If there's nothing even in principle that could make you abandon Orthodoxy for Catholicism, I'm not sure what the point of an argument would be. Your mind is made up. And while I appreciate that you think you've shown all the 8 reasons are somehow wrong, so far you haven't got past number 1. But as I've said: you've plainly shown that hostility to the Papacy is the essence of Orthodoxy. Although Orthodox and Catholics agree on most things, that is the root error leading to all the others.
The supremacy of the Papacy has no basis either in scripture, the acts of the apostles, the teachings of the Church Fathers or the agreements of the seven ecumenical councils. But I can see why you are sticking on this point. Blindly insisting that the Pope alone represents God on Earth must be easier than trying to explain away why Rome unilaterally rewrote the Christian creed, turned Mary into a goddess, invented a midpoint between heaven and hell and then - for good measure - started charging people an entry fee.
I recommend a curative week on Mount Athos. It's been there for longer than most things the Pope has invented ;-)
The 'essence of Orthodoxy' is not obsessing about the Pope. That seems to be your department. Most of us have no particualr interest in the bishop of Rome. The essence of Orthodoxy is following the Christian Way as originally handed down to us.
A sentence like 'no unified Orthodox church exists' is simply a demonstration of ignorance. The churches currently referred to as 'Orthodox' follow the practice that the church as a whole followed for the first thousand years of its existence. Their theology is based on decisions made by the ecumenical councils, and the job of their bishops is to ensure that those teachings are followed.
To say that 'no unified Orthodox church exists' is to claim that no unified church of any kind existed before 1054, when Rome broke away from this arrangement and its bishop declared himself Top Dog. The result of that choice is the current Catholic obsession with the Pope. The Pope is just a bishop. Most Orthodox people barely know who their bishop is, which is how it should be if he is doing his job, and simply defending the teachings. Bishops becoming monarchs is about as anti-Christian as you can get.
Anyway, I'll stop it here, and simply note as I do so that you've responded to precisely none of the points I made. I don't know why that is, but I would suggest in future that if you're going to declare 200 million people 'schismatics and heretics' according to your own lights (something which the Pope, incidentally, would strongly disagree with you about) you ought to be able to back it up.
Each of the several Orthodox churches claims independence. It has no unity of government: there is no agreed authority.
And they aren't even one in doctrine: Constantinople and Russia, for example, disagree about the validity of Baptism conferred by a Protestant or Catholic.
Before the Great Schism, the Catholic Church was unified, and it remained so afterwards.
Given that Orthodoxy doesn't claim infallibility, I can't understand why (even if only in principle) you don't think you might be wrong.
I'm not sure this is getting us anywhere, but for my sins I'm going to try and reply anyway. I am of course just a very non-expert layman, so my words carry no authority.
However, the way you're representing the issues here is misleading. You talk of an 'Orthodox' church and a 'Catholic' one, claiming that the former is 'schismatic' from the latter, which represents true teaching. The reality is that the Latin West and the Greek east consisted for the first millennium together of five church episcopates - Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople. These churches were, in your words, 'independent' in their operations, but shared communion and doctrine. The doctrines were agree at ecumenical councils: gatherings of all the churches.
Rome was considered the most important of these churches, but it did not have political or theological primacy. What become the schism - a schism which occurred when Rome excommunicated Constaninople and then all the other churches - happened because Rome claimed a power that no other church accepted it had a right to, and that Rome unilaterally rewrote the Nicene creed to include the filioque clause. These are matters of historical record.
The divide, then, is not between one 'Orthodox' and one 'Catholic' church, the former divided and the latter united. It is between one episcopate - Rome - and all the others in the historic church. The latter call themselves, as they always have, the Holy Catholic, Orthodox and Apostolic church. Rome claims the same.
Do Moscow and Constaninople disagree on some matters of doctrine and policy? Indeed they do, just as Antioch disagrees with Rome. These are all distinctive bishoprics, and no ecumenical council is possible since the schism precipitated by Rome. But the eastern churches agree on all matters of doctrine that matter, because those were ruled upon by the first seven councils before Rome went its own way.
(As far as I am aware, all eastern Orthodox churches recognise Catholic and Anglican baptisms as valid, by the way. Other protestant churches are not considered valid churches in most cases.)
