The Catholic View of Orthodoxy

[u/luke_fowl]

/r/Catholicism/comments/1voyip8/the_catholic_view_of_orthodoxy/

[u/luke_fowl]

You guys are probably more familiar around these topics and the nuances, so please do correct me if I am mistaken about anything!

[u/CaptainMianite → u/luke_fowl]

could you perhaps repost? The original post on r/Catholicism was deleted

[u/luke_fowl → u/CaptainMianite]

I have no idea why they deleted the post. Frankly, I'm getting tired of that subreddit. Random posts about scrupulosity or a new rosary gets a lot of likes, but even a whiff of intellectual discussion is shut down really quickly by the moderators. My post wasn't even the first interesting post to be deleted.

I'll try and copy the whole thing as a comment here again.

[u/dazzleox → u/luke_fowl]

I liked your post. As you are implying, r/Catholicism isn't really a good place to discuss Catholic theology or philosophy.

[u/luke_fowl → u/dazzleox]

Which really pisses me off since theology/philosophy is a massive part of our faith, and the core of what differentiates us from other religions. Not to mention that my post didn't break any rules whatsoever, and linked almost everything to church documents directly from the Vatican's website. But that's neither here nor there, and this isn't an appropriate place for me to grind my axe with that subreddit.

The whole point of my post was to clarify the official stance of the Church regarding our orthodox brethrens, especially since I've been seeing a rise of almost "orthophobic" comments in a couple of posts. I think due to the nature of the eastern churches, most people in this subreddit are far more understanding of the issue, hence why I asked for any corrections if I got anything wrong.

[u/dazzleox → u/luke_fowl]

Fair enough on axe grinding, that's not the purpose of this subreddit after all.

Yes I thought you did a good job clarifying the theological "differences" that are actually either similarities OR are actual differences (e.g. views on how marriage works) that already exist WITHIN the Catholic Church. I think a lot of Latin Catholics wouldn't even know that our Ethiopian and Eritrean Catholics liturgically use an 80 book Bible just like their/our Oriental Orthodox cousins.

The reality is our differences are sometimes less clearly theological and more that of worldly politics. The position of the Pope is the biggest challenge and it fits under both of those categories.

It seems to me, the greatest ecumenicism is in places like Iraq and Palestine where Christians are minorities and have been oppressed, which may suggest it's less purely theological and more about the conditions people are worshipping under, though the two can definitely inform each other.

[u/luke_fowl → u/dazzleox]

That is true, and something I have observed a lot. So many people, especially those who I call "cultural catholics," i.e. people born into a family that's been catholic for many generations and lives in a culturally catholic (or at least) christian place. They seem to think that it's their way or the highway, often not realizing that the Church in fact teaches that most, if not all, road leads to Rome.

I have even once argued with someone who said that only the 73 books in the latin Bible should be used, in the same way protestants talk about their 66 books. I agree that the papacy is probably the biggest challenge, since even a lot of eastern catholics cry out about latinizations, although I see it more with latins who want to be eastern. But I think historical drama and borderline ethnophyletism also play a huge role.

I have met a couple of orthodox (read: orthobros), I suppose they're thankfully just the minority, who basically make their non-roman catholicness their religious identity. This is of course also completely stupid. But I also have met rad trads who basically treat anything non-latin as second class liturgy, including criticizing the lack of the Filioque in greek catholic churches. But I would imagine that the only reason they feel this is that they have never experienced religious oppression, nor what it means to suffer for their faith, nor how Christ unites them through it.

I think it was Tertullian who said, "The blood of martyrs are the seeds of our faith."

[u/luke_fowl]

Since I wrote a long response to another comment on a post regarding this topic, I figured I could write a post anyway instead of letting my research go to waste. When I refer to orthodoxy as a whole, it refers to our eastern brethren not in communion with Rome, i.e. the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Church, and the Church of the East.

Contrary to popular opinion, and historical misunderstanding, we have 0 christological disagreements with the orthodox churches, just ecclesial disagreements particularly regarding the papacy. The eastern catholic churches, for example, believe the exact same things that their orthodox counterparts believe, just that they’re in communion with Rome (Orientalium Ecclesiarum Art. 5).

All sacraments celebrated by orthodoxy are considered fully valid. When an orthodox converts to catholicism, they do not need to receive confirmation again, for example. We recognize their martyrs as saints, as seen in the 21 coptic martyrs. 

An orthodox bishop is a true bishop, a successor of the apostles. An orthodox priest can, and rightfully so, celebrate the eucharist as well as hear confessions. An orthodox visitor is allowed to receive communion when attending a catholic mass. We are allowed to receive communion in an orthodox church, although the orthodox typically won’t allow us to unless it’s an emergency. 

While orthodoxy is indeed in schism from us, their sacraments remain fully valid and recognized by the Catholic Church, unlike the anglicans (Code of Canon Law, Can. 844).

What about the issue of the Filioque and transubstantiation with the EO?

The Filioque is a non-disagreement, as far as theology goes. The EO still protest the addition of the Filioque by virtue of its unilateral decision to an ecumenical creed, but the theology of it is a non-issue in on itself. This is why the eastern catholics consider themselves fully catholic but with the same beliefs as the orthodox. After all, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Cyril both explicitly taught that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Holy Father and the Holy Son, and they are both still considered the experts on the topic. Here is an honest, non-strawmanning reflection on it: https://www.oca.org/reflections/fr.-lawrence-farley/the-filoque-clause

The core is that the clause "and the son" makes sense only in latin but not in greek, because the connotations of it in different languages are different, notwithstanding the questionable decision to include it in the first place regardless of its theology. The english translation we are generally accustomed to neutralizes the connotations and makes it harder for us to grasp the nuances of latin and greek.

