Mystagogy about, for example, dealing with Fathers who possibly made errors, but I'd love to see it again.

 

[dzheremi]

Since someone else brought up the Mozarabic liturgy, and it's one of my favorite things ever (must be my faux-Hispanicness coming out), it might interest some of you to know that, in addition to RC celebration of it in certain areas of the country, the ROCOR parish in Sevilla also celebrates this liturgy. It's no doubt not exactly the same as the RC usage (which can still be quite nice, all told; the important thing to remember with the "Mozarabic" liturgy is that all uses today are based on the 14th century 'reconstruction' of Fr. Cisneros, as the original rite had more or less died out some centuries before that at the hands of Alphonso and his successors, despite being 'allowed', with modifications, in six parishes in the country; according to all that I've read from the 1960s and onward, nobody can exactly decipher the meaning of the original 5th-9th century manuscripts due to subsequent changes in the methods of musical notation used in Spain).

This sort of thing is actually a good illustration of what I would personally like to see Rome (both old Rome and new Rome, though I know that's a non-starter for the EO majority on this board...) scale back on -- imposed liturgical uniformity. I know from my Eastern Catholic friends that a lot of what has damaged their traditions comes from communion-internal pressures to follow Rome as closely as possible in order to emphasize that these non-Latin churches are truly "Catholic". So this would involve some amount of untangling of "Catholic" from "Roman" in the minds of Catholics themselves, which none of us are likely to live to see.

And of course what Isa mentioned about the visionaries and visions and such. That stuff always bugged me, and I'm so glad I can at least be uncomfortable from a distance now.

 

[mike]

Aren't they some vagantes?

 

[LBK]

Aren't they some vagantes?

This post makes no sense. Could you please rewrite it?

 

[mike]

Aren't they some vagantes?

This post makes no sense. Could you please rewrite it?

Isn't "Iglesia Oriental Hispana " a vagante group?

More sense?

 

[LBK]

Aren't they some vagantes?

This post makes no sense. Could you please rewrite it?

Isn't "Iglesia Oriental Hispana " a vagante group?

More sense?

Thank you.

Are they vagantes? Only if ROCOR is itself a vagante group  . Have another look at dzeremi's post.

 

[mike]

Aren't they some vagantes?

This post makes no sense. Could you please rewrite it?

Isn't "Iglesia Oriental Hispana " a vagante group?

More sense?

Thank you.

Are they vagantes? Only if ROCOR is itself a vagante group  . Have another look at dzeremi's post.

There are like 10 groups that claim to be ROCOR. How are you sure they are the ROCOR?

 

[LBK]

Aren't they some vagantes?

This post makes no sense. Could you please rewrite it?

Isn't "Iglesia Oriental Hispana " a vagante group?

More sense?

Thank you.

Are they vagantes? Only if ROCOR is itself a vagante group  . Have another look at dzeremi's post.

There are like 10 groups that claim to be ROCOR. How are you sure they are the ROCOR?

I'm speaking on the basis of the words dzheremi posted. I haven't watched the video.

 

[mike]

Aren't they some vagantes?

This post makes no sense. Could you please rewrite it?

Isn't "Iglesia Oriental Hispana " a vagante group?

More sense?

Thank you.

Are they vagantes? Only if ROCOR is itself a vagante group  . Have another look at dzeremi's post.

There are like 10 groups that claim to be ROCOR. How are you sure they are the ROCOR?

I'm speaking on the basis of the words dzheremi posted. I haven't watched the video.

You haven't watched the video and you discuss it. Makes sense.

 

[LBK]

Aren't they some vagantes?

This post makes no sense. Could you please rewrite it?

Isn't "Iglesia Oriental Hispana " a vagante group?

More sense?

Thank you.

Are they vagantes? Only if ROCOR is itself a vagante group  . Have another look at dzeremi's post.

There are like 10 groups that claim to be ROCOR. How are you sure they are the ROCOR?

I'm speaking on the basis of the words dzheremi posted. I haven't watched the video.

You haven't watched the video and you discuss it. Makes sense.

I am not "discussing the video", I was referring to what dzheremi wrote in his post. I find him considered and accurate in his posts, so I take him at his word.

There is no need for you to be so abrasive and argumentative.

 

[Fabio Leite]

Here's a list I created some time ago. I just changed some issues related to canonical organization.

