A Catholic Priest from Tennessee has a very good blog. See Blessed is the Kingdom.
He is conversations with some young Catholics and a Orthodox that has brought forth this interesting post. See Being In Communion.
Lot of interesting issues there. I agree with him that Catholics at times gloss over some significant differences. I will add another one. The Priesthood itself!! This sort of came out in the sexual abuse crisis where the Catholic Church was trying to explain to the world that to laicize a Priest did not mean the mark of his priesthood was removed. Once a Priest always a Priest as they say.
The Orthodox really don't have this problem because if I follow them correctly they think the "community" itself can remove the mark of Holy Orders from the Priest. Now this reaches some absurd consequences in parts of Orthodoxy. I am not sure what their present position is but at one time the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (which I think now has been incorporated into the larger Russia Orthodox Church) used this all the time to say Catholic Sacraments were not even valid. Perhaps even our Baptism!!!
However let me show the bigger problem. The Eastern Orthodox on the whole really don't give a big flip about reunion. That is not to say all but it is many if not the majority.
The Catholic Church over the past decades has encouraged it flock to look East to what John Paul the II has called the second Lung of the Church. To look to the richness of Eastern Fathers and spirituality.
The Orthodox on the other hand seem to view the West has nothing to offer them. In fact while St Augustine might be on their Saint calender one gets a sense they see him as a big mistake and the fount of all things wrong in the West.
It is a shame the Pontifications blog got hacked. At pontifications there was a huge dialogue between Catholic and Orthodox. What was striking was to see was as the Catholics reached out to try to say "this is the two sides of the same coin" in our proposed differences the Orthodox response was to look at disdain on Western thought.
This can be seen in the topic of original sin and related matters where many Orthodox seem damn and determined not to see there is common ground when in fact in my view there is no difference at all.
To do so they have to get historical amnesia about their own teachings of the subject. There used to be a great Orthodox Priest blogger that really was critical of this ANTI WEST attitude of many on his side. His site no longer exists but thanks to the WAY BACK machine we can access this great post he made that touched on the subject . See Ancestral vs. Original Sin: A False Dichotomy (scroll down). Great piece especially as he ends it: "Sigh. Same old tired East / West stereotypes. Blame Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, etc. ad nauseam. This occurs all the time." Sadly it does and I am not sure the average Catholic realizes that. There are deeper issues than just the position of the Pope and the filioque clause.
See this where Catholics try to reach out to unite with their Orthodox brothers on the topic of St. Gregory Palamas's Divine essence/energies and St Thomas Aquinas's Divine Simplicity. Many Orthodox first response to is not to see if God used the West and the East to show a great truth but to show Thomas Aquinas and thus the WEST are wrong wrong on yet another topic. This gets tiresome
I would encourage people to read the excellent blogger Sacramentum Vitae on Catholic /Orthodox dialogue and his series of post going back over a few years. That sadly is the reality. IF the Eastern Orthodox used the two lung analogy(which they don't) I think it is fair to say that they look at the Latin Church as a cancer filled lung which only can be cured by the EAST.
Not helpful.
As the above blogger said just last month in his post Orthodox Constructions of the West:
I have just a few comments of my own. Of Robert Taft, I'm a big fan. He's almost always right. But as my friend Diane Kamer implies in the combox, realism, objectivity, and charity must prevail on both sides if substantive progress is to be made. On the Catholic side, the impetus for those qualifies definitely exists, because Rome is committed to attaining the reunion for which they are necessary. As I see it, though, the same cannot be said for the Orthodox. Some, especially among theologians and hierarchs, do have those qualities and do see the need to work tirelessly toward reunion. But they are not the majority. And even if the irenic minority prevailed at the hoity-toity level, there can be no reunion on the ground without a change of heart among Orthodox who are...well, on the ground.
Now Michael is not a pessimist and neither am I!! We need to be talking and praying ourselves into communion with each other. However this is not a one way street. Until this attitude changes there will be no "In Communion".
As you know James I have been studying Orthodoxy and feel some sense of being drawn toward it. And I will confess that yes given a choice between that and Roman Catholicism I would choose the former and can articulate reasons why.
ReplyDeleteThat having been said you make excellent points about the Orthodox attitude(s) toward Western Christianity. I catch it a lot when listening to Ancient Faith Radio - the constant comparisons. Even the Anglican-Orthodox dialogue/conference podcasts I've been listening to have some of this, frequent references to how "yup we Anglicans have way more in common with the East than with Rome" (and vice versa).
I may need to follow some of the links you have provided.
It is frustrating and quite a eyeopener. Don;t get me wrong I love the East and heck if not for a couple of issues I might have gone Orthodox too
ReplyDeleteStill it is a major problem. Again a shame Pontifications , a blog by a Former Anglican Priest that was trying to decide if many ways if the Catholic or ORthodox Faith was correct. The commnet section was very good and had some important folks in it. I truly think this discovery of a exclusive "East" attitude swayed him to Rome in many ways. Even Michael's blog I have linked some ware got transferred and lost all those great back and forth comments. However I really recommend you look at his post for the last few years. That Orthodox Priest blog also was a great resource.
The problem is I think with the Orthodox is they think TOO much EAST. How many conversation have I and other Catholics and non Catholics have had that do not end with hearing "Your Western Mind and all your Latinizations make so you so cannot grasp this". Sigh
I am not sure what has caused this. The Orthodox Priest I linked said this unhelpful, and from a scholarship point of view embarrassing views on Western figures in Christianity and though was a result of the dominance of the "Russian school" the last Century or so.
Now part of this might have resulted from a necessary bunker mentality. After Centuries of being dominated by Islam it's last great Bastion of people were put under Communist domination for 80 years.
I think in many ways this has produced a tad bit of arrogance in some ways. As I point out the Jury is still out on what happens when the Orthodox have to face the same secular pressures as wel all did in the West.
One gets a sense that already the folks in the pews might have some vastly non traditional Orthodox thought on the social matters and even doctrinal matters of the day.. This might be explode in the next two decades. So perhaps we in the West could be helpful on that.
Again it seems like I am ranting against the Orthodox but I am not. I guess I am more disappointed that their lack of openess seems to be hinder the Work of God in many ways.