Papal infallibility

[Alexis Flavian Bugnolo]

I will respond first to Matthew's post on the thread "the Immaculate Theotokos" regarding the infallibility of the Orthodox Churches.


Matthew:

You write,

"Whatever the heresy might have been that required the attention of the Orthodox Catholic Church we believe that the Church speaks "infallibly" universally and ecumenically by means of full council. A council can be called from the mouth of a babe or any of Gods' creatures. It is for the Orthodox Church to discern their calling as well as the basis and what does or does not necessitate conciliar actions and movements. The councils had been called for just that reason, to not allow heresy to prevail against Her. As the Latin Church does, we cannot believe that they are called to embrace them or allow a heresy to prevail. If somebody lights a fire inside your house or outside your house it is logical to put it out, if it has been extinguished then it hasn't prevailed. Heresy did not and can't "prevail" against the Orthodox Catholic Church. I think that conclusion is logical as we believe and adhere to the teachings of the Seven Ecumenical Councils."

What I meant was, when I said, heresy did prevail against one or more of the Churches of the East, I was obviously referring to the Churches who rejected one or more of the first 7 ecumenical councils on the one hand, and those churches which, without one of the 7 ecumenical councils would have fallen to heresy.

Let us not forget that there were some Patriarchs who worked night and day to support heresies condemned by one or more of the 7 Ecumenical Councils, and did not just write one ambiguous letter.

Blessed Theophylact's exposition at one point confounds the two different passages regarding the keys. Just because the Lord says to one individual "you are blessed" and to another "you are blessed" does not mean that they enjoy the same blessedness. It could mean that they enjoy different blessednesses.

Likewise, when Our Lord spoke of keys to St Peter and then to all the Apostles, it does not mean that He was speaking of the same thing, unless you insist a priori that it does.

In fact, if you look at the Scriptures, Our Lord does not speak in the same manner. For when speaking to Peter He says first, "Simon Bar Jonah, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father, who is in Heaven: therefore I say unto thee, thou art Rock and upon this rock I will build My Church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against Her." And then in Luke He adds, "Simon, Simon: Satan has desired to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for thee (singular) that thy faith may not fail, and when thou art converted, confirm thy brethren."

And so it is clear that Our Lord is referring to a unique grace given to St. Peter. Now this grace exists whether you or I or anyone after the Apostles says it exists or not, understands it or not. When we read the Fathers on this point, it is clear that, even if they speak differently of the first passage of keys, they do not deny the second passage about Christ's unique prayer for St. Peter.


Now to reply to Aaron:

You wrote:

"Furthermore, while these heresies arose in the East, they were also refuted by the East, often without the participation of the Bishop of Rome."

Very true! Because if you check the histories of the Councils, the Pope of Rome has never attended them in person, not the first 7 in the east, nor any other in the West. Nor was he expected to, unlike all the other Patriarchs and Archbishops and Bishops. He always sent ambassadors, because the Church of Rome always understood that its Patriarch was superior to an Ecumenical Council.

Again you write:

"It is rather strange that anyone would claim it takes an Ecumenical Council for something to become heretical."

I was referring to the judgment of heresy which justifies condemning an entire Church which dissents from a Council. The Orthodox, unlike the Churches of the first 7 Ecumenical Councils, have not called a Council to issue infallible judgments regarding the doctrines of the Roman Church which they reject.

Or rather, they did attend a Council and do just that, the Council of Florence, and there, on the contrary, they accepted all the Roman Doctrines and anathametized all who rejected them.

So, the Orthodox today are left with the historic fact that they are anathametized by an Ecumenical Council which was recognized by the Emperor and Patriarchs of the East.

Now no where in the History of the early Church is anything of the kind found.

Finally, the Imperial Family which survived the Siege of Constantinople, as well as the last Emperor, accepted the Roman Doctrines and died in communion with the Patriarch of Rome. Their descendents lived for some generations in Sicily, and are remembered for their Catholicity by the entire Catholic Church.


Sincerely in Christ,

Br. Alexis Bugnolo

[Kosmas Damianides]

Brothers in Christ,

The fact that the RCC is in communion with he Eastern Catholic Church, also concerns me since the Roman Catholics accept their dogmas (for the sake of unity) which are completely different from theirs but don't believe in them.

Isn't this a bit weird? And why don't the Uniates accept the dogmas of the R-Catholics as being correct but accept union with them?

This shows, to me, that there is no synodal concord/agreement in the Roman catholic Church after the schism. They only accept what the Pope says and that is it.

Since you agree that no-one is perfect surely you must see that the Orthodox Church used councils (7) and still uses synods of Bishops and Patriarchs to resolve issues in the Church, not accepting the decisions of only ONE being infallible because nobody is infallible. The Ecumenical councils are infallible only because more than one person decides in accordance with the Bible and Saints of the Church - as the name suggests Ecumenical means according to "the whole and universal world church" (Gk. ecumeni = all the world).

It's a Democratic deccision or rather a Theocratic decision, because it is inspired by God in consensus with the holy fathers and those present.

It is not a Totalitarian/Despotic decision where only ONE person dictates what is to be infallible dogmatic truth. So if a Uniate cardinal is putin the Papal office would you then also have to believe in the "new dogmas" he would pronounce?

Even Saints make mistakes that's why I believe we should never take what one Saint says without comparing with what other Saints say or the Church says.

Furthermore:

If you ask most normal Roman Catholic Christians they will probably tell you that they don't agree with the decisions of the Pope. they don't agree with papal infallibility, they don't agree with priests not being allowed to get married they don't agree with being sprinkled during baptism and I hear a whole lot of other complaints.

Dont get me wrong, I don't agree we should follow the opinions of lay people alone...

But did you know that in the old days the people and clergy used to vote for their Pope, Patriarch and bishops (as they still do in the autocephalous Church of Cyprus this very day)? It was clergy + laity electing who would fill the Episcopal role.

I believe that If people would again be allowed to vote for heir Pope today I bet you that we would be united again as quickly as you can say SUPERCALAFRENCHALISTICESPIALADOCIUS.

Papalist followers however i am sad to say have a different mentality all together. Most (not all) Seminarians are trained to think in this narrow way.

I don't write these things to offend only to help open your minds a little. Do yourselves a favour, conduct this survey, ask someone about these common objections and write us what they say.

Humbly yours

Kosmas

[Alexis Flavian Bugnolo]

Dear Kosmas,

The Eastern Rite Catholic Churches are not only in communion with the Roman Church, but are understood by us to be part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

I cannot speak about individuals. But officially all these eastern Churches believe every doctrine we do, and we, every one they do.

As for democracy and papal elections: no Catholic believes that the Pope has to be elected in any specific manner: whether by Cardinals or clergy and laity of the Diocese of Rome. It is just the custom for the last 900 years for Cardinals to vote. And anyhow, a Cardinal does not have to be a priest: some cardinals in the past were just acolytes.

I do not think the way the Pope of Rome is elected helps or hurts unity, for unity in the Church comes from Christ, and anyhow, the Pope is not the cause of that unity. Christ is.

As for papal authority:

You say it is totalitarian or despotic. I can imagine that if I grew up under a communist government, I might call it that, but since I grew up in the USA, it seems to me no more totalitarian or despotic than Christ or God teaching or St. Paul teaching -- since I must accept their teaching without question.

I am concerned rather with believing the truth and remaining faithful to that. If we seek the truth, the manner in which it comes to us is always welcome. If we are not seeking the truth, but rather seek liberty, then the manner in which truth comes to us does matter.

It is as simple as that.

Truth in matters doctrinal is by definition that which unites us in mind with Jesus Christ, who is the Incarnate Wisdom of the Father and hence the fullest and most faithful expression of Eternal Truth.

For us Franciscans, Christ is our Theology. And so we have traditionally been very interested in a faithful expression of the Faith, so as to remain and grow in union with Him.

I think if we look at the Faith this way, we will not be afraid of new or old expressions, because we find in both, when then are true, different tools and means for uniting us to the Same Truth, Our Lord and Redeemer.

The question of papal infalliblity should be addressed, therefore, from the deeper perspective of this view: "Did Jesus Christ grant this grace to St. Peter and his successors?" If Christ did, let us accept it, for it will be a blessing to the Church.

Sincerely in Christ,

Br. Alexis Bugnolo

[Fr Aaron Warwick]

Dear Br. Alexis:

Thank you for your considerate response. Before responding to your responses to both me and Matthew, please let me tell you in advance that I will be unable to continue posting at this pace. Consequently, I ask your forgiveness for any future delays in posting, but will do my best to eventually respond. With that said, you made the following observations:

In fact, if you look at the Scriptures, Our Lord does not speak in the same manner. For when speaking to Peter He says first, "Simon Bar Jonah, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father, who is in Heaven: therefore I say unto thee, thou art Rock and upon this rock I will build My Church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against Her." And then in Luke He adds, "Simon, Simon: Satan has desired to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for thee (singular) that thy faith may not fail, and when thou art converted, confirm thy brethren."

Of course, we must also add that Simon Peter is the only Apostle whom the Lord addressed as 'Satan' when He said to him: "Get behind me Satan."

And so it is clear that Our Lord is referring to a unique grace given to St. Peter.

And who among the Orthodox, may I ask, denies this? I have seen no indication from anyone on this list, nor from any other Orthodox source ever that Peter was not given a special grace.

Very true! Because if you check the histories of the Councils, the Pope of Rome has never attended them in person, not the first 7 in the east, nor any other in the West. Nor was he expected to, unlike all the other Patriarchs and Archbishops and Bishops. He always sent ambassadors, because the Church of Rome always understood that its Patriarch was superior to an Ecumenical Council.

This is certainly a different interpretation than I have ever heard. In regards to papal infallibility and the Bishop of Rome's role throughout Church history, I would recommend that you read this work (http://www.odox.net/The%20Papacy%20Guettee%20-%20Kirwan.pdf) by a former Roman Catholic monk, if you have not already. It is, of course, quite lengthy, but is certainly worth a good read.

The question of papal infalliblity should be addressed, therefore, from the deeper perspective of this view: "Did Jesus Christ grant this grace to St. Peter and his successors?" If Christ did, let us accept it, for it will be a blessing to the Church.

Even if we were to answer this question "yes," we would still not arrive at your conclusion. St. Peter was first involved in the apostolic ministry at the Church of Antioch. He was then associated with the apostolic ministry at the Church of Alexandria. Only after that was he involved in the apostolic ministry in Rome. Why then do you not insist that Antiochian and Alexandrian bishops are infallible? Even St. Greogory the Great said that the cathedra of St. Peter included Alexandria and Antioch.

And I am still waiting for you to tell me the Patriarch of Rome that confirmed the Second Ecumenical Council, and why he confirmed it even though Pope Damasus considered its president, St. Meletius of Antioch (who is also considered a saint in the Roman Catholic Church despite the fact that he died out of communion with Rome) to be schismatic and was in communion with Paulinus of Antioch who the Council did not consider to be the legitimate bishop.

Aaron

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear Br. Alexis Bugnolo,

Where does that leave us now according to your understandings which seem to differ quite a bit from those that are in the Vatican. They don't believe that we are anathematized by an Ecumenical Council, your conclusions differ. Why is that? I don't think that anyone here is capable of believing we anathematized ourselves. I've never heard that newness before.

Besides it is mute point insofar as your comments and conclusions fall way out of sync with Pope John Paul II's and are not a reflection of the current understandings coming from the personality of the new Bishop of Rome at this time. It probably would have been a significant oversight by Pope Paul VI in 1964 in Jerusalem when the mutual anathemas of 1054 had been lifted. One would think that they would have been advised of the conclusions on the Florence situation and lifted the alleged self-anathema you have presented for our consideration. It appears they dismissed such considerations, I think it is best that we do as well.

Suffice it to say here is a quote from the new pope, former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger;

"For me, our real sister is the Orthodox Church."

It even sounds better then some of the older eternal hellfire documents from Rome.


In Christ,

Matthew Panchisin

[Antonios Spartan]

Dear Brothers in Christ,

There is a man who lives in Rome who many millions of Christians believe is infallible; that is, everything he says and does is the purely expressed words and view of God, with absolutely no error or corruption or stain in transmission. On a whim, he can soley create new dogmas, redefine old doctrines, and change tradition dating back millenia. Wow. I think I read about someone like that in Revelations.