What I would expect from a *true* union would be:

From the Orthodox:


Apologize for and a more outspoken condemnation of phyletism;

Acknowledgemnt that the multi-culturalism of RC is the traditional way;

Acknowledgment that the role of the primate is more than just honorific;

Abandon the idea of infallibility of Councils; councils can and have stated heresies, they can and have been reproached by other elements of the Church;

Use the expression "through the Son" after "proceeds from the Father" instead of nothing;

Deal with excessive anti-rationalism;

Translate traditional liturgical rites and use them instead of foreign language rites;

(Just changeed) Organize itself in canonical terms around the world: one city - one bishop; Archdioceses, Metropolias, Eparchies and Patriarchates are not the institutional church per se, but the local diocese is. Supra-diocesical institutions such as Archdioceses, Metropolias, Eparchies and Patriarchates have an *assistive* role for communication and organization of the local churches. The concept is that "The National Association of Hospitals" is a necessary important institution, but it is not a hospital. Each hospital has its own head-doctor and administrator who is the bishop. The Patriarch or Metropolitan is a head doctor of his own hospital, and the "President" of the "National Association", not a kind of "top-head-doctor" that can interfere in every hospital. His authority over the other head-doctors is while members of the National Association, not as head-doctors of their own hospitals. Finally, in case of union, the currently Orthodox dioceses and parishes would become Eastern Rite "ambassies" under the local Roman bishops in the West.

From the Roman church:

Apologize for and abandon the concept of infallibility of the Pope; popes can and have stated heresies, they can and have been reproached by other elements of the Church;

Abandon the monarchical model of primacy. Even if it was fit for Modern West (Medieval to Pre-WW I period) it was unfit for the East during the same period. The primate did not act as archpastor if he chose a model that was fit to just half the Church;

Use the expression "through the Son" instead of "and of the Son" after "proceeds from the Father";

Acknowledge that the Immaculate Conception is a theologumen and not a dogma;

Deal with excessive rationalism and emotionalism;

Translate traditional liturgical rites to local languages and use them instead of "modern" rites;

Allow married men to become priests;

Give the Most Pure Blood of Christ in Communion to lay people as well;

Statues are not a problem per se; yet, church imagery is not just decoration, they are tools of healing and should follow some rules. Church art cannot be over expressive, it should not immitate the body realistically, etc. etc. Church statues should be 3D icons. The artistic depictions of the West though can and should be preserved and developed, but as art, not as the tools of the hospital that is the church;

Abandon the excessive formulation of "Co-Mediatrix";

(Just added) Roman dioceses and parishes in the East would become Western Rite "ambassies" under the local bishops.



From both sides:
Reasses their lists of saints and devotions;
Become more active in the world;
Emphasys on ascetic life as the proper Christian life;
Stop condescending with worldly fashionable ideologies;
Stop condescending with criminal and/or immoral clergy;
Nor separation, nor union with the State: symphony when the State is not Anti-Christian, and outright vocal opposition when it is, if not from the people oppressed under such regimes, but from their brothers elsewhere;
Focus on Christ above all and on saints above celebrities;

 

[Fabio Leite]

Repost. sorry. And "embassy", not "ambassy". 

 

[ialmisry]

Since someone else brought up the Mozarabic liturgy, and it's one of my favorite things ever (must be my faux-Hispanicness coming out), it might interest some of you to know that, in addition to RC celebration of it in certain areas of the country, the ROCOR parish in Sevilla also celebrates this liturgy.

good to know.

 

[Iconodule]

Aren't they some vagantes?

This post makes no sense. Could you please rewrite it?

Isn't "Iglesia Oriental Hispana " a vagante group?

More sense?

It looks like they are with the Milan Synod or some other Old Calendarist group.

 

[mike]

Aren't they some vagantes?

This post makes no sense. Could you please rewrite it?

Isn't "Iglesia Oriental Hispana " a vagante group?

More sense?

It looks like they are with the Milan Synod or some other Old Calendarist group.

Aren't they some vagantes?

This post makes no sense. Could you please rewrite it?

Isn't "Iglesia Oriental Hispana " a vagante group?

More sense?

It looks like they are with the Milan Synod or some other Old Calendarist group.

Well. They claim to be under ROCOR and were under ROCOR what is proved by pictures with Bp Michael and Metr. Hilarion but their rector seem to wear omophorion now.