You would expect Rome - one bishopric - to be more united than the many which make up the original ('Orthodox') church. And yet, as I said, despite it looking that way on paper, it currently doesn't look much like it in practice.
Personally I have no problem with Roman Catholics, though I dont want to join them. I would rather they didn't launch exocets at their Christian brethren though. The Orthodox church has been relentlessly persecuted for a millennium and it would be nice if the persecution could at least come from other faiths or none.
I have been asked numerous times why I am Catholic rather than Orthodox. This is my explanation.
The Orthodox churches claim independence from each other and lack doctrinal unity. And before the Schism, the Patriarchs of Constantinople were subject to the Pope. The whole Christian world admitted the lineal descent of Rome's Bishops from St. Peter. Dr. Orchard wrote that, 'an examination of the circumstances of the Great Schism shows that the Eastern Church did then repudiate a supremacy which it had previously been in the habit of conceding to the Roman Patriarchate.'
Infallibility isn't what most people imagine: it's limited to very specific pronouncements and doesn't work like that at all. In principle, no pope could contradict the Church's teaching on homosexuality.
Hard to know whether this is written in ignorance or bad faith, but here are a few responses from this Orthodox Christian.
1. 'There is no agreed authority among the Orthodox Churches. There are at least 16 different Orthodox Churches existing independently of one another. Like all schismatical Churches, it has ended by splitting up into further divisions. Just as there is no united form of Protestantism, there is no one united Orthodox Church.'
The Orthodox church is not 'schismatical' - the schism came from Rome, when it excommunciated the other Christian churches and declared an authority that had never been recognised by others. Orthodox churches today are not 'independent of each other' in the way you suggest. They have separate jurisdictions but agreed teachings on the fundamentals, all of them based on the tradition of the Church Fathers and the settled will of the church as exhibited by the seven ecumenical councils. The Orthodox Church, unlike the Catholic West, has not added to or subtracted from any of the teachings of the original churches, and neither has it 'split into further divisions' - at least not to anything like the order that the Western church has split. To the Orthodox, the 'Catholic-Protestant' divide is seen as an ongoing schism within the Roman church, caused by its own earlier schism from the wider family of churches.
2. 'It has no way of deciding matters of faith or morals infallibly. What is its teaching on birth control, divorce, IVF, medical and health ethics? On all these vital matters it has no authoritative or binding statement.'
This may well be true, but this is because Orthodoxy draws its teachings from the Fathers, from Scipture and from tradition, rather than feeling the need to list every teaching in contemporary legalese, only to argue about it later. Orthodox people know quite well what the teaching on, say, divorce is, however. And Catholics are hardly 'infallible' in their teaching, otherwise that church would not currently be rent apart with divisions. It could be argued that Orthodoxy has a greater firmness to its techings precisely because there is no dictator at the helm who can tweak them at will. But it is also the case that Eastern Christianity is more comfortable with mystery than its Western counterpart.
3. 'It is mostly confined to the Greeks and Slavs and their descendants wherever they have migrated. Its total following is only around 220 million, and it doesn’t make much missionary effort.'
Rather a silly statement. This would be like complaining in the early centuries of the church that most of its followers were Jews or Romans. As for 'missionary effort': Orthodox tend to eschew Western-style tubthumping, it's true, but that has hardly been uncontroversial. 'Acquire a peaceful spirit, and thousands around you will be saved', said St Serpahim of Sarov. I like that kind of missionary work .
4. 'The Orthodox Church acknowledges a bond with definitely heretical Churches, but they acknowledge no real bond with the Catholic Church.'
Your point here is not true, and no serious Catholic would claim that the Orthodox are not an apostolic church. I'm not sure what 'the bond with definitely heretical churches' is. Perhaps you could explain. As for the bond with Catholicism - the Orthodox and the Catholics recognise each others' sacraments as valid, and also recognise each other as valid apostolic churches.
5. Nobody denies that the churches considered the Roman Bishop to be an authority in the early church. They do dispute the nature of that authority. It was never meant to be totalising in the way that the 'Pope' later asserted. Rome's assertion of an essentially political total and absolute authority was what preciptated the schism.