[Antonios Spartan]

I just reread my above post and want to clarify it lest my Catholic friends in Christ take it to mean I think Pope Benedict is the antichrist. (I think only one German a century can hold that claim! http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/lol.gif

What I mean is that the dogma of papal infallibility is just another example of how the Roman Catholic Church is going deeper into heresy and straying from the Orthodox and true faith. The Pope does say things that are truly God-inspired. The Pope does teach truths about the Christian faith. I will never be as good a Christian as Pope John Paul. But why must he be infallible? What is the purpose other than to squash others and gain more power? If the Pope truly was infallible, he wouldn't have to make it a dogma. It would be self-evident.

[Ken McRae]

Antonios originally posted:-


" ... that is, everything he says and does is the purely expressed words and view of God, with absolutely no error or corruption or stain in transmission. On a whim, he can soley create new dogmas, redefine old doctrines, and change tradition dating back millenia."

Dear Antonios,

Your opinion is completely unfounded and distorted. If you believe otherwise, that is to say, if you believe the above to be true, then prove it by posting direct quotes from Catholic texts to support your position. If you are not willing to research your opinions, then perhaps you should exercise some sobriety in sharing them with others.

humbly,
Theophilus

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

The Church is the fullness of Truth in that it is the Body of Christ and the gates of hell & falsehood shall not prevail against Her. Within the Church is found the Life of Christ imparted to its human members so that they may overcome the power of sin & death. So it is chiefly as something wherein we experience Christ "trampling down death by death" that we speak of the Church. The Life of Christ found within the Church is the beginning & end of Truth & Life. It is in this sense that we could say that the life of the Church is infallible. In any case for the Church inerrant Truth means Life and is not simply an intellectual category.

The Truth of the Church is found in Her entire life as guided by the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit there is no truth or life and Christ is not present. This Holy Spirit inspires Councils but it also inspires every other aspect of the life of the Church also. Thus the Church through Her Councils may discern and judge where truth and falsehood are- but this is not absolutely restricted to Councils. Even though the good order of the Church may await the decision of a Council the discernment of truth or heresy is not restricted to a Council. A bishop, priest or layman reflecting 'the mind of the Church' can equally discern about truth or heresy. To the extent then that the Holy Spirit is present Christ's grace is also present guiding the Church in fullness.

It is against this standard of the Holy Spirit that all that occurs within the Church must be measured. And that is why anyone and even Councils can be found wanting. In this sense what occurs within the Church is not 'infallible' for what occurs must meet the criterion of Truth. If anyone be they Patriarch, bishop or layman does not meet this criterion then whatever is false is rejected.

It is the guidance of the Holy Spirit that prevents all of this from becoming something arbitrary. Man guided just by intellect or emotion will always fall into something arbitrary. But the Church guided by the Holy Spirit discerns truth & falsehood. This in turn is anchored in the faithful as they live their life in Christ. So to the extent that what occurs within the Church is truly guided by the Holy Spirit then its life will be anchored in the Truth of Christ.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Alexis Flavian Bugnolo]

Dear Aaron,

Regarding what you wrote above


"And I am still waiting for you to tell me the Patriarch of Rome that confirmed the Second Ecumenical Council, and why he confirmed it even though Pope Damasus considered its president, St. Meletius of Antioch (who is also considered a saint in the Roman Catholic Church despite the fact that he died out of communion with Rome) to be schismatic and was in communion with Paulinus of Antioch who the Council did not consider to be the legitimate bishop."

I found no evidence that at the time of the Council of Constantinople in 381, the situation was as you describe. Yes, Pope Damasus did some years before recognize Melitus' rival, but he was reinstated by the Emperor a few years before the council (378 to be exact), and no one disputed that at the time of the counciil itself.

As for dying outside of communion with the Pope of Rome, several of our saints did: we do not believe the Pope in matters disciplinary is infallible. Like men, some were good, some were bad, some mediocre.

As for approving the Council, the first historical text that clearly cites a papal approval was in the time of Pope Gregory the Great (6th century), but that does not mean it was rejected at Rome. We have always used the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed on Sundays. And St. Gregory the Great did not add that.

[Fr. Michael Shanbour]

I wonder what the western Church Fathers thought about this? Here are a couple:

"What meaneth 'Upon this rock I will build my Church'? Upon this faith...."
St. Augustine (Homily X on John V. 1-3)

Faith is the foundation of the Church, for it was not the person but the faith of St. Peter that it was said that the gates of hell should not prevail against it...Jesus Christ is the Rock (NOT Peter)....If thou art a rock, though shalt be in the Church for the Church is built upon the rock....
St. Ambose (On the Incarnation)

Here are a couple of eastern Fathers for confirmation:

"And I say unto thee, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church,' that is, on the faith of his confession."
St. John Chrysostom (Homily LIV on Matthew XIV.13)

Rock is the unity of faith, not the person of Peter.
St. Cyprian of Carthage, (De Catholicae Ecclesiae Unitate, cap. 4-5)

Seems that while we do not agree, the Holy Fathers did! http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear Antonios,

As a reminder you may read the text in the following link, it's a good read. I think all of us should keep in mind that we do a disservice to Matthew Steenberg's intentions with Monachos.net when we respond in ways as I have in the past that are not in accordance with his purpose in the establishment of this community.

http://www.monachos.net/welcome.shtml

He has taken time away from his other responsibilities to provide this forum as such it is incumbent upon us to discuss matters in the best possible ways. Namely remembering that as Orthodox Christians or Roman Catholic Christians as Br. Alexis Bugnolo had mentioned in reference to his order which is applicable to all of us, Christ is our Theology. A good very thought indeed.



In Christ,

Matthew Panchisin

[Fr. Michael Shanbour]

My brother Aaron failed to mention -- although I know he is aware of it -- that our Father among the Saints, Gregory Pope of Rome, stated emphatically to his "brother" the Patriarch of Constantinople that NO Bishop should or can ever be called "universal." To do so, was a complete innovation and utter outrage according to his own writings.

[Alexis Flavian Bugnolo]

The Council of Florence opened at Ferrara, after having been moved from Basel.


As a note, the following Greeks attended at Ferrara:

They were "headed by Emperor John Palaeologus and Joasaph, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and numbered about seven hundred. The solemn sessions of the council began on 9 April, 1438, and were held in the cathedral of Ferrara under the presidency of the pope. On the Gospel side of the altar rose the (unoccupied) throne of the Western Emperor (Sigismund of Luxemburg), who had died only a month previously; on the Epistle side was placed the throne of the Greek Emperor. Besides the emperor and his brother Demetrius, there were present, on the part of the Greeks, Joasaph, the Patriarch of Constantinople; Antonius, the Metropolitan of Heraclea; Gregory Hamma, the Protosyncellus of Constantinople (the last two representing the Patriarch of Alexandria); Marcus Eugenicus of Ephesus; Isidore of Kiev (representing the Patriarch of Antioch); Dionysius, Bishop of Sardes (representing the Patriarch of Jerusalem); Bessarion, Archbishop of Nicaea; Balsamon, the chief chartophylax; Syropulos, the chief ecclesiarch, and the Bishops of Monembasia, Lacedaemon, and Anchielo. In the discussions the Latins were represented principally by Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini and Cardinal Niccolò Albergati; Andrew, Archbishop of Rhodes; the Bishop of Forlì; the Dominican John of Turrecremata; and Giovanni di Ragusa, provincial of Lombardy." (Catholic Encyclopedia)


The Decree of the Council of Florence

Session 6—6 July 1439

[Definition of the holy ecumenical synod of Florence]

Eugenius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, for an everlasting record. With the agreement of our most dear son John Palaeologus, illustrious emperor of the Romans, of the deputies of our venerable brothers the patriarchs and of other representatives of the eastern church, to the following.


Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice. For, the wall that divided the western and the eastern church has been removed, peace and harmony have returned, since the corner-stone, Christ, who made both one, has joined both sides with a very strong bond of love and peace, uniting and holding them together in a covenant of everlasting unity. After a long haze of grief and a dark and unlovely gloom of long-enduring strife, the radiance of hoped-for union has illuminated all.

Let mother church also rejoice. For she now beholds her sons hitherto in disagreement returned to unity and peace, and she who hitherto wept at their separation now gives thanks to God with inexpressible joy at their truly marvellous harmony. Let all the faithful throughout the world, and those who go by the name of Christian, be glad with mother catholic church. For behold, western and eastern fathers after a very long period of disagreement and discord, submitting themselves to the perils of sea and land and having endured labours of all kinds, came together in this holy ecumenical council, joyful and eager in their desire for this most holy union and to restore intact the ancient love. In no way have they been frustrated in their intent. After a long and very toilsome investigation, at last by the clemency of the holy Spirit they have achieved this greatly desired and most holy union. Who, then, can adequately thank God for his gracious gifts?' Who would not stand amazed at the riches of such great divine mercy? Would not even an iron breast be softened by this immensity of heavenly condescension?

These truly are works of God, not devices of human frailty. Hence they are to be accepted with extraordinary veneration and to be furthered with praises to God. To you praise, to you glory, to you thanks, O Christ, source of mercies, who have bestowed so much good on your spouse the catholic church and have manifested your miracles of mercy in our generation, so that all should proclaim your wonders. Great indeed and divine is the gift that God has bestowed on us. We have seen with our eyes what many before greatly desired yet could not behold.

For when Latins and Greeks came together in this holy synod, they all strove that, among other things, the article about the procession of the holy Spirit should be discussed with the utmost care and assiduous investigation. Texts were produced from divine scriptures and many authorities of eastern and western holy doctors, some saying the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, others saying the procession is from the Father through the Son. All were aiming at the same meaning in different words. The Greeks asserted that when they claim that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, they do not intend to exclude the Son; but because it seemed to them that the Latins assert that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from two principles and two spirations, they refrained from saying that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Latins asserted that they say the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son not with the intention of excluding the Father from being the source and principle of all deity, that is of the Son and of the holy Spirit, nor to imply that the Son does not receive from the Father, because the holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, nor that they posit two principles or two spirations; but they assert that there is only one principle and a single spiration of the holy Spirit, as they have asserted hitherto. Since, then, one and the same meaning resulted from all this, they unanimously agreed and consented to the following holy and God-pleasing union, in the same sense and with one mind.

In the name of the holy Trinity, Father, Son and holy Spirit, we define, with the approval of this holy universal council of Florence, that the following truth of faith shall be believed and accepted by all Christians and thus shall all profess it: that the holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son, and has his essence and his subsistent being from the Father together with the Son, and proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and a single spiration. We declare that when holy doctors and fathers say that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, this bears the sense that thereby also the Son should be signified, according to the Greeks indeed as cause, and according to the Latins as principle of the subsistence of the holy Spirit, just like the Father.

And since the Father gave to his only-begotten Son in begetting him everything the Father has, except to be the Father, so the Son has eternally from the Father, by whom he was eternally begotten, this also, namely that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Son.

We define also that the explanation of those words "and from the Son" was licitly and reasonably added to the creed for the sake of declaring the truth and from imminent need.

Also, the body of Christ is truly confected in both unleavened and leavened wheat bread, and priests should confect the body of Christ in either, that is, each priest according to the custom of his western or eastern church. Also, if truly penitent people die in the love of God before they have made satisfaction for acts and omissions by worthy fruits of repentance, their souls are cleansed after death by cleansing pains; and the suffrages of the living faithful avail them in giving relief from such pains, that is, sacrifices of masses, prayers, almsgiving and other acts of devotion which have been customarily performed by some of the faithful for others of the faithful in accordance with the church's ordinances.

Also, the souls of those who have incurred no stain of sin whatsoever after baptism, as well as souls who after incurring the stain of sin have been cleansed whether in their bodies or outside their bodies, as was stated above, are straightaway received into heaven and clearly behold the triune God as he is, yet one person more perfectly than another according to the difference of their merits. But the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go down straightaway to hell to be punished, but with unequal pains. We also define that the holy apostolic see and the Roman pontiff holds the primacy over the whole world and the Roman pontiff is the successor of blessed Peter prince of the apostles, and that he is the true vicar of Christ, the head of the whole church and the father and teacher of all Christians, and to him was committed in blessed Peter the full power of tending, ruling and governing the whole church, as is contained also in the acts of ecumenical councils and in the sacred canons.