And ROCOR diocese of Western Europe lists only Bp Michael as its bishop. It would imply they have left.

Well, actually no idea what is he wearing.

 

[Iconodule]

WR is very appealing to the vagante mentality.

 

[mike]

On another side they are listed on diocesan directory.

 

[sheenj]

On another side they are listed on diocesan directory.

But has that directory been updated since the date they (allegedly) left?

 

[mike]

On another side they are listed on diocesan directory.

But has that directory been updated since the date they (allegedly) left?

I suppose the question that should be answered is whether that purple thing he is wearing is:
a) homemade epitrachelion hence it looks like that
b) some fancy Mozarabic vestment
c) omophorion ideed.

 

[Opus118]

I heard a Greek Orthodox priest say. "We should encourage Jews to be better Jews, and Buddhist, better Buddhists."

I like this. There must be some hidden meaning that I am not getting.

 

[Asteriktos]

This?
http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/photios_mystagogy.html

Unfortunately, no. That doesn't have the introductory material that I am referring to.

 

[hecma925]

Would the Roman Church also have to accept the idea of theosis and also the Orthodox position on icons?

The Orthodox position on Icons is the Patristic and Conciliar position on Icons... so, yes.

Why wouldn't you want to restore such a beautiful Rite? Ah, those were the days.  :'(

Very beautiful chant.

 

[dzheremi]

Apologies for possibly having spread a piece of bad information. Regarding the Byzantine church using some form of the Mozarabic liturgy in that video, their website (sorry; Spanish only) says that they are a part of ROCOR in communion with the rest of the Russian Orthodox Church and recognize the EP, so I assumed that this means they are a part of Eastern Orthodoxy. I don't know enough about your church to know if that's true or not or if they've split off into something else since writing that or what. They claim to be in communion with canonical Eastern Orthodoxy, anyway.

 

[Wandile]

Some of the demands here are interesting. What I find most disturbing are that some of these demands impose on the traditions of the Roman church. (Byzantinization)

imagine upon reunion, Rome demanded all eastern churches to keep a celebate clergy, to use a new liturgy, to abandon all post schism saints and apparitions etc... Sometimes its better to avoid conflict if such practices are not contradictory to your own doctrine. We have different traditions and they must be respected

 

[xOrthodox4Christx]

Some of the demands here are interesting. What I find most disturbing are that some of these demands impose on the traditions of the Roman church. (Byzantinization)

imagine upon reunion, Rome demanded all eastern churches to keep a celebate clergy, to use a new liturgy, to abandon all post schism saints and apparitions etc... Sometimes its better to avoid conflict if such practices are not contradictory to your own doctrine. We have different traditions and they must be respected

Maybe the celibacy thing. But the new liturgy or at least a renewed liturgy is a must. This won't do.

 

[Asteriktos]

The Roman Catholic services I've been to were pretty solemn and uneventful.

 

[mike]

Rome demanded all eastern churches to keep a celebate clergy,

Married Greek Catholic men cannot get ordained in Poland.

to use a new liturgy

Synod of Zamość.

 

[podkarpatska]

Rome demanded all eastern churches to keep a celebate clergy,

Married Greek Catholic men cannot get ordained in Poland.

to use a new liturgy

Synod of Zamość.

Michal raises a valid point regarding the schizoid nature of the Roman church's view of Eastern Catholic married clergy. I won't rehash the entire American experience, but I find it beyond bizarre that a young, pious Eastern Catholic man living in Slovakia say in my ancestral village a few clicks (KM) from the Polish border would be welcomed to the Greek Catholic Seminary in Presov, Slovakia, even sent to the Orientale in Rome for further graduate level education, get married, be ordained and faithfully serve the Church in a country like Slovakia with a large Roman Catholic population.

His Eastern Catholic cousin, living across the Tatra Mountains in southern Poland is - well, tough luck buddie - no room in the priesthood for you. Poland of course has a large Roman majority, and one which is historically hostile to any eastern Christians - Orthodox or Catholic. (Ironic as rumors abounded for decades that the maternal grandmother of Blessed JP2 was a Ukrainian Greek Catholic - never officially confirmed in his official bios.)

Now the Roman apologists will tell you that one just has to be careful as to not confuse or scandalize the Roman Catholic majority by allowing married Catholic priests to exist in a land not historically Eastern Christian in orientation - like the United States.