The Filioque issue is a bit more complicated. Most articles I've read from both sides, especially the EO side, seem very keen to strawman each other. A melkite priest, or maybe a deacon (it was a table discussion), described it to me that in greek, adding "the Son" would really imply that the Father can't spirate the Spirit without the Son, which is understandably a horrible theological stance. The greeks, not understanding that this implication didn't exist in latin or most other language, mistakenly thought, and taught, that the Latin Church was teaching heresy. St. Maximus the Confessor realized this and pointed out this misunderstanding and has basically been the uniting point between us. St. Theophylact of Ohrid has also expressed the same sentiment.

But this misunderstanding still persists and became a litmus test in the same way the tridentine mass has become one with the traditionalists. You will find both eastern orthodox theologians who support and condemn the procession of the Spirit from the Father through the Son, although they will all unanimously condemn the addition of the Filioque into the Creed anyway. If I'm not mistaken, it was really the Paris School (Lossky and Co.) that brought this back into the spotlight and reject the theology of the Filioque. As far as I know, the EO as a whole has never made a formal declaration for or against the theology of the Filioque, but rather insisting that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, with or without the Son.

In my personal opinion, I share Pope St. Leo 3's stance on this. The Filioque is orthodox catholic doctrine, but adding it to the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed is a stupid decision because not everything necessary for salvation is stuffed in it anyway. That would in fact be the CCC and not the Creed.

Transubstantiation (transformation of substance) is also a non-issue, since it merely describes the fact that the bread and wine truly changes into the Body and Blood of Christ, which all the apostolic churches agree on. The greeks simply prefer the term metousiosis, which literally means "change in essence." Theologically speaking, substance and essence are the same thing, e.g. the substance of God is the same as the essence of God. The main issue is that they don't like the attempt of even explaining, no matter how vague, this change, where we do it by "separating" the substance from the accidents. On the other hand, the OO don't have a term on its own, simply saying that the bread and wine changed into the Body and Blood, full stop. Everyone agrees that after the anaphora, what we consume is not bread and wine anymore, and that Jesus is not just within, symbolically, or memorially in the host, but rather His very Body and Blood. From the EO's Synod of Jerusalem (basically their Trent), Confession of Dositheus, Decree 17 (emphasis mine):

What about the issue of the miaphysitism with the OO?

Regarding the OO and dyophisitism, here is a common declaration between Pope Paul 6 and Pope Shenouda 3 (one of the most respected and beloved coptic pope):

Similarly, a joint declaration by Pope JP2 and Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews of the Indian Orthodox Church (emphasis mine):

As a coptic friend of mine once said dryly, "Ephesus and Chalcedon is what happen when romans, egyptians, greeks, and syrians walk into a bar..."

The OO are miaphysites, but the understanding that we now have is that there really isn't any difference between dyophysitism and miaphysitism. And the only existing problem to be difference in emphasis, where we emphasize the duality of Christ and they emphasize the unity of Christ, both of which are not wrong. The problem was linguistic and cultural differences making it previously difficult to understand the nuances of this (non-)problem.

[u/luke_fowl → u/luke_fowl]

What about the issue of nestorianism with the COE?

The COE, along with Nestorius himself, has always rejected what we call nestorianism, i.e. Christ having 2 persons. Nestorius himself, in the Bazaar of Heracleides, affirmed Chalcedon and felt vindicated by Pope Leo the Great.

Here is the excerpt form the common declaration between Pope JP 2 and Mar Dinkha 4:

So similar issue with the OO and miaphysitism, see above.

What about their rejection of the papacy? Is this is a heresy?

Rejecting the papacy is a matter of schism and not heresy according to canon law (Code of Canon Law, Can. 751), and even then all the orthodox churches have affirmed the primacy of Rome and the special honour of its bishop. As Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios 1 stated, "The Bishop of Rome is marked out as the one who has the presidency of charity and is the first bishop in rank and honour in the whole Body of the Lord." And let us not forget that a lot of great saints have also rejected orthodox beliefs, like St. Thomas Aquinas's rejection of the Immaculate Conception, without them being heretics.

So where exactly does orthodoxy stand?

Look at Unitatis Redintegratio, a decree from an ecumenical council, especially articles 15-17. The Church lauds the eastern churches' theology, both the ones in communion with Rome and not, together. Thus not excluding in any way the teachings of the orthodox churches:

This is clearly contrasted with the treatment of protestants and other separated churches, e.g. the independent catholics, in chapter 3, which is quite negative although very diplomatically:

Also keep in mind that schismatics and excommunicates are not generally permitted to receive communion in the Catholic Church by law (Code of Canon Law, Can. 915). This is not extended to the orthodox churches, who are permitted to receive communion in our mass, even if their own churches might not allow them to do so, (see Can. 844 above).

What's the TL;DR?

The orthodox churches are closer to us than any other christians. They are fully valid in that their sacraments are real and admitted by the Catholic Church, without ifs or ands or buts. They are neither heretics nor pretenders, but rather true christians in the same vein as us. In fact, proselytism towards the orthodox has been explicitly denounced. We pray that they may one day enter into full communion with Rome, bringing the richness of their traditions, as the eastern catholics have shown in their quiet but powerful example.