Also, renewing the order of the other patriarchs which has been handed down in the canons, the patriarch of Constantinople should be second after the most holy Roman pontiff, third should be the patriarch of Alexandria, fourth the patriarch of Antioch, and fifth the patriarch of Jerusalem, without prejudice to all their privileges and rights.

[Alexis Flavian Bugnolo]

Having tracked down the decree of union at Florence, and read it carefully -- I find no anathema was issued, and therefore I confess that I erred when I said the Orthodox today are anathamatized by Florence.

I beg the apologies of you all!

Sincerely in Christ,

Br. Alexis Bugnolo

[Antonios Spartan]

Dear Theophilus,

The truth is I know very little about the doctrine as understood by the Catholic Church. In fact, I have done no research whatsoever on the topic. I have assumed it to mean that the doctrine insists that the Pope can make no mistake, and that his word is above all humans. Is this too generalized an assumption? I honestly don't know. I apologize I have offended you. I would be wise to take your advice and do some research before I make future statements. I have only recently begun to learn the Christian faith and have spent the majority of my time reading patristic writings and more contemporary Orthodox views where this topic is never really mentioned. Please forgive me.

In Christ,
Antonios

[Antonios Spartan]

I would also like to apoligize to everyone else in this forum. I read this site everyday and learn so much from all of you. I don't usually write any posts because I am still very ignorant in these discussions and have nowhere near the knowledge of theology as my fellow forum members. I may not know the specifics in comparative theology, but one thing I know for sure, the Pope is way more infallible than I am!

humbly,
Antonios

[leandros]

Brothers, sisters and Roman-Catholic Friends,

I personally find the issue of «Papal Infallibility» quite simple and I sometimes wonder why does it stand there for such a long time, even when it is viewed from a roman-catholic point of view.

For, we all know that no man has ever achieved to hold the certification of Infallibility - manGod Christ is excluded.

I am an Orthodox, but let me try to view this issue as a roman-catholic, and I will use for this purpose the word «church» implying the roman-catholic church:

"Many people take for granted that an authentic and genuine faithful of the Christian faith has to be infallible (at least regarding his Christian faith) or else he would have not been a true faithful. So, they expect from these authentic Christians to formulate an unfeigned testimony over Christian Truth, Faith, Doctrine, Dogmas and of all those things that constitute Christendom. If there were in the Church several authentic Christians surely many of them should have been appointed as teachers of the faith, both of Christian theology and of Christian practise. These persons ought to be illuminated from God as they should be the teachers and all others should have been their students. In such a way Church would grow as the body of Christ.

In this context, the «Infallibility» is not pope's personal privilege. There are many persons in the Church that are authentic and genuine Christians. As such, they also have the same «Infallibility», as knowledge of the true Christian Truth that they received from a Divine Revelation as members of the Church, that pope has. What we are suggesting here as «papal Infallibility» is not a singular personal privilege of pope of Rome of a private exclusive infallible notion, but his privilege to express this catholic - in the sense that is shared by many others members of the Church - notion to those who live in ignorance.

There are three important points here:

First: nobody has this Christian knowledge by his wisdom or by his nature. The Devine knowledge is actually a Revelation of God to humans that are living an authentic and genuine Christian life - in this context the pope is not a superman, but a deacon in the service of God, he may even be somehow unworthy of this assignment but God's grace supplements the human deficiency for the sake of the members of the Church.

Second: there is no need for collective effort by many church members to provide the expression of the Truth, since the Divine Revelation is one entity not scattered in many pieces, as it is «radiated» from one source. Of course, there are many receivers of the true knowledge but only one has the «official» privilege to express the Revealed message.

Third: Pope's doctrine can not be wrong, not because he is infallible by his nature, but because he is an instrument in the «hands» of God. In this context, pope's doctrine is God's doctrine and as such it permits no improvements, no alterations, and no annexes.

In this context, the promise of Christ to St Peter that, he will become the foundation on which the Church will be build upon, is put into practice with the «papal infallibility». There can only be one foundation, or else we would end up building many churches."

Now, my friends all this logical structure has no place to stand in the Orthodox Church tradition.

Here is the difference between Roman-Catholic / Orthodox Church from Fr John Romanidis: http://www.greekorthodoxchurch.org/romanorthodox.html

"A basic characteristic of the Frankish (Germanic-Latin) scholastic method, mislead by Augustinian Platonism and Thomistic Aristotelianism had been its naive confidence in the objective existence of things rationally speculated about. By following Augustine, the Franks and the "Latin" Roman Catholic Church substituted the patristic concern for spiritual observation, (which they had found firmly established in Gaul when they first conquered the area) with a Germanic fascination for metaphysics

In contrast to the Franks the Fathers of the Orthodox Church did not understand theology as a theoretical or speculative science, but as a positive science in all respects. This is why the patristic understanding of Biblical inspiration is similar to the inspiration of writings in the field of the positive sciences.

Scientific manuals are inspired by the observations of specialists. For example, the astronomer records what he observes by means of the instruments at his disposal. Because of his training in the use of his instruments, he is inspired by the heavenly bodies, and sees things invisible to the naked eye. The same is true of all the positive sciences. However, books about science can never replace scientific observations. These writings are not the observations themselves, but about these observations.

The same is true of the Orthodox understanding of the Bible and the writings of the Fathers. Neither the Bible nor the writings of the Fathers are revelation or the word of God. They are about revelation and about the word of God.

Revelation is the appearance of God to the prophets, apostles, and saints. The Bible and the writings of the Fathers are about these appearances, but not the appearances themselves. This is why it is the prophet, apostle, and saint who sees God, and not those who simply read about their experiences of glorification. It is obvious that neither a book about glorification nor one who reads such a book can ever replace the prophet, apostle, or saint who has the experience of glorification.

This is the heart of the Orthodox understanding of tradition and apostolic succession which sets it apart from the "Latin" (in other words, Frankish-Germanic) and Protestant traditions, both of which stem from the theology of the Franks.

Following Augustine, the Franks identified revelation with the Bible and believed that Christ gave to the Church the Holy Spirit as a guide to its correct understanding. This would be similar to claiming that the books about biology were revealed by microbes and cells without the biologists having seen them with the microscope, and that these same microbes and cells inspire future teachers to correctly understand these books without the use of the microscope!

Historians have noted the naivite of the Frankish religious mind which was shocked by the first claims for the primacy of observation over rational analysis. Even Galileo's telescopes could not shake this confidence. However, several centuries before Galileo, the Franks had been shocked by the East Roman (Orthodox) claim, hurled by Saint Gregory Palamas (1296-1359), of the primacy of experience and observation over "reason" in theology.

The universe has turned out to be a much greater mystery to man than anyone was ever able to imagine. Indications are strong that it will yet prove to be an even greater mystery than man today can yet imagine. In the light of this, one thinks humorously of the (Latin) bishops who could not grasp the reality, let alone the magnitude, of what they saw through Galileo’s telescope. But the magnitude of Frankish naivite becomes even greater when one realizes that these same church leaders who could not understand the meaning of a simple observation were claiming knowledge of God's essence and nature.

The Latin tradition could not understand the significance of an instrument by which the prophets, apostles, and saints had reached glorification.

Similar to today's sciences, Orthodox theology also depends on an instrument which is not identified with reason or the intellect. The Biblical name for this is the heart. Christ says, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."

The heart is not normally clean, i.e., it does not normally function properly. Like the lens of a telescope or microscope, it must be polished so that light may pass through and allow man to focus his spiritual vision on things not visible to the naked eye.

In time, some Fathers gave the name nous (nou'~) to the faculty of the soul which operates within the heart when restored to normal capacity, and reserved the names logos (lovgo") and dianoia (diavnoia)for the intellect and reason, or for what we today would call the brain. In order to avoid confusion, we use the terms noetic faculty and noetic prayer to designate the activity of the nou'~ in the heart called noerav eujchv.

The heart, and not the brain, is the area in which the theologian is formed. Theology includes the intellect as all sciences do, but it is in the heart that the intellect and all of man observes and experiences the rule of God. One of the basic differences between science and Orthodox theology is that man has his heart or noetic faculty by nature, whereas he himself has created his instruments of scientific observation.

A second basic difference is the following: By means of his instruments, and the energy radiated by and/or upon what he observes, the scientist sees things which he can describe with words, even though at times inadequately. These words are symbols of accumulated human experience, and understood by those with the same or similar experience.

In contrast to this, the experience of glorification is to see God who has no similarity whatsoever to anything created, not even to the intellect or to the angels. God is literally unique and can in no way be described by comparison with anything that any creature may be, know or imagine. No aspect about God can be expressed in a concept or collection of concepts.

It is for this reason that in Orthodoxy positive statements about God are counterbalanced by negative statements, not in order to purify the positive ones of their imperfections, but in order to make clear that God is in no way similar to the concepts conveyed by words, since God is above every name and concept ascribed to Him. Although God created the universe, which continues to depend on Him, God and the universe do not belong to one category of truth. Truths concerning creation cannot apply to God, nor can the truth of God be applied to creation.

Let us turn our attention to those aspects of differences between Roman and Frankish theologies which have had a strong impact on the development of differences in the doctrine of the Church. The basic differences may be listed under diagnosis of spiritual ills and their therapy.

According to the Orthodox Church, the "East Romans," Glorification is the vision of God in which the equality of all men and the absolute value of each man is experienced. God loves all men equally and indiscriminately, regardless of even their moral status. God loves with the same love, both the saint and the devil. To teach otherwise, as Augustine and the Franks did, would be adequate proof that they did not have the slightest idea of what glorification was.

According to the Orthodox, God multiplies and divides himself in His uncreated energies undividedly among divided things, so that He is both present by act and absent by nature to each individual creature and everywhere present and absent at the same time. This is the fundamental mystery of the presence of God to His creatures and shows that universals do not exist in God and are, therefore, not part of the state of illumination as in the Augustinian (Frankish Latin) tradition.
....

This failure of Augustine to distinguish between the divine essence and its natural energies (of which some are communicated to the friends of God), led to a very peculiar reading of the Bible, wherein creatures or symbols come into existence in order to convey a divine message, and then pass out of existence. Thus, the Bible becomes full of unbelievable miracles and a text dictated by God.
...
Another most devastating result of the Augustinian presuppositions of the filioque is the destruction of the prophetic and apostolic understanding of grace and its replacement with the whole system of created graces distributed in Latin Christendom by the hocus pocus of the clergy."

As Fr Romanidis have shown in his text, the "papal Infallibility" is based on a wrong theology. If the roman-catholic theology is to be accepted as truthful then the "papal infallibility" would have been also valid. But, this is not the case.

So the importand thing is to restore the Catholic Theology as a whole, and not just to rectify the "papal Infallibility" false.