Apparently the Roman Catholics of Poland and the United States  are easily confused and scandalize over very little compared to their Slovak coreligionists. Add the Czech Catholics to the not easily scandalized list as well, my Slovak Eastern Catholic priest cousin is assigned to a Greek Catholic parish in Plsen, Czech Republic......

The Roman Church does not understand the significance of their obstructionist and contradictory positions relative to celibacy in the eastern Church and how it sends to us Orthodox a loud and clear signal that Rome can not be taken at her word - either historically or in the present day.

 

[Wandile]

Married Greek Catholic men cannot get ordained in Poland.

Explain the situation first. I haven't heard of this...

Synod of Zamość.

"There is, properly speaking, no separate and distinct rite for the Ruthenians, but inasmuch as the name is often used for the modifications which the Ruthenians have introduced in the Byzantine or Greek Rite as used by them, a brief description is proper. These modifications have come about in two ways. In the first place, the ancient Slavonic missals used in Russia and in Little Russia (Ruthenia) differed in many instances from the Greek as used at Constantinople, and the correction of these differences by the Patriarch Nikon gave rise to the Old Ritualists (see RASKOLNIKS). When, therefore, the Ruthenians came into union with the Holy See in 1595, they brought with them in their liturgical books several of the usages and formulae which Nikon afterwards corrected at Moscow in the Orthodox Church. Where these differences presented no denial or contradiction of the faith the Holy See allowed them to remain, just as they have allowed the rites of many religious orders. In the second place, after the union had become a fixed fact, numbers of the Polish Latin clergy and laity seemed to find in the Greek ceremonies and forms of language some apparent contradictions of the faith as more fully elaborated in the Roman Rite. This seemed to them to indicate a lack of unity of the faith, and the Greek Ruthenian clergy in the Synod of Zamosc (1720) made a number of changes in the Byzantine Rite, particularly that of the Mass, so as more clearly to express the unity and identity of their faith with that of their brethren of the Roman Rite. These changes are sometimes bitterly spoken of by Russian authors as "latinizing", and the majority of them were probably unnecessary. When we consider that the Melchites, Rumanians, and Italo-Greeks have kept the old forms thus unchanged, it does not seem that they were required in order to express the complete unity of the faith. Nevertheless they were sufficient to cause them to be spoken of as the Ruthenian Rite, as distinguished from the older form of the Byzantine Rite (See RITE OF CONSTANTINOPLE; GREEK CATHOLICS IN AMERICA; GREEK CHURCH). "
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13277a.htm

editing a liturgy, although as stated was somewhat unnecessary at times, does not constitute a new liturgy.
Just like I would expect upon reunion in your direction that the NO and TLM would have to be edited so that they conform doctrinally with your church, no?

 

[mike]

Married Greek Catholic men cannot get ordained in Poland.

Explain the situation first. I haven't heard of this...

What to explain? It's selfexplantory.

 

[Maria]

Aren't they some vagantes?

This post makes no sense. Could you please rewrite it?

Isn't "Iglesia Oriental Hispana " a vagante group?

More sense?

Thank you.

Are they vagantes? Only if ROCOR is itself a vagante group  . Have another look at dzeremi's post.

There are like 10 groups that claim to be ROCOR. How are you sure they are the ROCOR?

ROCOR started breaking up and forming splintering groups when some of the hierarchs in ROCOR started to embrace ecumenism and then made overtures to the MP.  As ROCOR progressed and actually joined the MP, more hierarchs with clergy and laity broke away to form different True Orthodox jurisdictions. These are not vagante groups.

A vagante group would be like the one of those "American Charismatic Orthodox Christian" groups who have never had an Orthodox Bishop oversee them. They are soi disant bishops who claim that the Holy Spirit has anointed them. I will not link to them as several of these vagante groups have threatened lawsuits.

Now back on topic:

If the Catholic Church were to join the Orthodox Church, then they would have to submit to what Orthodoxy has always taught and let go of their errors.

 

[ialmisry]

Some of the demands here are interesting. What I find most disturbing are that some of these demands impose on the traditions of the Roman church. (Byzantinization)

imagine upon reunion, Rome demanded all eastern churches to keep a celebate clergy, to use a new liturgy, to abandon all post schism saints and apparitions etc... Sometimes its better to avoid conflict if such practices are not contradictory to your own doctrine. We have different traditions and they must be respected

says who?

we don't have apparitions to abandon. That's why you would have to abandon yours.

