Eastern Catholicism is proof the schism should end?

Discussion · 19

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• − opinion#2365 1 likes at the source

  Honestly, the Eastern Catholics came into existence in far uglier, messier, often violent and coerced ways than they like to admit, and Rome was more of a scheming, meddling busybody than a generous peacemaker in it all. But the real answer to your question is simple: I believe Orthodoxy is the Church and Roman Catholicism is not. That's pretty much the whole of it. If that's pride, then I'm in good company with several centuries of Roman Catholic Popes who issued encyclicals claiming the exact same thing about me.

  • − opinion#2379 1 likes at the source

    That said, are we Orthodox a complete mess? Yes, totally. We always have been. And I fully expect we always will be.
• − opinion#2366 1 likes at the source

  I'll keep this short since I came from the eastern Catholic side over to Orthodoxy. Eastern Catholic looks great on paper. It has the liturgy, it has the practices, but they still have to affirm everything Rome teaches. Even if the filioque isn't in their creed, they're still required to believe it. There are more reasons, but for me it was basically being Roman Catholic with a different liturgy.

  • − opinion#2380 1 likes at the source

    And the truth is the pope could erase all their liturgies and practices with one stroke of a pen. Anything "Orthodox" the Eastern Catholics have exists only because Rome currently allows it.

    • − opinion#2383 1 likes at the source

      Exactly. Look at what bishop Ireland did, or how he treated the Uniates in the late 1800s. He and others basically drove a huge number of eastern Catholics straight into Orthodoxy here in the USA.
• − opinion#2367 1 likes at the source

  Because there are real, serious theological beliefs that the EC approach of "you don't have to say it, but you must submit to believing it" doesn't come close to solving. There's still the fact that even with somewhat parallel hierarchies, there's only one actual bishop in the whole world, the Pope, with every other bishop functioning as a vicar. And there's the constant drift toward Latinization, which is the natural result of your bishop being foreign to your hierarchy. In other words, the faith is more than liturgical aesthetics, it's the faith itself.
• − opinion#2368 1 likes at the source

  Look up St. Alexis Toth and you'll see why Eastern Catholics/Uniates having our aesthetics doesn't make them our 1:1 substitute inside the papal system. Catholics only recently started offering "olive branches", if you call changing your faith to match theirs an olive branch. Eastern Orthodoxy can't exist within their framework, like I showed with St. Toth, you're at the mercy of whatever the current Pope believes. Read how Catholicism crushed the Conciliarism movement, or how they strong-armed the Orthodox at Florence when Orthodoxy offered an olive branch. It's not the primacy of the pope that's respected, it's the supremacy. They can't ignore it, but they also can't reject Vatican I and 2 and everything else that became mandatory. Was it prideful of the church to push back against every breakaway sect in our history?
• − opinion#2369 1 likes at the source

  I was Byzantine Catholic for almost a decade, and funny enough, it was wanting to stay in communion with Rome that got me taking a course on Christianity in Late Antiquity, hoping to ease my reservations about what being Orthodox in communion with Rome meant, when the Filioque was a major cause of the schism in the end. Sure, there were questions of synodality, ecclesiology, papal primacy and other issues, but up until Rome unilaterally added the Filioque after the rest of the Creed had been settled in ecumenical councils, the church's structure and authority did recognize the Petrine ministry. But once the second see of Peter started acting in ways nobody recognized in the first several hundred years, it's hard not to see the Orthodox position that Rome left the pentarchy and broke the unity of the faith by its own actions. I can also understand the view that the later western doctrinal developments would need to be walked back a lot further, with the West becoming more like Orthodoxy on things like original sin and the immaculate conception. Partway through that class, the question of which of the two post-schism churches resembled the one we were studying led me to conclude that Rome's later changes and its Filioque position were things I couldn't assent to. As much as I loved being Byzantine Catholic, I found I couldn't stay in communion with Rome, since I felt they had…
• − opinion#2370 1 likes at the source

  The Eastern Catholics exist mostly because of political pressure and geopolitical conflict against the Orthodox by the Papal States. They entered communion with Rome in the 16th to 18th centuries. That was also during what Orthodox history calls the "Western Captivity", when the Ottomans took over the East, Orthodoxy lost its seminaries and had to send clergy to Roman Catholic and Protestant seminaries. Also, the Eastern Catholics venerate post-schism Orthodox saints who explicitly condemn the Roman Church, Thomism and Latin Scholastic Theology. Which just proves Eastern Catholics are a theological contradiction born of geopolitical and political subjugation. And the schism between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic is all about theology. Not pride. If the Orthodox came into communion with Rome, either the Orthodox would have to disavow their theology and most of their post-schism saints to accept Rome's reformations (Gregorian Reform, Counter-Reform, Ultramontane Reform, Vatican 2) plus all of Rome's post-schism councils and scholastic theology. Or Rome would have to disavow all its post-schism councils, saints, reformations and theological innovations. So realistically there's almost no chance of communion without one side admitting it was wrong for the last 1,000 years, or both sides throwing their fidelity and respect for their faith in the trash for a fake unity. So if…
• − opinion#2371 1 likes at the source

  I really wish the Catholic Church would just change its teachings (which it's apparently totally comfortable doing) to the point where the Orthodox would be willing to reunite. Pretty useless comment, I know.