[Ken McRae]

The following quotes from St. Maximus the Confessor were found at the following web page:-

The Eastern Church Defends Petrine Primacy and the Papacy! (http://web.globalserve.net/~bumblebee/ecclesia/patriarchs.htm)

St. Maximus the Confessor (c. 650):-

1 - "The extremities of the earth, and everyone in every part of it who purely and rightly confess the Lord, look directly towards the Most Holy Roman Church and her confession and faith, as to a sun of unfailing light awaiting from her the brilliant radiance of the sacred dogmas of our Fathers, according to that which the inspired and holy Councils have stainlessly and piously decreed. For, from the descent of the Incarnate Word amongst us, all the churches in every part of the world have held the greatest Church alone to be their base and foundation, seeing that, according to the promise of Christ Our Savior, the gates of hell will never prevail against her, that she has the keys of the orthodox confession and right faith in Him, that she opens the true and exclusive religion to such men as approach with piety, and she shuts up and locks every heretical mouth which speaks against the Most High." (Maximus, Opuscula theologica et polemica, Migne, Patr. Graec. vol. 90)

2 - "How much more in the case of the clergy and Church of the Romans, which from old until now presides over all the churches which are under the sun? Having surely received this canonically, as well as from councils and the apostles, as from the princes of the latter (Peter & Paul), and being numbered in their company, she is subject to no writings or issues in synodical documents, on account of the eminence of her pontificate ... even as in all these things all are equally subject to her (the Church of Rome) according to sacerodotal law. And so when, without fear, but with all holy and becoming confidence, those ministers (the popes) are of the truly firm and immovable rock, that is of the most great and Apostolic Church of Rome." (Maximus, in J.B. Mansi, ed. Amplissima Collectio Conciliorum, vol. 10)

3 - "If the Roman See recognizes Pyrrhus to be not only a reprobate but a heretic, it is certainly plain that everyone who anathematizes those who have rejected Pyrrhus also anathematizes the See of Rome, that is, he anathematizes the Catholic Church. I need hardly add that he excommunicates himself also, if indeed he is in communion with the Roman See and the Catholic Church of God ... Let him hasten before all things to satisfy the Roman See, for if it is satisfied, all will agree in calling him pious and orthodox. For he only speaks in vain who thinks he ought to pursuade or entrap persons like myself, and does not satisfy and implore the blessed Pope of the most holy Catholic Church of the Romans, that is, the Apostolic See, which is from the incarnate of the Son of God Himself, and also all the holy synods, according to the holy canons and definitions has received universal and surpreme dominion, authority, and power of binding and loosing over all the holy churches of God throughout the whole world." (Maximus, Letter to Peter, in Mansi x, 692).

Now for my comments:-

1 - In the first quote, St. Maximus says of Rome that "from the descent of the Incarnate Word amongst us, all the churches in every part of the world have held the greatest Church alone to be their base and foundation, seeing that, according to the promise of Christ Our Savior, the gates of hell will never prevail against her." To say, as he does, that the father of lies shall *never*, I repeat, *never* prevail against Rome is tantamount to confessing that she possesses Divine infallibility, by virtue of the promise of Christ. In the second quote, he describes the Papacy as "the truly firm and immovable rock", again implying infallibility, for the term "immovable" implies stedfastness and an inability to fall into formal heresy. Thus, on account of this infallibility, he says that "she is subject to no writings or issues in synodical documents," thus implying that these instead were subject to her approval, by virtue of which they possessed an infallible authority.

2 - In the third quote, St. Maximus says that Rome "has received universal and surpreme dominion, authority, and power of binding and loosing over all the holy churches of God throughout the whole world;" thus confessing that she possessed "universal" jurisdiction. Now, a universal jurisdiction clearly implies infallibility, for if one thought for a split second that there was even a "snow-ball's chance in hell" that Rome could fall into formal heresy, the last thing on earth anyone would do is grant her a universal jurisidiction over all churches. One would rather seek to limit her jurisdiction as a type of security measure, for were she to fall into formal apostacy, all other churches under her jurisdiction would fall with her, and irrecoverably so.

3 - It is undeniably clear from the above quotes that St. Maximus believed, in confessing thus, that he stood firmly and squarely in the apostolic tradition of the Universal Church. Whether or not he was correct is not the issue, but the point is that he firmly believed he confessed the faith of his fathers in the above statements.

(Message edited by theophilus on 29 May, 2005)

[Ken McRae]

St. John Chrysostom on Rome's Universal Jurisdiction:-

Once again, the following quotes are from the online document entitled, 'The Eastern Church Defends Petrine Primacy and the Papacy' (http://web.globalserve.net/~bumblebee/ecclesia/patriarchs.htm):-

St. John Chrysostom

1 - "Peter, that Leader of the choir, that Mouth of the rest of the Apostles, that Head of the brotherhood, that one set over the entire universe, that Foundation of the Church." (Chrys. In illud hoc Scitote)

2 - "(Peter), the foundation of the Church, the Coryphaeus of the choir of the Apostles, the vehement lover of Christ ...he who ran throughout the whole world, who fished the whole world; this holy Coryphaeus of the blessed choir; the ardent disciple, who was entrusted with the keys of heaven, who received the spiritual revelation. Peter, the mouth of all Apostles, the head of that company, the ruler of the whole world." (De Eleemos, iii. 4; Hom. de decem mille tal. 3)

3 - "God allowed him to fall, because He meant to make him ruler over the whole world, that, remembering his own fall, he might forgive those who should slip in the future. And that what I have said is no guess, listen to Christ Himself saying: 'Simon, Simon, etc.'" (Chrys, Hom. quod frequenter conveniendum sit 5, cf. Hom 73 in Joan 5).

4 - "And why, then, passing by the others, does He converse with Peter on these things? (John 21:15). He was the chosen one of the Apostles, and the mouth of the disciples, and the leader of the choir. On this account, Paul also went up on a time to see him rather than the others (Galatians 1:18). And withal, to show him that he must thenceforward have confidence, as the denial was done away with, He puts into his hands the presidency over the brethren. And He brings not forward the denial, nor reproches him with what had past, but says, 'If you love me, preside over the brethren, ...and the third time He gives him the same injunction, showing what a price He sets the presidency over His own sheep. And if one should say, 'How then did James receive the throne of Jerusalem?,' this I would answer that He appointed this man (Peter) teacher, not of that throne, but of the whole world." (Chrysostom, In Joan. Hom. 1xxxviii. n. 1, tom. viii)

5 - "He [Peter] was the chosen one of the Apostles, the mouth of the Apostles, the leader of the band ... Jesus put into his hands the chief authority among the brethren ... For he who then did not dare to question Jesus, but committed the office to another, was even entrusted with the chief authority over the brethren, and not only does not commit to another what relates to himself, but himself now puts a question to his Master concerning another. John is silent, but Peter speaks ... for Peter greatly loved John ... When therefore Christ had foretold great things to him, and committed the world to him, and spoke beforehand of his martyrdom, and testified that his love was greater than all the others ..." (Hom. 88 on St. John). (http://credo.stormloader.com/Ecumenic/eocritic.htm)


My commentary:-

In the first quote, St. Peter is described as "set over the entire universe;" in the second and third quotes, he is described as "the ruler of the whole world;" in the fourth quote, St. John says that Christ "appointed this man ( Peter) teacher, not of that throne ( i.e. Jerusalem ), but of the whole world;" in the fifth and last quote, he says that "Christ had foretold great things to him ( Peter ), and committed the world to him." It is clear from these statements that St. John viewed Peter as possessing a "universal" jurisdiction. And as I state in my last post, universal jurisdiction implies "infallibility", for who in their right mind would grant a universal jurisdiction to a See that could fall into formal heresy? It makes no sense to do so, for if that "universal" jurisdiction ever fell into formal heresy, apostolic succession would be irrecoverably lost, with no avenue of restoration left to it.

[Ken McRae]

St. Theodore the Studite (A.D. 759-826) on St. Peter's Universal Jurisdiction and Papal Infallibility:-

Writing to Pope Leo III ...

01 - "Since to great Peter Christ our Lord gave the office of Chief Shepherd after entrusting him with the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, to Peter or his successor must of necessity every novelty in the Catholic Church be referred. [Therefore], save us, oh most divine Head of Heads, Chief Shepherd of the Church of Heaven." (Theodore, Bk. I. Ep. 23)

Writing to Pope Paschal ...

02 - "Hear, O Apostolic Head, divinely-appointed Shepherd of Christ's sheep, keybearer of the Kingdom of Heaven, Rock of the Faith upon whom the Catholic Church is built. For Peter art thou, who adornest and governest the Chair of Peter. Hither, then, from the West, imitator of Christ, arise and repel not for ever (Ps. xliii. 23). To thee spake Christ our Lord: 'And thou being one day converted, shalt strengthen thy brethren.' Behold the hour and the place. Help us, thou that art set by God for this. Stretch forth thy hand so far as thou canst. Thou hast strength with God, through being the first of all." (Letter of St. Theodore and four other Abbots to Pope Paschal, Bk. ii Ep. 12, Patr. Graec. 99, 1152-3)

Writing to Emperor Michael ...

03 - "Order that the declaration from old Rome be received, as was the custom by Tradition of our Fathers from of old and from the beginning. For this, O Emperor, is the highests of the Churches of God, in which first Peter held the Chair, to whom the Lord said: Thou art Peter ... and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Theodore, Bk. II. Ep. 86)

04 - "I witness now before God and men, they have torn themselves away from the Body of Christ, from the Surpreme See (Rome), in which Christ placed the keys of the Faith, against which the gates of hell (I mean the mouth of heretics) have not prevailed, and never will until the Consummation, according to the promise of Him Who cannot lie. Let the blessed and Apostolic Paschal (Pope St. Paschal I) rejoice therefore, for he has fulfilled the work of Peter." (Theodore Bk. II. Ep. 63).

05 - "In truth we have seen that a manifest successor of the prince of the Apostles presides over the Roman Church. We truly believe that Christ has not deserted the Church here (Constantinople), for assistance from you has been our one and only aid from of old and from the beginning by the providence of God in the critical times. You are, indeed the untroubled and pure fount of orthodoxy from the beginning, you the calm harbor of the whole Church, far removed from the waves of heresy, you the God-chosen city of refuge." (Letter of St. Theodor & Four Abbots to Pope Paschal).

06 - "Let him (Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople) assemble a synod of those with whom he has been at variance, if it is impossible that representatives of the other Patriarchs should be present, a thing which might certainly be if the Emperor should wish the Western Patriarch (the Roman Pope) to be present, to whom is given authority over an ecumenical synod; but let him make peace and union by sending his synodical letters to the prelate of the First See." (Theodore the Studite, Patr. Graec. 99, 1420)


Commentary:-

In the 3rd quote, St. Theodore says "the gates of hell shall not prevail against" the Chair of Peter, thus locating the Church's infallibility in the See of Rome; which is confirmed in the 4th quote, wherein he elaborates by saying that "the gates of hell (I mean the mouth of heretics) have not prevailed" against the "Supreme" See, ( but get a hold of this,) "and never will until the Consummation, according to the promise of Him Who cannot lie." What ought we to infer from the words "and never will" "until the Consummation", if not that St. Theodore believed it quite impossible for Rome to fall into formal heresy? Thus does he firmly stand in the tradition of St. Maximus who confessed, as we've seen, that the gates of hell shall *never* prevail against the Chair of Peter, which is thus to locate the Church's infallibility, as I say, in the See of Rome!

In the 6th quote, St. Theodore clearly manifests his fidelity to the tradition of St. Maximus, pertaining to the Roman Pontiff 's "authority over an ecumenical synod." Now, there are two possible ways of understanding such a statement, as far as I can see: first, if an ecumenical council possesses infallibility of itself, quite apart from Rome's approval, then the fact that the Pope possesses "authority over an ecumenical synod," as St. Theodore clearly states, would necessarily invest him with a greater degree of infallibility. The second possible meaning would be that an ecumenical council derives its infallible authority from papal approval.

Papal infallibility is again implied in the 1st and 5th quotes where St. Theodore describes Rome as "the untroubled and pure fount of orthodoxy from the beginning," "the calm harbor of the whole Church, far removed from the waves of heresy;" to whom "of necessity every novelty in the Catholic Church (must) be referred." The question we ought to ask ourselves here is this: if the Roman Pontiff possesses no infallibility quite apart from an ecumenical council, then why must all novelties be referred directly to him, as opposed to an ecumenical council?

In the first and second quotes, the Roman Pontiff is described as the "visible" head of the Church, a dogma clearly denied by contemporary Orthodoxy, which explicitly teaches that the universal Church has no "visible" head. Now the doctrine of a "visible" headship itself implies the existence of papal infallibility, as well, by virtue of the fact that all grace, including that of infallibility, must flow to the universal body through its visible head. This is implied as well by St. Theodore's locating the power of the keys in the hand of St. Peter and his successors, which is clearly a reference to Rome's universal jurisdiction, I feel.

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear Theophilus,

It should come as no surprise that this issue has been discussed here in the past.

Father Ambrose had done some research and wrote something of interest on the subject that I will reference first insofar as selecting certain Fathers and presenting what they thought at a time when from our perspective the see of Rome was Orthodox and a very firm defender of the faith, hence the reason that she was looked upon in such a wonderful light "set over the entire universe;" can be seen in the second re-post that Matthew Steenberg had written in the past, I trust he will not mind.