 

[Maria]

Married Greek Catholic men cannot get ordained in Poland.

Explain the situation first. I haven't heard of this...

What to explain? It's selfexplantory.

I will back Mike. It was big news about ten years ago when Cardinal Soldano forbade Byzantine Catholic married men from being ordained to the Priesthood in Poland.

 

[LBK]

On another side they are listed on diocesan directory.

But has that directory been updated since the date they (allegedly) left?

The most recent printed ROCOR directory is from 2013. The church of St Seraphim of Sarov in Seville is listed there.

 

[orthodox4life]

Do any of you, who've been Orthodox for awhile, really believe that the Catholics would ever concede?

 

[Maria]

Do any of you, who've been Orthodox for awhile, really believe that the Catholics would ever concede?

No, I do not think so.

However, I have known a few very influential Greek Orthodox Priests who have Catholic friends in high places and they want unity with Catholicism. How would that happen without compromises being made such as the New Calendar imposition? What is next? Will the Orthodox come to an agreement concerning the date of Easter as was bantered about in 2000 and compromise again? It seems like the Orthodox are the ones who are compromising.

 

[dzheremi]

I haven't been Orthodox very long (some would say I'm still not), but I was RC for a while before becoming OO, and come from a mixed RC/non-RC family (my dad's side is all Mexicans and Irish, my mother's Germans and Greenlanders). From where I'm sitting it's not about making the Latins cry "uncle!", but about showing them that their true history is what we already affirm. This won't happen on any large scale, I don't think (barring the recent conversions to both OO and EO communions in South America, which involve some more complicated local and national issues that don't involve Rome conceding anything in the first place), but I'm already proof that it does happen with individuals and/or smaller groups.

You don't have to give anything up to be Orthodox save the things you shouldn't have adopted in the first place, because they were never true to begin with. RC friends of mine have tried to pick on me by saying that it's wrong/misleading/delusional for us in the COC to say that we believe in "one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church", as we say in the Creed. Whenever they make that non-point I like to answer by saying that there is only one clause in the Creed that I had to give up in order to affirm Orthodoxy, and it wasn't the one that they're so hung up on since they think they own the word "Catholic"! ;D

Sometimes baby steps work better than arm wrestling...at least if you want the converted to stay converted.

 

[mike]

How would that happen without compromises being made such as the New Calendar imposition?

Catholics do not even have unified calendar among themselves.

 

[ialmisry]

I haven't been Orthodox very long (some would say I'm still not), but I was RC for a while before becoming OO, and come from a mixed RC/non-RC family (my dad's side is all Mexicans and Irish, my mother's Germans and Greenlanders). From where I'm sitting it's not about making the Latins cry "uncle!", but about showing them that their true history is what we already affirm. This won't happen on any large scale, I don't think (barring the recent conversions to both OO and EO communions in South America, which involve some more complicated local and national issues that don't involve Rome conceding anything in the first place), but I'm already proof that it does happen with individuals and/or smaller groups.

You don't have to give anything up to be Orthodox save the things you shouldn't have adopted in the first place, because they were never true to begin with. RC friends of mine have tried to pick on me by saying that it's wrong/misleading/delusional for us in the COC to say that we believe in "one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church", as we say in the Creed. Whenever they make that non-point I like to answer by saying that there is only one clause in the Creed that I had to give up in order to affirm Orthodoxy, and it wasn't the one that they're so hung up on since they think they own the word "Catholic"! ;D

Sometimes baby steps work better than arm wrestling...at least if you want the converted to stay converted.

Greenlander?  Scandinavian or Inuit?

You are right, as usual, on the other stuff.

 

[dzheremi]

Judging from my grandmother's looks, I'm guessing Scandinavian. According to family history/legend, that side were in Greenland for centuries and only left beautiful downtown Nuuk or wherever for America roughly 100 years ago (~20 years before my grandmother was born). My middle name comes from Erik the Red (though it's Anglicized), who they say is a distant relative. I'm not sure I believe that, but maybe I'm just proof that you shouldn't marry into families full of squat Latin people if you want to retain your Nordic giantness and translucentivity.

Oh whatever, spell check. You know what I mean.