  • − opinion#2381 1 likes at the source

    As a former Catholic I'd love it. But the more I look, the clearer it is that the RCC is the one that's changed, and the recent changes worry me. Honestly I feel bad for a lot of traditional Catholics who have to go to the SSPX or the Eastern rites to find reverence and seriousness.
• − opinion#2372 1 likes at the source

  Well, you didn't pick a controversial topic at all, did you? 🤣. That said, I agree with much of the intention behind your post. I was raised Latin rite Catholic and attended the Rusyn Greek Catholics for 15 years before becoming Orthodox. Those Greek Catholic people taught me how to be an Eastern Christian and I'll always be grateful to them, and if I ever hear anyone say the word "Uniate" at an Orthodox gathering or church, I'll always call that out without fear (and hopefully with grace). Definitely, the Rusyn Orthodox and Greek Catholics are cousins, ecclesiastically and in actual families, and in PA and OH the old bitterness has mostly faded, thanks be to God.
• − opinion#2373 1 likes at the source

  I'd recommend reading the Balamand Document, one of the texts from the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Far from being a vehicle for unity, the very existence of the Eastern Catholic Churches is one of the obstacles standing in the way of union between Orthodox and Catholics. Imagine someone breaks into your house and steals one of your kids, but tells you it's fine because they'll let the kid keep doing the things he enjoys.

  • − opinion#2382 1 likes at the source

    No brother, it's the opposite: imagine your kids grow up, learn the truth, and choose to walk a similar but different path.
• − opinion#2374 1 likes at the source

  The way the eastern Catholic Churches exist inside Catholicism is not how unity with Rome looked before 1054. The way the Melkite patriarch operates, for example, is similar to how a metropolitan works in Orthodoxy. He's still under Rome but has an autonomous church. Before Vatican 2, eastern Catholics weren't that free to practice their Eastern traditions either. The Pope still elects the eastern Catholic bishops, their own "patriarchs" don't even do it, nor their own synods. Real reunion would have to mean Rome returning to Orthodoxy as an autocephalous church, and all the eastern Catholics falling back under their Orthodox counterparts. Autocephalous churches go all the way back to the beginning, and the idea of Rome holding supreme authority over any jurisdiction besides Rome is a new invention. In Orthodoxy, even before the schism, you could have two churches out of communion with each other while both remained in communion with the rest. That can't exist in Catholicism. To break communion with any church in communion with Rome is to break communion with Rome itself and be in schism from the whole church. That's not apostolic, and for reunion they'd have to adopt our ecclesiology and renounce their errors. The claim that Melkites don't have to accept Rome's post-schism councils as dogma is made up and false. Sure, the Filioque isn't in their creed, but they still have to…
• − opinion#2375 1 likes at the source

  It's not the same faith. Roman Catholics hold that the Pope has universal authority and doctrinal infallibility. Eastern Catholics accept that too, no matter how they look, smell or sound. And if they don't accept it but remain in communion with the Church of Rome, which does teach these things, then they're simply in communion with a falsehood.
• − opinion#2376 1 likes at the source

  We can't receive their mysteries, though, if you mean the Eucharist. I've gone to a Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic parish a few times for vigils, but both my priest and a former monk told me that EO are NOT permitted to commune, even if the Eucharist is valid. That parish also keeps a portrait of the infallible Bishop of Rome in the narthex, and his name gets inserted into the Liturgy. If it's really the same faith, why don't those parishioners just go to the canonical Ukrainian parish right across the street on Sundays? Two Ukrainian churches on the same block? Yes, the schism should end, but the portrait has to come down first.
• − opinion#2377 1 likes at the source

  I don't have a strong opinion either way, but the Pope's claim to primacy is one of the sticking points. Also, Orthodox churches govern themselves; even Constantinople has no authority over how each individual church is run. And that's just the administrative side. We can be separate but together, like we are now. My own Macedonian church has very friendly relations with Rome, and they visit the Vatican every year for St. Cyril's day.
• − opinion#2378 1 likes at the source

  Why stop at Eastern Catholics? You could say pretty much the same about the Orientals and the Copts. And where's the olive branch supposedly missing? When have they said they'd drop their claims about papal primacy, Vatican 1/2, and so on? Eastern Catholics keep the outward trappings, but they carry the baggage too.