6. You conveniently fail to mention the filioque.
7. Not true. Of course the claimed power of the Pope is an issue, but it's certainly not the only one. Another is the way in which the 'Catholic' West has invented its own doctrines which never existed in the early church. Starting with the filioque, and moving on to original sin, the immaculate conception, papal infallibility, purgatory and more. These inventions precipitated the Western schism (the 'Reformation'). Perhaps you subscribe to them all, but you won't get anywhere pretending that they are original church teachings which the 'Orthodox' rejected. That's a rewrite of history.
8. This is you trying to reverse the poles. The 'Orthodox' do not deny these 'Catholic teachings.' These 'Catholic teachings' are a later invention with no basis in tradition or ecumenical agreement. So here we are.
Personally I think it's a shame when this kind of tone is struck. It achieves nothing but more division in the Christian world. It seems that your primary interest is 'obedience to authority'. The church's work, on the other hand, at least at its best, is the pursuit of theosis.
Thanks for your comment. But I am not sure what its aim is. It doesn't point to a factual mistake in the article. Nor does it explain what about the 'tone' you object to. But it does make very clear the main point I made: opposition to Papal authority.
I've disputed most of your points, on the basis of historical (and theological) fact, as far as I am myself aware of it. I'll be interested if you care to respond.
I won't argue that the Orthodox object to overweening Papal authority. All Christians do outside the Roman church. But that was only one of the eight arguments you made.
To clarify, then, the aim of your comment is argument - but why? In principle, is there anything that could make you abandon Orthodoxy for Catholicism?
We could start with point one: there isn't one, unified Orthodox Church.
The aim of my comment was to respond to the article as you wrote it You're making a lot of historical and theological claims, and a lot of them are wrong. Since you're using those claims as a basis to delegitimise the Orthodox church, they undermine your own attack.
Of course, these arguments aren't the reason you became Catholic in the first place, I'm sure. They're just a rationalisation after the fact.
Would I abandon Orthodoxy for Catholicism? No, for a lot of reasons, most of which are not political or organisational. The Orthodox way, and in particular the hesychastic tradition, in my experience contains the deepest fruits of Christian practice, and the Orthodox church is the church which most firmly cleaves to the Christian tradition.
This last point might be worth you thinking about. Of course you're right to say that the Orthodox church(es) are not as centralised, legalistic or authoritarian as the Catholic church. And yet despite this, it is the Catholic church which is sliding into crisis, and the Orthodox which (despite many imperfections) are defending the Christian tradition most effectively. Maybe the two are connected. That's certainly my analysis.
What do you say to those from Orthodoxy who claim the RCC is misguided based on St. Augustine (erroneous) translations of Greek texts? For example, confusion Peter with a pebble, or the gist of original sin?
Great article. Your third point mentions something largely unnoticed by most - Orthodox churches are not known for missionary work. Unlike the Catholics, they don't run schools as often, and I've never heard of any Orthodox Christian hospital. I am unfamiliar with whatever charities they may run. It was explained to me that the Orthodox don't do this because it is more valuable to them to dedicate that time to praying, though I'm not sure if that's completely true.
They also don't proselytize and whenever a monk from one of their orders may get public about their beliefs (ROCOR Brother Nathaniel, for one), he is discouraged from doing so by his order. I understand the appeal to young men looking for wisdom but it also seems at least as much of a reaction to their experiences with red pill thinking as it is sincere practicing of faith.
Fr Seraphim Rose explains the difference between East and West after the schism in his lecture series 'the orthodox survival guide'. The western church pre schism emphasized the logical side of Christianity. Once the west spilt, logic became an idol. Orthodoxy is not defined by logical arguments. The difference between East and West is spiritual, "You will know them by their fruits", "But the fruit of the Spirit is, charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, Mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity.". The spirit of logic; i.e. how well you can comprehend The Summa, Vs the Holy Spirit; O God be merciful to me a sinner.
As for the supposed difference and lack of unity in the Orthodox Church, it's absurd to suppose that every atom of every church should be absolutely the same. Some monasteries allow fish to be eaten because of their location, The Church sanctifies variation in the world. It's also evident that not every Roman Catholic has the same understanding of the faith. In Orthodoxy these differences are transparent and heresy is worked out at various levels of jurisdiction. Again, the boundaries of The Church are not built with stone or written with ink, they lie within the heart of every man.