I'm just finishing painting an Icon of Saint Anthony the Great the founder of Christian Monasticism and I'm writing the text in Slavonic on the scroll of his hand shortly. Once the Saint saw in a vision the whole earth covered so thick with snares of the evil one that it seemed not possible to set down a foot without falling into them. At this sight he cried out, trembling, "Who, Lord, can escape them all?" A voice came to him and answered him "Humility, That is the text on the scroll. The translation went from Greek to English, Russian and then Slavonic I think we got it right as 5 people worked on the translation. The last person wrote a book on Church Slavonic he's pretty sure there are no errors. The English I wrote above is somewhat lacking, but it's close. I hope to be able to say this in a way that is not offensive but it is understandable for me that the most humble of Orthodox Saints did not see the Papacy and Papal infallibility in that way and it certainly didn't not exist in the papacy when the two Father's you have presented spoke so highly of Rome. It couldn't for they would not have spoken in that way if they had been addressing the papacy of today. It was precisely because of Her humility and firm defense of Orthodoxy that she was held in such high esteem, the essence of which is humility. For the highest degree of humility is seen in the crucifixion of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, it is through the virtue of humility that the evil one is rendered powerless. I think that is the heart of Orthodox Patristic and ascetical theology.

We understand that Rome believes in the development of doctrine and the Orthodox Church remains planted in the faith and traditions expressed in the 7 ecumenical councils, hence our differences.

If you read some of the older threads you will see that Aaron had presented several Fathers that presented a different view and you may also read through them if you have not already.

http://www.monachos.net/mb/messages/4225/13667.html

http://www.monachos.net/mb/messages/4225/13373.html

Father Ambroses' remarks;

Let us look at a quick summary of the way that
the Church Fathers interpreted that verse -
"Thou are Peter and upon this rock...."

Archbishop Kenrick, who was one of America's
extraordinary bishops, was opposed to the doctrine of
papal infallibility and at the First Vatican Council
in 1869 he voted against it. He wanted to deliver
a speech against the proposed doctrine at the Council
but instead he ceased to attend the Council meetings.
He published his speech in Naples the following year.

It is important because he lists the five different
patristic interpretations of Matthew 16:18.


Let's look at how the Church Fathers line up over this verse:


1...."That St. Peter is the Rock" is taught
by seventeen (17) Fathers


2....That the whole Apostolic College is the Rock,
represented by Peter as its chief,
is taught by eight (8) Church Fathers


3....That St. Peter's faith is the Rock,
is taught by forty-four (44) Church Fathers


4....That Christ is the Rock,
is taught by sixteen Fathers (16)

5....That the rock is the whole body of the faithful.
Archbp. Kendrick gives no figure.


Archbishop Kendrick summarizes

"If we are bound to follow the greater number
of Fathers in this matter, then we must hold
for certain that the word "Petra" means not Peter
professing the Faith, but the faith professed by Peter."
This is an important point since one of the RC Councils (I need to check which one) laid down the regulation that a preponderance of patristic consensus is needed for the promulgation of any dogma.)

You can look this up and check that I have it
accurately in
Friedrich, Docum ad illust. Conc. Vat. 1, pp. 185-246



Matthew Steenbergs remarks from an older thread.

Regarding patristic views on the place of the see of St Peter, and thus the place of the bishop of Rome, which are in support of the view held by the Orthodox Church, as requested earlier in this thread:

"Some of the most straightforward remarks in this regard actually come down to us from St Gregory the Great, pope of Rome in the sixth-seventh centuries A.D. His remarks were occasioned by the Emperor's application of the title 'Ecumenical Patriarch' to St John the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople. Gregory was deeply disturbed by this title, not because he felt that its attribution to a patriarch other than that of the see of St Peter was improper, but because he felt the very notion of such a title or rank was incorrect (we must keep in mind that St Gregory understood 'ecumenical' to mean universal in authority and power, which is not how the term as it is used in the title 'ecumenical patriarch' has come down to us today'). In response to this, St Gregory writes to St John:


"Certainly Peter, the first of the Apostles, himself a member of the holy and universal Church, Paul, Andrew, John -- what were these but heads of particular communities? And yet all were members under one Head [...] the prelates of this Apostolic See [i.e. Rome], which by the providence of God I serve, had the honor offered them of being called 'universal' (oikoumenikos) by the venerable Council of Chalcedon. Yet not one of them has ever wished to be called by such a title, or has seized upon this ill-advised name, lest if, in virtue of the rank of the pontificate he took to himself the glory of singularity, he might seem to have denied it to all his brethren [...]"
(Excerpted from Book 5 of the collected epistles of St Gregory the Great of Rome, Epistle 18).

Later he writes in a similar vein:

"This name of Universality was offered by the Holy Synod of Chalcedon to the pontiff of the apostolic see which by the Providence of God I serve [i.e. the see of Rome]. But no one of my predecessors has ever consented to use this so profane a title since, forsooth, if one Patriarch is called Universal, the name of Patriarch in the case of the rest is derogated. But far be this from the mind of a Christian that any on should wish to seize for himself that whereby he might seem in the least degree to lessen the honor of his brethren..."
(Book 5, Epistle 43)

When, a short time later he writes to the Emperor (Maurice) on the matter, he is yet more emphatic:

"Now I confidently say that whosoever calls himself, or desires to be called, Universal Priest, is in his elation the precursor of Antichrist, because he proudly puts himself above all others."
(Book 7, Epistle 33)

Later, he writes to the Bishop of Alexandria (Evlogios):

"Your Blessedness [...] You address me saying, 'As you have commanded'. This word 'command' I beg you to remove from my hearing, since I know who I am and who you are. For in position you are my brother, in character my father. [...] In the preface of the epistle which you have addressed to myself, who forbade it, you have thought fit to make use of a proud appellation, calling me Universal Pope. But I beg you, most sweet Holiness: do this no more, since what is given to another beyond what reason demands, is subtracted from yourself [...] For if your Holiness calls me Universal Pope, you deny that you are yourself what you call me universally."
(Book 8, Epistle 30)

There are multiple things of note in these quotations, but among them I might simply point out Gregory's own insistence that, prior to his own day (he reposed in A.D. 604), no bishop of Rome had ever claimed episcopal primacy of authority."

Matthew Steenberg's other post;

appreciated your last post) on the idea of Peter as 'rock'. The notion of distinguishing between Peter's confession and Peter's person in the ascription of the title 'Rock' by Christ has always struck me as a bit dualistic. Both are certainly true, and we must keep in mind that many Orthodox Fathers ascribe the title directly to Peter's person, without equivocation, as warranted by his confession. The desire to divide the two has, I assume, been occassioned over the course of history precisely by the desire to compare and relate the RC and Orthodox understandings of Peter's episcopacy and its place in relation to the other patriarchates.

But as much as both statements are true (namely, that the title 'rock' applies both to Peter himself and to his confession), so both are incorrect and dualist. If discussions such as this have anything to learn from the long history of Orthodox ascetical theology, it is that person and confession can only be divided and separated if neither one is whole or complete. True confession is the fruit and manifestation of purified personhood, and one's person embodies and makes real his or her confession.

For Orthodoxy, St Peter is the rock -- the rock upon which Christ will and has built His Church. This is true of Peter's person, for, as Aaron noted, Peter is the first among bishops, the prototype and model of hierarchs. It is also true of his confession, for Christ as the living Son of God is the heart and life of the Church, and without that confession she does not stand.

This is all, however, somewhat separated from a discussion on the 'primacy' of any one bishop over another. We have seen, in another thread, quotations from multiple Fathers who show that this 'first position' of St Peter and of his patriarchate does not equate to primacy of authority, rule or power. We have also seen, in the current thread, that the earliest Church, that still reigned over by the Apostles, honoured St Peter but called its first council under the omophor of St James.



(Message edited by Matthew_P on 29 May, 2005)

[Matthew Panchisin]

Finally I think Matthew Steenberg sums things up nicely in the following post from the other referenced thread. Again you may click on the older thread links to see the full context.


Dear Daniel,

Thank you for your recent message regarding St Cyprian's comments on the primacy of St Peter among the communion of the Apostles. The most basic response to your question at the end of the quotation, which was 'How would Orthodoxy Responed to this?', is that the Orthodox Church has always professed, and indeed still professes, that the episcopal seat of St Peter is the first among those of the great sees. This must be clarified immediately to read first among equals of the successors to the holy Apostles, for the Church's 'collegiality' does not ascribe more 'spiritual authority' (or such) to any one bishop over another. The successors of the Apostles are the successors to the Apostles, equal as respects the charism of the apostolate and authority in 'rightly defining the Word of God's truth'. They are, nonetheless, accorded an organised hierarchy of honour and organisational authority, precisely as the Lord organised the ranks of the original twelve Apostles. Thus amongst these equals there is a 'first', not inasmuch as canonical or spiritual authority are concerned, but as respects organisation, unity, and patrimony.

In this 'hierarchy of the hierarchs', the bishop of Rome, the descendent of St Peter, is as noted above ranked first of all. However, because this organisation of bishops also professes that none is doctrinally flawless or inerrant, it is possible for one or another - or even whole successions of bishops - to fall into error or heresy. This is precisely the situation that the Church would and does proclaim with regard to the see of St Peter. While it rightly would hold first place among the sees of the Church, the departure from the Orthodox Faith by its patrimony means that this position shifts to the next in the hierarchy - namely, Constantinople.

I hope this helps to answer your question. Please note that I do not wish there to develop in this thread a 'Catholic vs. Orthodox' discussion of the sort that often arises in response to such questions; but if there is continued question over how the Church interprets St Cyprian's (or another patristic author's) words, let us do then continue.

INXC, Matthew

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear Theophilus,

I would like to share with you some addition comments from St. Vincent of Lerins who wrote this before the schism. Also in the past I did some looking into the word Catholic and it's translations and Patristic meaning in great detail and have come up with quite a bit on the words development. I'll try to share some conclusions latter and post latter God willing.

"Also in the Catholic Church itself we take great care that we hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and properly Catholic, as the very force and meaning of the word shows, which comprehends everything almost universally. And we shall observe this rule if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one Faith to be true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is plain that our ancestors and fathers proclaimed; consent if in antiquity itself we eagerly follow the definitions and beliefs of all, or certainly nearly all, priests and doctors alike."

"What, then, will the Catholic Christian do if any part of the Church has cut itself off from the communion of the Universal Faith? What surely but prefer the soundness of the whole body to a pestilent and corrupt member?

"What if some novel contagion seek to infect the whole Church, and not merely a small portion of it? Then he will take care to cling to antiquity, which cannot now be led astray by any novel deceit.

"What if in antiquity itself error be detected on the part of two or three men, or perhaps of a city, or even of a province? Then he will look to it that he prefer the decrees of an ancient General Council, if such there be, to the rashness and ignorance of a few.

"But what if some error spring up concerning which nothing of this kind is to be found? Then he must take pains to find out and compare the opinions of the ancients, provided, of course, that such remained in the communion and faith of the One Catholic Church, although they lived in different times and places, conspicuous and approved teachers; and whatever he shall find to have been held, written and taught, not by one or two only, but by all equally and with one consent, openly, frequently and persistently, that he must understand is to be believed by himself also without the slightest hesitation."

St. Vincent of Lerins, "The Commonitory," tr. by T. Herbert Bindley (London: SPCK, 1914), book 1, chapter 2, no. 6-8, pp. 26-28. Emphasis added.

[leandros]

Dear Friend Theophilus,

You are trying to justify the current status of the roman-catholic church by pumping arguments from her past times. I think that nobody in this forum argues against the past of the See of Rome, for the times that the Church was united. At these times the East Orthodox Church of course defended the holiness and the rightness and the apostlate of Rome.

But you are leaving everything in between, making a leap from the past to the present and by that you equate the past with the present.

This was also the case with Jewish "pastorate" at the times of Jesus. They were also fenced in Jewish just past, and they fail to realize their unjust present. They though that the promises of God were given to them in a unilateral fashion. They believed that the gifts of God were given to them as their properties. They had convinced themselves that they were the administrators of a fixed situation which God has decided once, in a permanent way. That notion makes them to believe that these Divine gifts were given to their nature.

Just as the Jewish pastorate, Roman Vatican clergy and pope fail to realise that what makes them different from who they were in the first place (non Christians) in antithesis to what they became afterwards (Christians), is not the presence of a new changed firm Christian nature of theirs, but the presence of the Grace of God into their unchanged human natures.

Dear Theophilus,

Let's listen to the Spirit as He speeks (Revelation 3:1-6):

"To the angel of the church in Sardis write: He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, says this: 'I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. 'Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God. 'So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. 'But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments; and they will walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. 'He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'

(Revelation 2:1-7)
"To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this:' I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place--unless you repent. Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.'

The above passages are the history of the Church of Sardis and of Ephesus. It could very well be the history of any local Church that does not accept to live her present according to her illuminated past. Have you seen how God removed his Grace in these cases?

This fear must be kept in the hearts of any human or any local Church: not to loose Grace by practising fatal deeds.

To receive Grace is to participate in the Uncreated Life of Holy Trinity, as a live person. In this context, Grace is not an energy that is performed over someone, or a transformation of a person's nature. It is the participation through personal relation with Christ in the Trinity's Uncreated way of Life. As such it can not be secured in a non personal way to a local Church or to a plenipotent person, according to a topological non-personal fashion.

To have Grace means to be a person in association with Christ. This notion was missing from Jewish pastorate that refused to recognise Christ and to relate with Him in a personal honest and loving relation, because they were restricted from their self justification, of having given by God the exclusive power to define what is Devine and what is not.

I think that this experience of Grace is also absent from Roman-catholic clergy and pope in their apprehension and their experience of apostolic mission as a "promised mission" based on past testimony of the life of Roman Church.

Pope of Rome, is like a King that obtains his kingship, just from his ancestors and his seating over the king's throne, without having any living experience of royalty.

[Vasilis Kirikos]

> I am new to this particular thread. But it seems to me that the New Testament denies that St Peter was ever bishop of Rome. The Book of Acts clearly recites that St. Peter was the first bishop of Antioch, NOT ROME. Moreover, the Patriarch of Antioch, His Holiness, Ignatius is, as a matter of very clearly recorded historical fact, the 166th successor of Saint Peter to the Patriarchal thrown of Antioch. Vasilis */I wonder what the western Church Fathers thought about this? Here are a couple:

"What meaneth 'Upon this rock I will build my Church'? Upon this faith...." St. Augustine (Homily X on John V. 1-3)

Faith is the foundation of the Church, for it was not the person but the faith of St. Peter that it was said that the gates of hell should not prevail against it...Jesus Christ is the Rock (NOT Peter)....If thou art a rock, though shalt be in the Church for the Church is built upon the rock.... St. Ambose (On the Incarnation)

Here are a couple of eastern Fathers for confirmation:

"And I say unto thee, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church,' that is, on the faith of his confession." St. John Chrysostom (Homily LIV on Matthew XIV.13)

Rock is the unity of faith, not the person of Peter. St. Cyprian of Carthage, (De Catholicae Ecclesiae Unitate, cap. 4-5)

Seems that while we do not agree, the Holy Fathers did!/*

[Vasilis Kirikos]

> These Greeks attended, to their everlasting regret because there was gun to their heads.

[Alexis Flavian Bugnolo]

A reply to the objections of Matthew, Leandros Vasilis et alia:

I -- First regarding the argument drawn from the title "ecumenical" patriarch. It is obvious that if this argument of St. Gregory is accepted by the Orthodox, then they must find fault not with Rome, which has never used this title, but with Constantinople, which has for the last 1000 years.

It is not logical to quote a Roman Pope to condemn Roman Popes for the very sin which the Roman Popes never practiced, but which is openly practiced by the Pope of Constantinople.

II - The dispute between St. Cyprian of Carthage and the Patriarch of Rome was heated. You can read about that elsewhere. During this argument, St. Cyprian wrote the things you quote, but before this argument he praised Rome in words you have not quoted. He and the Pope of Rome did finally work out a reconciliation. And therefore, it is not logical to quote those texts during the argument, and presume or omit quotes before and after, as if St. Cyprian never took back what he said.

That being the case, you can scarcely argue that 1 Father of the Church in the West is sufficient proof, when Theophilus has cited 2 Fathers of the East. Moreso, you cannot appeal to St. Cyrpian since his own writing elsewhere contradicts this. "Pro Magnitudine" is a Latin phrase that means "on account of its greatness", not "on account of its large size", to translate it in the latter sense is to "proof text".

III -- The texts quoted by Theophilus are not to be discounted on the grounds that 1000* years have come in between. The quote from St. Vincent of Lerins argues against that discounting. We must remember that we are in this thread discussing Papal Infallibility. I have disputed this point with many Protestants, and have always found that the vast majority when shown the evidence immediately discount it and change the argument. That is not a sign of good will or sincerity. I would beg those interested to keep to the point, if they want to continue the thread.

IV -- The Counvil of Florence held no gun to the head of the Greeks. They came freely, they left freely, and they were freely supported by the Latins. It was they who were asking also for military support, and it is true they did not get as much as they wanted. I think it is obvious from the history of the Turks after 1453, that if Constantinople did not fall in the seige of 1453, the Turks would have tried on other occasions.

We should not tie are belief in one doctrine or another on the basis of any political or temporal concern, but soley on whether it is a truth of the Faith.

V -- I would respectuflly and humbly ask for any Orthodox to either accept what St. Maximus or St. Theodore the Studite said, or explain why they are heretics or innovators. To just ignore what they said, would not be sincere.

VI -- As for St. Gregory the Great: it is obvious that he was a humble man. It is also clear by his actions what we Catholics mean by the Roman Primacy, namely, that is not one of tyranny, but of service. There is nothing which we ought to grant the Roman Pontiff which Christ did not grant him, just as we ought to follow the Lord Jesus who never acted on the basis of human respect. However, we must respect those whom Our Lord respected, and if we refuse to, we must acknowledge that we risk the fires of Hades as our just punishment.

If Our Lord honored the office which He bestowed upon Peter, we too must honor it.

At the same time, the office, even in the manner we Catholic understand it, is not for the sake of empire or control or tyranny. If one wants first liberty and second good order in the church, then even a supreme judicial council to settle disputes will be feared.

If a Council has authority to settle disputes, from whom does it receive this authority? If you say from a man, and not from an office, then either you must say that man is Christ, since all authority comes from God, or not from Christ, and thus make the Church subject to a man. If you say from an office, then either an office which gets its authority directly from God, or from somewhere else. But all authority is from God, and the Church has never accepted that merely civil authority is superior to the authority of the Church.

So you must say, the authority comes from Christ, through the Apostles, and through the Bishops. But who confirms this authority? There is only one passage where Christ gives the duty of confirming the sucessors of the Apostles:

"I have prayed for you Simon that your faith not fail, and when you are converted, confirm your brethren."

It is inherent, therefore in the teaching of Our Lord, that the office of Peter has the right and duty to confirm all other authority held in the Church from the Apostles, just as he had to confirm that of the Apostles.

VII -- Infalliblity and impeccability are two different things. Infalliblity is the ability no to err according to the truth. And impeccability is the ability not to err according to morals or actions. Only God by His Nature is infallible and impeccable. All creatures by their nature are fallible and peccable. No creature can participate in infallibility or impeccability unless God grant it.

Infallibility is not an extraodinary grace. Every child who says 1+1=2 is in that utterance infallible by the power of his reason, which God have him. Every Christian who confeses "Jesus is Lord!" is in that utterance infallible by the gift of Faith and the sustaining action of the Holy Spirit.

The Roman Doctrine restricts infalliblity to very specific conditions: the Pope of Rome must have the intention of teaching all Christians, he must teach a truth of faith or morals, he must oblidge all Christians to hold it by divine faith. He cannot teach infallibly in virtue of his office regarding some christians, facts of science or history, individuals, or in regard to matters of faith or morals when he is expressing his own opinions or not requiring others to believe the same.

Such words to look for in infallible statements are "all" "are obliged", "bound" to "hold", or "believe", "confess", etc. or similar words.

We see such a manner of teaching in regard to the 7 Ecumenical councils who anathamatize all who do not hold the dogmatic teaching or creed which they promulgated, saying it was always believed, and giving an argument from Scripture and Tradition, and binding all Christians henceforth and forever to hold the doctrine taught. It is therefore implicit in the teaching of the 7 ecumenical councils that the Fathers knew that the Church could teach infallibly.

VIII - Therefore if you search the fathers seeking the answer to this question:

"Where did the Fathers believe this ability to teach infallibly came from, and under what circumstances was it clear that it was being exercised?"

you cannot discount the testimony of St. Maximus and St. Theodore, quoted by Theophilus, since they directly answer this question: whereas no Father of the Church before 1054 gives another answer.


In summary, I would beg those interestd in addresses these points to give reply.

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear Br. Alexis,

Firstly Matthew Steenberg clearly mentioned;

(we must keep in mind that St Gregory understood 'ecumenical' to mean universal in authority and power, which is not how the term as it is used in the title 'ecumenical patriarch' has come down to us today').

As such it is the meaning or essence of the word or title that Saint Pope Gregory the Great objected to. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople has made no claim to be universal in authority and power, spiritually or administratively, the see of Rome has. If you look at Pope Benedict XVI's coat of arms you may notice the key on the left indicates the universal spiritual authority of the papacy on earth. There are many Latin documents that would support that conclusion. It is very clear that such notions are what Pope Gregory the Great vehemently opposed.

You have written much, please be a bit patient with us as we consider your comments.

Perhaps others would like to address your other comments as I really don't want to get into a drawn out argument.

In Christ,

Matthew Panchisin

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear Br. Alexis,

I think to speak with each other openly as we are doing here is a sign of good will or sincerity. Be advised that my intentions are not to immediately discount any subject or point and change the argument, I would prefer no arguments. But there are relationships to text and text cannot be overly isolated or exaggerated by doing so it may be distorted.

In the Orthodox Catholic Church a council must be approved by the Patriarchs to be called ecumenical. Hence the term Pentarchy. The seven "Ecumenical" councils addressed doctrinal matters and canon law in such a way. The bishop of Rome was not considered infallible in any of those councils.

Bishop Ware writes of the following;

Orthodoxy has always attached great importance to the place of councils in the life of the church. It believes that the council is the chief organ whereby God has chosen to guide His people, and it regards the Catholic Church as essentially a conciliar Church. In the Church there is neither dictatorship, nor individualism, but harmony and unanimity; its members remain free but not isolated, for they are united in love, in faith, and in sacramental communion. In a council, this idea of harmony is and free unanimity can be seen worked out in practice. In a true council no single member arbitrarily imposes his will upon the rest, but each consults with the others, and in this way they all freely achieve a 'common mind'. A council is a living embodiment of the essential nature of the Church (Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 15).


Do keep in mind that it is the aforementioned harmony and particularly doctrinal unity that is referenced in the letter of St. Ignatius to St. Polycarp which Fr. Georges Florovsky explains.

"This is the first written use, which has come down to us of the term "Catholic" Church. The word "catholic" means in Greek "universal" but the conception of catholicity cannot be measured by its world-wide expansion — "universality" does not express the Greek meaning exactly. ÊáèïëéêÞ comes from êáè’ ïëïõ, which first of all means the inner wholeness, not only of communion and in any case not of a simple empirical communion. Êáè’ ïëïõ is not the same as êáôÜ ðáíôüò. It belongs not to the phenomenal and empirical, but to the nominal and ontological plane. It describes the very essence and not the external manifestations. If "catholic" also means "universal," it certainly is not an empirical universality but rather an ideal one: the communion of ideas, not of facts, is what is meant. St. Ignatius’ use of the word is precisely this. This word gives prominence to the orthodoxy of the Church, to the truth of the Church in contrast with the spirit of sectarian separatism and particularize. He is expressing the idea of integrity and purity."

Even diocesan bishops can attend a general council or synod and say what they will and put forth a vote. The Pentarchy does not reduce or impair any Bishop. I would further add that it is from this sort of a perspective that St. Ignatius understood the word Catholic (Universal).