If you think about that, you'll realise it's absurd. It means Orthodoxy is illogical. The official creeds of the Orthodox churches teach contradictory doctrines, for example, so some must be wrong. Is Christ teaching error?
You're right, it is absurd. It might have been more accurate to have put 'The Orthodox Church contains the limits of human reasoning and extends beyond them, therefore Orthodoxy is not defined solely by logical arguments'.
Philosophy and logic can only take fallen men so far. The perfect order that God created is comprehensible not by reason alone but by participation. The truth is a living encounter.
Catholicism doesn't say natural reason alone can grasp the full reality of God. But although philosophy and logic aren't sufficient, they are necessary. And the Orthodox churches teach contradictory doctrines. Strictly speaking, there is no Orthodox Church.
Can you direct me to an example or sources of these contradictory doctrines? Church Fathers seemingly contradict each other at times, they sometimes make mistakes.
I accept that the boundaries of the Orthodox Church are less earthly than in Catholicism. Each Orthodox Christian contributes to the presence of the Church according to their individual situation, and will be judged accordingly. There can be heresy, error or any other human frailty present at any level. The fact that there is more dispute and disagreement in the Orthodox Church only means that the struggle continues to take place once you're in. There's no reasonable barrier to believing that the truth is preserved and guarded here.
Read 'The Church of Christ' by E. Sylvester Berry. The creed of Moghila and that of Dositheus contradict each other, to give just one example.
The Church Fathers are allowed to contradict each other. Their opinions are just opinions and not binding. But when speaking infallibly the pole cannot be in error when defining matters of faith or morals to bind the faithful. This is logically necessary because Christ's Church can't teach error and thereby lead souls to hell.
If philosophy and logic are necessary then only the intelligent can be saved. The spiritual world is reduced to a Newtonian model. This idea of God, Catholicism, is perfectly plausible to my rational mind.
If there's nothing even in principle that could make you abandon Orthodoxy for Catholicism, I'm not sure what the point of an argument would be. Your mind is made up. And while I appreciate that you think you've shown all the 8 reasons are somehow wrong, so far you haven't got past number 1. But as I've said: you've plainly shown that hostility to the Papacy is the essence of Orthodoxy. Although Orthodox and Catholics agree on most things, that is the root error leading to all the others.
The supremacy of the Papacy has no basis either in scripture, the acts of the apostles, the teachings of the Church Fathers or the agreements of the seven ecumenical councils. But I can see why you are sticking on this point. Blindly insisting that the Pope alone represents God on Earth must be easier than trying to explain away why Rome unilaterally rewrote the Christian creed, turned Mary into a goddess, invented a midpoint between heaven and hell and then - for good measure - started charging people an entry fee.
I recommend a curative week on Mount Athos. It's been there for longer than most things the Pope has invented ;-)
This point is the essence of Orthodoxy. That's why you want to talk about it. Meanwhile, it's a fact that no unified Orthodox Church exists.
Nevertheless, we can get into the case for the Papacy - accepted by all the Patriarchs before the schism - if you'd like to.
But are you still sticking to the view that in principle nothing could make you accept it?
The 'essence of Orthodoxy' is not obsessing about the Pope. That seems to be your department. Most of us have no particualr interest in the bishop of Rome. The essence of Orthodoxy is following the Christian Way as originally handed down to us.
A sentence like 'no unified Orthodox church exists' is simply a demonstration of ignorance. The churches currently referred to as 'Orthodox' follow the practice that the church as a whole followed for the first thousand years of its existence. Their theology is based on decisions made by the ecumenical councils, and the job of their bishops is to ensure that those teachings are followed.
To say that 'no unified Orthodox church exists' is to claim that no unified church of any kind existed before 1054, when Rome broke away from this arrangement and its bishop declared himself Top Dog. The result of that choice is the current Catholic obsession with the Pope. The Pope is just a bishop. Most Orthodox people barely know who their bishop is, which is how it should be if he is doing his job, and simply defending the teachings. Bishops becoming monarchs is about as anti-Christian as you can get.
Anyway, I'll stop it here, and simply note as I do so that you've responded to precisely none of the points I made. I don't know why that is, but I would suggest in future that if you're going to declare 200 million people 'schismatics and heretics' according to your own lights (something which the Pope, incidentally, would strongly disagree with you about) you ought to be able to back it up.
All the best now.
Each of the several Orthodox churches claims independence. It has no unity of government: there is no agreed authority.
And they aren't even one in doctrine: Constantinople and Russia, for example, disagree about the validity of Baptism conferred by a Protestant or Catholic.
Before the Great Schism, the Catholic Church was unified, and it remained so afterwards.
Given that Orthodoxy doesn't claim infallibility, I can't understand why (even if only in principle) you don't think you might be wrong.
I'm not sure this is getting us anywhere, but for my sins I'm going to try and reply anyway. I am of course just a very non-expert layman, so my words carry no authority.
However, the way you're representing the issues here is misleading. You talk of an 'Orthodox' church and a 'Catholic' one, claiming that the former is 'schismatic' from the latter, which represents true teaching. The reality is that the Latin West and the Greek east consisted for the first millennium together of five church episcopates - Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople. These churches were, in your words, 'independent' in their operations, but shared communion and doctrine. The doctrines were agree at ecumenical councils: gatherings of all the churches.
Rome was considered the most important of these churches, but it did not have political or theological primacy. What become the schism - a schism which occurred when Rome excommunicated Constaninople and then all the other churches - happened because Rome claimed a power that no other church accepted it had a right to, and that Rome unilaterally rewrote the Nicene creed to include the filioque clause. These are matters of historical record.
The divide, then, is not between one 'Orthodox' and one 'Catholic' church, the former divided and the latter united. It is between one episcopate - Rome - and all the others in the historic church. The latter call themselves, as they always have, the Holy Catholic, Orthodox and Apostolic church. Rome claims the same.
Do Moscow and Constaninople disagree on some matters of doctrine and policy? Indeed they do, just as Antioch disagrees with Rome. These are all distinctive bishoprics, and no ecumenical council is possible since the schism precipitated by Rome. But the eastern churches agree on all matters of doctrine that matter, because those were ruled upon by the first seven councils before Rome went its own way.
(As far as I am aware, all eastern Orthodox churches recognise Catholic and Anglican baptisms as valid, by the way. Other protestant churches are not considered valid churches in most cases.)
You would expect Rome - one bishopric - to be more united than the many which make up the original ('Orthodox') church. And yet, as I said, despite it looking that way on paper, it currently doesn't look much like it in practice.
Personally I have no problem with Roman Catholics, though I dont want to join them. I would rather they didn't launch exocets at their Christian brethren though. The Orthodox church has been relentlessly persecuted for a millennium and it would be nice if the persecution could at least come from other faiths or none.
I have been asked numerous times why I am Catholic rather than Orthodox. This is my explanation.
The Orthodox churches claim independence from each other and lack doctrinal unity. And before the Schism, the Patriarchs of Constantinople were subject to the Pope. The whole Christian world admitted the lineal descent of Rome's Bishops from St. Peter. Dr. Orchard wrote that, 'an examination of the circumstances of the Great Schism shows that the Eastern Church did then repudiate a supremacy which it had previously been in the habit of conceding to the Roman Patriarchate.'
Infallibility isn't what most people imagine: it's limited to very specific pronouncements and doesn't work like that at all. In principle, no pope could contradict the Church's teaching on homosexuality.
Hard to know whether this is written in ignorance or bad faith, but here are a few responses from this Orthodox Christian.
1. 'There is no agreed authority among the Orthodox Churches. There are at least 16 different Orthodox Churches existing independently of one another. Like all schismatical Churches, it has ended by splitting up into further divisions. Just as there is no united form of Protestantism, there is no one united Orthodox Church.'
The Orthodox church is not 'schismatical' - the schism came from Rome, when it excommunciated the other Christian churches and declared an authority that had never been recognised by others. Orthodox churches today are not 'independent of each other' in the way you suggest. They have separate jurisdictions but agreed teachings on the fundamentals, all of them based on the tradition of the Church Fathers and the settled will of the church as exhibited by the seven ecumenical councils. The Orthodox Church, unlike the Catholic West, has not added to or subtracted from any of the teachings of the original churches, and neither has it 'split into further divisions' - at least not to anything like the order that the Western church has split. To the Orthodox, the 'Catholic-Protestant' divide is seen as an ongoing schism within the Roman church, caused by its own earlier schism from the wider family of churches.