This doctrinal unity is also clearly seen in Orthodox worship, for there is a relationship between doctrinal unity and liturgical unity. There truly is a theological unity and one mindedness in the Orthodox Catholic Church. Even in the recent Pan-Orthodox council in Istanbul (Constantinople) we can see the movements of such an action relative to the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Suffice it to say, the matter was not of a theological nature. When a Bishop is
not recognized by the other Orthodox Patriarch's then the matter has been resolved.

In Christ,

Matthew Panchisin

[leandros]

Alexis Flavian Bugnolo,

you said: III -- The texts quoted by Theophilus are not to be discounted on the grounds that 1000* years have come in between. The quote from St. Vincent of Lerins argues against that discounting. We must remember that we are in this thread discussing Papal Infallibility. I have disputed this point with many Protestants, and have always found that the vast majority when shown the evidence immediately discount it and change the argument. That is not a sign of good will or sincerity. I would beg those interested to keep to the point, if they want to continue the thread.

But this request of yours is killing the essence of the whole issue!

It is not a matter of finding a juridical resolution over a question of typical appositeness on "Papal Infallibility".

If you claim the authority of medical doctrine, you have to actually practice medication as a therapist. You can not be justified just by having an "office assignment" for the "job". It is the same for pastoral authority.

If we accept, as a sign of good will you've asked for, that you are right on the rhetorical question about "Papal Infallibility" as once suppositionally was exercised by the See of Rome in early Church, then we have to accept also that today's Vatican realization of "papal Infallibility" has nothing to do with that original implementation of "Papal Infallibility". The suggested ancient "Papal Infallibility" was the fruit of a live experience of Church that was not ordained in advanced, but resulted from the experiential reality of participation in the body of Christ.

Pope of Rome can not claim "Papal Infallibility" just by having the mere ordainment for this assignment. He has to participate in the uncreated "Infallibility" of the body of Christ, having the experience of being a member of the Church.

Like a person that can not claim "medical doctrine" just because he has the ordainment for this assignment, after he studied medicine in theory alone. He has to participate in the practise of medicine in a clinic, by having the experience of being a therapist.

I think it is not difficult for you to understand that this is the main Orthodox objection:
Pope of Rome, and the Vatican clergy and Vatican theology, by having exclude themselves from participating in the true experience of Uncreated Energies of God, they have circumscribed themselves within the limits of created realities, failing to participate in the transcendental way of the Life of Church.

You suggest to put this Orthodox objection under the carpet, as a sign of good will, and to try to solve the issue of "Papal Infallibility" as a legal procedure. What do you expect to be the profit of such a sanctimoniousness ?

PS: I know that you are a Roman-Catholic and that I may sound rejective, but on the contrary I think that only the truth has the power to unite us. For that I write my answer to you with love and squareness.

[Fr Aaron Warwick]

1. Quotes about St. Peter's primacy are irrelevant until you deal with the fact that Rome is not alone the cathedra of St. Peter per St. Gregory the Great. In addition, you must also deal with the fact that the Orthodox recognized the Roman Pope as having a primacy.

2. The letter of St. Gregory to St. John the Faster shows the language barrier at the time. The title 'Ecumenical' Patriarch means 'Imperial' Patriarch in Greek. It was quite natural for St. John the Faster to be called the 'Imperial' Patriarch since he was the bishop of the Imperial city. St. Gregory misunderstood this since the same word also meant 'Universal.' Thus his letter which condemns many of the modern Roman Catholic beliefs regarding the Papacy.

3. We can quote father after father, Scripture after Scripture, but it makes no difference. What matters is how things actually worked. They did not work like it does now in the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Patriarch did not have universal jurisdiction, nor was he considered infallible. I have already provided a link that gives numerous examples.

4. Please tell me, apart from your belief that the Orthodox rejected the supposed teaching of infallibility or universal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, where else dogmatically has Orthodoxy strayed from the Church of the 7 Ecumenical Councils? I do not see one other example that you can come up with, nor have I ever heard of any from any other Roman Catholic. We ORthodox, on the other hand, can come up with numerous examples. This link to a Fordham University website (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1895orthodoxencyclical.html) gives several examples where the Roman Catholics have departed from the tradition we once had in common. Isn't it rather strange that all of your departures from tradition happened either after the Schism or were greatly perpetuated after the Schism, yet your only real complaint against us is what helped foster all of your departures?

5. As has been pointed out, what has happened in the past 1000 years does make a difference. If your church truly is the same as the Church of the first thousand years, why have you made the numerous departures listed in the article linked above?

Aaron

[Ken McRae]

Antonios originally posted:-


I have only recently begun to learn the Christian faith and have spent the majority of my time reading patristic writings ..

Dear Antonios

Thank you for your honesty and humble apology. One could not begin the study of theology at a better place than in the prayerful reading of the holy fathers. In this the wisdom of Christ has surely been guiding you. I only wish I had begun there myself, as it would have saved me much heart-ache and wasted time. Jealously guard and protect your zeal for them and their writings, never letting your flame of devotion and fidelity to them, as unto Christ himself, grow dim and die. Of course I am not referring here to a blind zeal, with the eye of the intellect "wide shut".

This is the true character of filial piety to be sure, and in time, through their holy intercession and luminous example of the Way, you will acquire their spirit, mind and life. I say life, for if we hope to ever penetrate the surface of their writings, and enter into the fullness of their true essence, heart and spirit, then we must learn to live as they lived, above the turmoil of the passions. I say we as I speak as much to myself with such words as to anyone else. Unbridled passion hinders the intellect, and obscures the pure radiant light of Christ that illuminates and warms the heart.

There is no shadow of doubt in my mind that you and all the members of Monachos sincerely strive and labour for the truth, but let us all, myself especially, remember that the Truth which saves and illuminates the path of our salvation is not found in books so much as in the heart of experience. Thus is the true lesson of the holy Fathers, and one that is very hard for us to learn, who labour for our salvation in the heart of the "information" age. The fathers above all are holy guides in the mystery of faith which must be deeply lived and experienced, which really needs not to be stated, as all good Orthodox know this only too well, for which I have always admired them from the very day I first discovered Orthodoxy.

humbly,
Theophilus

[Ken McRae]

Br. Alexis originally posted:-

>> "As for approving the Council, the first historical text that clearly cites a papal approval was in the time of Pope Gregory the Great (6th century), but that does not mean it was rejected at Rome. We have always used the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed on Sundays. And St. Gregory the Great did not add that." <<

THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE - 381 A.D. (http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt29.html)


Once more we are dealing with a situation in which the acts of the Council are no longer extant. Again it was decreed by the Emperor - Theodosius I. 21 The language of his decree of the previous year certainly suggests that he regarded the Roman see as a yardstick of Christian orthodoxy: he commands all his subjects to practise "that religion which Peter the Apostle transmitted to the Romans," and which (he says) is observed by the "Pontiff" Damasus and the "Bishop" Peter of Alexandria, "a man of apostolic sanctity." 22 A short edict of January 381 reinforced this by specifying the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit as an essential Christian tenet. 23 Therefore, it seems clear that in calling a Council only a few months later, Theodosius did not envisage the assembled Bishops debating the Roman doctrine as though it were an open question. A letter of Pope Damasus to his associate Ascholius of Thessalonika approves the idea of a Council to settle the disputed succession in Constantinople, 24 so it seems very possible that, through Ascholius, the Emperor consulted Rome beforehand.

The fact that Meletius of Antioch presided at Constantinople, together with the absence of any Roman legates, might appear to be evidence against the Roman primacy. But it must be remembered that this Council was not originally intended to be "Ecumenical" in the same sense as the great Nicene convocation. It included, after all, only about 150 Bishops from Thrace, Asia Minor and Egypt, 25 and was convoked precisely in order to deal with Eastern problems. 26 In fact, it was not recognized as "Ecumenical" by the Council of Ephesus half a century later, and it was left to Pope Gregory the Great to elevate it papally to that status. 27

The most controversial statement of this Council is the third canon, which states, "The Bishop of Constantinople shall have the Primacy of honour after the Bishop of Rome, because Constantinople is New Rome." 28 When this was later cited and confirmed by a rump of the Chalcedonian Fathers, Leo the Great took exception, because it ignored what Francis Dvornik calls the "principle of apostolicity" and overstressed the "principle of accommodation" (of the Church's political geography to that of the Empire). 29 However, as Dvornik points out, the canon was not intended to have anti-Roman overtones, and was concerned only to regulate the relationship of sees in the East. 30 It was not even officially communicated to the West. 31

This relatively local character of the Council is relevant also to its second canon, which forbids Bishops to intervene in the affairs of churches in other civil dioceses. 32 According to the German church historian W. Ullmann, this canon indicates an "inferior position now accorded to the Roman Church." 33 But it seems that the canon has only Eastern bishoprics in mind, since it spells out the five major regions of the Eastern empire where the Church is established, and does not even mention Rome or any Western diocese. If this canon had been understood to imply that Rome had no jurisdiction over the East, then why was it not cited fifty years later, in protest against Pope Celestine's hard-hitting interventions against Nestorius, through the agency of Cyril of Alexandria?

Ullmann also makes much of the fact that, in sanctioning the decrees of the Council in July 381, Theodosius "did not even mention Rome." 34 We are asked to accept on the basis of this that "thereby the government made crystal clear that Rome and its church were to be relegated to an inferior place. Rome was to sink to the rank of a historical site." 35 Now this is quite astonishing. In promulgating (amongst other things) a canon which expressly acknowledges Rome's primacy over Constantinople, Theodosius is supposed to be relegating Rome to an "inferior place" in the Church, even when his own law of the previous year, making the faith of Rome mandatory for the whole Eastern empire, remained fully in force! If, as seems most likely, the disciplinary canons were seen as a domestic Eastern affair not requiring Rome's assent, there is no compelling reason why Theodosius should have mentioned Rome in the postconciliar edict, since the dogmatic teaching of the Council was already known by all to enjoy Roman approval.

After the Council, the West expressed dissatisfaction at its election of Nectarius and Flavian to the sees of Constantinople and Antioch, and Pope Damasus proposed a general synod at Rome to settle matters. The reply of those Bishops who remained at Constantinople is informative: 36 they claim that they had wished to "flee away" to Rome "to be at rest with you," 37 but plead that for practical reasons this has been impossible, so now propose to send three representatives to Rome instead, in order to "show our own peaceful determination, and how we aim at, unity." 38 Is there a touch of hypocrisy here? Even if there is, it is significant that the Bishops do not question the right of Damasus to summon Eastern Bishops to Rome in this manner. Flattery and hypocrisy, after all, are precisely those diplomatic devices used in dealing with persons who are officially acknowledged to enjoy superior authority.

Finally, it as worth noting that, in the Roman synod of 382, Pope Damasus, while not explicitly mentioning the contentious third canon (which was never officially submitted to him), may well have had it in mind: he emphasised that Rome's claim to primacy was grounded on the succession from Peter, and was in fact the first known Pontiff to call Rome consistently "the Apostolic See." 39

And again, the following is from the tenth section of another online document, entitled The Early Church and the Bishop of Rome (http://web.archive.org/web/20030604071746/http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ429.HTM#X.%20The%20Early%20Church%20and%20the%2 0Bishop%20of%20Rome):-

Council of Constantinople (381)

This Council was neither originally planned as, nor regarded as, an ecumenical Council, since it consisted of 150 eastern bishops and no Latin bishops, and was intended to straighten out problems in the east. In its Canon 4, the Council proclaimed: "The Bishop of Constantinople shall have the primacy of honor after the Bishop of Rome, because his city is New Rome." (301) Pope Leo the Great later rejected this Canon (after it was confirmed illegitimately by eastern Fathers at the Council of Chalcedon in 451) on grounds that it was contrary to the "principle of apostolicity" (as Constantinople had no apostolic background whatsoever), and was compromised by the "principle of accommodation" (whereby political happenstance and expedience were placed in an inordinately lofty position vis-a-vis the Church - a tendency often known as "caesaropapism," under the spell of which eastern Christianity has constantly fallen prey). Constantinople was the seat of the Byzantine Emperor, but this, reasoned Leo and the Catholic Church, had little to do with apostolic or ecclesiastical preeminence. Nevertheless, at least this all-eastern Council still acknowledged the "primacy" of the pope. It was later acknowledged as an ecumenical Council by Pope Gregory the Great (who reigned from 590-604), although the Canons continued to be rejected by Rome.