2. 'It has no way of deciding matters of faith or morals infallibly. What is its teaching on birth control, divorce, IVF, medical and health ethics? On all these vital matters it has no authoritative or binding statement.'
This may well be true, but this is because Orthodoxy draws its teachings from the Fathers, from Scipture and from tradition, rather than feeling the need to list every teaching in contemporary legalese, only to argue about it later. Orthodox people know quite well what the teaching on, say, divorce is, however. And Catholics are hardly 'infallible' in their teaching, otherwise that church would not currently be rent apart with divisions. It could be argued that Orthodoxy has a greater firmness to its techings precisely because there is no dictator at the helm who can tweak them at will. But it is also the case that Eastern Christianity is more comfortable with mystery than its Western counterpart.
3. 'It is mostly confined to the Greeks and Slavs and their descendants wherever they have migrated. Its total following is only around 220 million, and it doesn’t make much missionary effort.'
Rather a silly statement. This would be like complaining in the early centuries of the church that most of its followers were Jews or Romans. As for 'missionary effort': Orthodox tend to eschew Western-style tubthumping, it's true, but that has hardly been uncontroversial. 'Acquire a peaceful spirit, and thousands around you will be saved', said St Serpahim of Sarov. I like that kind of missionary work .
4. 'The Orthodox Church acknowledges a bond with definitely heretical Churches, but they acknowledge no real bond with the Catholic Church.'
Your point here is not true, and no serious Catholic would claim that the Orthodox are not an apostolic church. I'm not sure what 'the bond with definitely heretical churches' is. Perhaps you could explain. As for the bond with Catholicism - the Orthodox and the Catholics recognise each others' sacraments as valid, and also recognise each other as valid apostolic churches.
5. Nobody denies that the churches considered the Roman Bishop to be an authority in the early church. They do dispute the nature of that authority. It was never meant to be totalising in the way that the 'Pope' later asserted. Rome's assertion of an essentially political total and absolute authority was what preciptated the schism.
6. You conveniently fail to mention the filioque.
7. Not true. Of course the claimed power of the Pope is an issue, but it's certainly not the only one. Another is the way in which the 'Catholic' West has invented its own doctrines which never existed in the early church. Starting with the filioque, and moving on to original sin, the immaculate conception, papal infallibility, purgatory and more. These inventions precipitated the Western schism (the 'Reformation'). Perhaps you subscribe to them all, but you won't get anywhere pretending that they are original church teachings which the 'Orthodox' rejected. That's a rewrite of history.
8. This is you trying to reverse the poles. The 'Orthodox' do not deny these 'Catholic teachings.' These 'Catholic teachings' are a later invention with no basis in tradition or ecumenical agreement. So here we are.
Personally I think it's a shame when this kind of tone is struck. It achieves nothing but more division in the Christian world. It seems that your primary interest is 'obedience to authority'. The church's work, on the other hand, at least at its best, is the pursuit of theosis.
Thanks for your comment. But I am not sure what its aim is. It doesn't point to a factual mistake in the article. Nor does it explain what about the 'tone' you object to. But it does make very clear the main point I made: opposition to Papal authority.
I've disputed most of your points, on the basis of historical (and theological) fact, as far as I am myself aware of it. I'll be interested if you care to respond.
I won't argue that the Orthodox object to overweening Papal authority. All Christians do outside the Roman church. But that was only one of the eight arguments you made.
To clarify, then, the aim of your comment is argument - but why? In principle, is there anything that could make you abandon Orthodoxy for Catholicism?
We could start with point one: there isn't one, unified Orthodox Church.
The aim of my comment was to respond to the article as you wrote it You're making a lot of historical and theological claims, and a lot of them are wrong. Since you're using those claims as a basis to delegitimise the Orthodox church, they undermine your own attack.
Of course, these arguments aren't the reason you became Catholic in the first place, I'm sure. They're just a rationalisation after the fact.
Would I abandon Orthodoxy for Catholicism? No, for a lot of reasons, most of which are not political or organisational. The Orthodox way, and in particular the hesychastic tradition, in my experience contains the deepest fruits of Christian practice, and the Orthodox church is the church which most firmly cleaves to the Christian tradition.
This last point might be worth you thinking about. Of course you're right to say that the Orthodox church(es) are not as centralised, legalistic or authoritarian as the Catholic church. And yet despite this, it is the Catholic church which is sliding into crisis, and the Orthodox which (despite many imperfections) are defending the Christian tradition most effectively. Maybe the two are connected. That's certainly my analysis.
Thanks for penning this. Orthodoxy is true Christianity.
Very good piece Knowland, appreciate it.
What do you say to those from Orthodoxy who claim the RCC is misguided based on St. Augustine (erroneous) translations of Greek texts? For example, confusion Peter with a pebble, or the gist of original sin?
I keep coming back to this article. One of my favorites - so well put.
Great article. Your third point mentions something largely unnoticed by most - Orthodox churches are not known for missionary work. Unlike the Catholics, they don't run schools as often, and I've never heard of any Orthodox Christian hospital. I am unfamiliar with whatever charities they may run. It was explained to me that the Orthodox don't do this because it is more valuable to them to dedicate that time to praying, though I'm not sure if that's completely true.
They also don't proselytize and whenever a monk from one of their orders may get public about their beliefs (ROCOR Brother Nathaniel, for one), he is discouraged from doing so by his order. I understand the appeal to young men looking for wisdom but it also seems at least as much of a reaction to their experiences with red pill thinking as it is sincere practicing of faith.
Fr Seraphim Rose explains the difference between East and West after the schism in his lecture series 'the orthodox survival guide'. The western church pre schism emphasized the logical side of Christianity. Once the west spilt, logic became an idol. Orthodoxy is not defined by logical arguments. The difference between East and West is spiritual, "You will know them by their fruits", "But the fruit of the Spirit is, charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, Mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity.". The spirit of logic; i.e. how well you can comprehend The Summa, Vs the Holy Spirit; O God be merciful to me a sinner.
As for the supposed difference and lack of unity in the Orthodox Church, it's absurd to suppose that every atom of every church should be absolutely the same. Some monasteries allow fish to be eaten because of their location, The Church sanctifies variation in the world. It's also evident that not every Roman Catholic has the same understanding of the faith. In Orthodoxy these differences are transparent and heresy is worked out at various levels of jurisdiction. Again, the boundaries of The Church are not built with stone or written with ink, they lie within the heart of every man.
'Orthodoxy is not defined by logical arguments.'
If you think about that, you'll realise it's absurd. It means Orthodoxy is illogical. The official creeds of the Orthodox churches teach contradictory doctrines, for example, so some must be wrong. Is Christ teaching error?
You're right, it is absurd. It might have been more accurate to have put 'The Orthodox Church contains the limits of human reasoning and extends beyond them, therefore Orthodoxy is not defined solely by logical arguments'.
Philosophy and logic can only take fallen men so far. The perfect order that God created is comprehensible not by reason alone but by participation. The truth is a living encounter.
Catholicism doesn't say natural reason alone can grasp the full reality of God. But although philosophy and logic aren't sufficient, they are necessary. And the Orthodox churches teach contradictory doctrines. Strictly speaking, there is no Orthodox Church.
Can you direct me to an example or sources of these contradictory doctrines? Church Fathers seemingly contradict each other at times, they sometimes make mistakes.
I accept that the boundaries of the Orthodox Church are less earthly than in Catholicism. Each Orthodox Christian contributes to the presence of the Church according to their individual situation, and will be judged accordingly. There can be heresy, error or any other human frailty present at any level. The fact that there is more dispute and disagreement in the Orthodox Church only means that the struggle continues to take place once you're in. There's no reasonable barrier to believing that the truth is preserved and guarded here.
Read 'The Church of Christ' by E. Sylvester Berry. The creed of Moghila and that of Dositheus contradict each other, to give just one example.
The Church Fathers are allowed to contradict each other. Their opinions are just opinions and not binding. But when speaking infallibly the pole cannot be in error when defining matters of faith or morals to bind the faithful. This is logically necessary because Christ's Church can't teach error and thereby lead souls to hell.
If philosophy and logic are necessary then only the intelligent can be saved. The spiritual world is reduced to a Newtonian model. This idea of God, Catholicism, is perfectly plausible to my rational mind.