(Message edited by theophilus on 30 May, 2005)

[Owen Jones]

Better to avoid patristic theological treatises and focus on patristic sermons. This is a sadly under appreciated resource.

[Vasilis Kirikos]

> I'm no theologian but I think I know this much; what a previous > patriarch may or may have not said is of no consequense for The > Church. The Church, The Orthodox Chruch does not allow ONE person to > speak for the entire Church; but The Chruch as a whole speaks as the > voice of one; and not ONE for the entire Church. And a part of that > voice is the Holy Bible as interperted by The Chruch; and the Bible > is of high authority, the Word of God. And the Bible is certaintly > of higher authority than a few individuals or a segment who would > twist its meaning for their own purposes; even if they happen to be > leaders in The Church. The Book of Acts is clear; Saint Peter was the > first bishop of Antioach; not Rome. To deny this is to deny > scripture; i.e., the Word of God. Vasilis > "A reply to the objections of Matthew, Leandros Vasilis et alia:

I -- First regarding the argument drawn from the title "ecumenical" patriarch. It is obvious that if this argument of St. Gregory is accepted by the Orthodox, then they must find fault not with Rome, which has never used this title, but with Constantinople, which has for the last 1000 years."

[Alexis Flavian Bugnolo]

On the topic of St. Gregory the Great opposing the term "Ecumenical" for the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

I ask, is St. Gregory denying the title "Ecumenical" in reference to a discussion of the Primacy of Rome? If so, then you must not only cite him on this point, but also say that he erred since the Orthodox Fathers admit the Primacy.

If you say he was speaking about Papal Infalliblity, you need to show that, because he does not.

If you say he was denying the perogative of the Sucessors of St. Peter to confirm their brethren, then you are begging the question, because, it is one thing to talk about episcopal authority and another to talk about the authority of St. Peter.

The Papal Authority has never been taught in the West as a kind of episcopal authority, and all apeals to the Roman Church on this basis have been rejected. The Pope of Rome is no more the bishop, in the strict sense of the word, of any other diocese, than he has episcopal authority in any other diocese.

As Patriarch he claims Patriarchal authority over the West, and many of his documents speak of this. But if a Catholic in England asked the pope to give him the sacraments, because he did not want to receive them from his own bishop, the Pope would certainly rebuke him for refusing obedience and communion to a bishop who is in communion with himself.

And so, grant that Pope Gregory speaks of there being no "universal" bishop in the Church, and this proves nothing, as I said before, because the Roman Church never claims this. And this has never been the argument for or against the Roman Primacy or Papal Infallibility.

A Bishop has no need of recieving an appeal from any of his subjects to intervene or take action in his diocese. But the Pope only intervenes in other dioceses when some members with good reputations ask him to for the sake of the common good, and this is always in the form of an appeal to a confirmatory authority, not a proper one.

That is why the Pope does not go about the world erecting Churches in dioceses outside of Rome, or treating all other dioceses as if they were his own. It is obvious that even if he claimed such authority, it would be impractical to execute it. But I can understand how exaggerated rumors can lead to wild imaginings on the basis of what some think Papal authority or Papal Infalliblity means, when it has nothing at all to do with this.

Finally, in addition to the two citations from St. Maximus and St. Theodore the Studite, the link cited by Theophilus in his first post on this thread contains numerous citations from the Orthodox fathers from every Patriarchate throughout the first 7 centuries.

I beg any Orthodox truly interested in continuing this discussion to read those testimonies, double-check their sources, and pray over them to the Lord, begging the grace to put aside all passion and be faithful to the whole and entire faith of the Fathers, and not just live a part of it.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear All,

The following is found as a link at the Monachos Home Page. It describes the purpose of Monachos and why most participate in this forum.


Monachos.net
exists to further the study of Orthodox Christianity through reflection on its patristic, monastic, liturgical and ecclesiastical heritage. Its aim is to be a resource for academic, scholarly and personal study, a forum for the provision of patristic source and secondary materials as well as ecclesiastical information on related matters, an environment for the discussion of and reflection upon the Church's patristic, monastic, liturgical and ecclesiastical heritage, and a means of providing access to materials on the Church's thought and life.

This web site first appeared in September 2000, in response to repeated requests for the type of materials described above. Monachos.net has thus been, from its inception, specifically designed not to emulate or duplicate the function and character of the great number of web sites offering information on the Orthodox Church as a whole, especially as it relates to other Christian traditions thoughout the world; nor was it designed to be another forum for the discussion of general Orthodox theology. Those web sites which take these goals in hand are ample to the task, and many of the best are indexed in our Links Catalogue. Our purpose has remained specifically to address an area less often explored in detail on-line: the thought and life of the Church through the reading, study of and reflection upon the rich traditions of the patristic and monastic witnesses, together with the liturgical and ecclesiastical life of the Church throughout its history.

As can be seen the purpose of Monachos is chiefly to deepen our understanding of the Orthodox Faith through communication & mutual sharing among Orthodox Christians. It very often happens that non-Orthodox Christians drop in to ask us about our Faith which is fine. We also I am sure gain from learning from other Christians or at least about their perspective.

Recently however from enquiring about the Orthodox Faith there has been a turn towards aggressive attacks against our Faith. Then there are those who are non-Orthodox presenting what they feel is Orthodox teaching or giving what they think is Orthodox advice to Orthodox Christians without clearly indicating that they are not Orthodox.

I am not a moderator of Monachos. But as someone who comes to this forum often and derives great profit from it could I ask that out of charity our non-Orthodox brothers follow the mandate of monachos? In a real way what Matthew S our moderator provides is a protected space so that we as Orthodox can freely pursue what we believe is a very valuable goal of deepening our understanding of our Faith through learning from the Holy Fathers & Tradition of our Church. No apologies needed as far as I am concerned. Just understanding of why most of us are here.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Ken McRae]

Fr. Michael Shanbour originally posted:-

>> "I wonder what the western Church Fathers thought about this?" <<

My Reply:-

WESTERN FATHERS ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF PAPAL JURISDICTION

Most of the following is taken from the following online document:- X. The Early Church and the Bishop of Rome (http://web.archive.org/web/20030604071746/http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ429.HTM#X.%20The%20Early%20Church%20and%20the%2 0Bishop%20of%20Rome)

001 - St. Cyprian of Carthage

i) "With a false bishop appointed for themselves by heretics, they dare even to set sail and carry letters from schismatics and blasphemers to the chair of Peter and to the principal Church, in which sacerdotal unity has its source; nor did they take thought that these are Romans, whose faith was praised by the preaching Apostle, and among whom it is not possible for perfidity [i.e. faithlessness] to have entrance [i.e. access]." (Letter to Pope Cornelius, 59 (55), 14; Jurgens, FEF, vol. 1, 232.)

ii) "It is *on one man* that He builds the Church . . . In order that unity might be clearly shown, He established by His own authority a source for that unity, which takes its beginning from *one man alone*. Indeed, the other Apostles were that also which Peter was, being endowed with an equal portion of dignity and power; but the origin is grounded in unity, so that it may be made clear that there is but one Church of Christ." (The Unity of the Catholic Church, 4; Jurgens, FEF, vol. 1, 220-221.)

iii) "It is manifest where and by whom remission of sins can be given; to wit, that which is given in baptism. For first of all the Lord gave that power to Peter, *upon whom He built the Church*, and whence He appointed and showed the source of unity - the power, namely, that whatsoever he loosed on earth should be loosed in heaven." ( ANF, Volume 5, pp. 381 )

iv) " ... [Pope] Stephen ... boasts of the place of his episcopate, and *contends that he holds the succession from Peter* ... etc." ( ANF, Volume 5, pp. 394 )

v) "Neither must we prescribe this from custom, but overcome opposite custom by reason. For neither did Peter, whom first the Lord chose, and upon whom He built His Church, when Paul disputed with him afterwards about circumcision, claim anything to himself insolently, nor arrogantly assume anything; so as to say that *he held the primacy*, and that he ought rather to be obeyed by novices and those lately come." ( ANF, Volume 5, pp. 377 )

002 - St. Optatus of Milevis (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11262b.htm) (4th century)

"You cannot deny that you are aware that in the city of Rome the episcopal chair was given first to Peter; the chair in which Peter sat, the same who was head . . . of all the Apostles; the one chair in which unity is maintained by all. Neither do other Apostles proceed individually on their own; and anyone who would set up another chair in opposition to that single chair would, by that very fact, be a schismatic and a sinner." (The Schism of the Donatists, 2,2; Jurgens, FEF, vol. 2, 140.)

003 - St. Ambrose of Milan

"It is that same Peter to whom He said, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church.' Therefore, where Peter is, there the Church is, there death is not, but life eternal. And therefore did He add, 'and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,' (or him). Blessed Peter, against whom 'the gates of hell prevailed not,' the gate of heaven closed not; but who, on the contrary, destroyed the porches of hell, and opened the heavenly vestibules; wherefore, though placed on earth, he opened heaven and closed hell." ( from " Commentaries on Twelve of David's Psalms", 40,30; Jurgens, FEF, vol. 2, 150. )

004 - St. Jerome (hailed as the greatest scholar of his era)

i) The Church depends equally on all [the Apostles] . . . but one among the twelve is chosen to be their head in order to remove any occasion for division. (Against Jovinian, 1,26; Jurgens, FEF, vol. 2, 199.)

ii) Since the East tears into pieces the Lord's coat . . . therefore by me is the chair of Peter to be consulted, and that faith which is praised by the Apostle's mouth . . . From the Priest I ask the salvation of the victim, from the Shepherd the protection of the sheep . . . I court not the Roman height: I speak with the succesor of the Fisherman and the disciple of the Cross. I, who follow none as my chief but Christ, am associated in communion with thy blessedness, that is, with the See of Peter. On that rock the Church is built, I know. (Epistle 15 (writing to Pope Damasus); cited from Newman, John Henry, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845; rev. 1878), Part 2, ch. 6, sec. 3, no. 8.)

iii) "I follow no one as supreme leader except Christ only; hence I attach myself in communion with your beatitude, that is, with the see of Peter. I know that the Church is built upon this rock. Whoever eats a [passover] lamb outside this house, is profane. Anyone who is not in Noah's Ark will perish when the flood prevails." ( ep. 15 [ ad Damasum ] ; also quoted in Bettenson's 'Later Christian Fathers', p. 188 )

iv) "If any be joined to Peter's chair he is mine." (Epistle 16; Newman, ibid.)

005 - St. Augustine of Hippo (d. 430)

i) "[On this matter of the Pelagians] two Councils have already been sent to the Apostolic See [Rome]; and from there rescripts too have come. The matter is at an end; would that the error too might sometime be at an end." (Sermon 131,10; Jurgens, FEF, vol. 3, 28 (emphasis added). The two Councils were held at Carthage and Milevis. The rescripts came from Pope Innocent I.)

ii) "If the very order of episcopal succession is to be considered, how much more surely, truly, and safely do we number them from Peter himself, to whom, as to one representing the whole Church, the Lord said: Upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not conquer it. Peter was succeeded by Linus, Linus by Clement, Clement by Anacletus, Anacletus by Evaristus . . . " (Letter to Generosus, 53,1,2 (c.400); Jurgens, FEF, vol. 3, 2.)

iii) "The succession of priests, from the very see of the Apostle Peter, to whom our Lord, after His resurrection, gave the charge of feeding His sheep, up to the present episcopate, keeps me here [in the Catholic Church]. And at last, the very name of Catholic, which, not without reason, belongs to this Church alone, in the face of so many heretics, so much so that, although all heretics want to be called Catholic, when a stranger inquires where the Catholic Church meets, none of the heretics would dare to point out his own basilica or house." (Against the Letter of Mani Called The Foundation, 4,5 (written in 397); Jurgens, FEF, vol. 3, 51.)

006 - Pope St. Julius I ( d. 352 )

"If, then, any such suspicion rested upon the bishop there [that is, St. Athanasius, in Alexandria], notice of it ought to have been written to the Church here. But now, after they have done as they pleased, they want to obtain our concurrence, although we never condemned him. Not thus are the constitutions of Paul, not thus the traditions of the Fathers. This is another form of procedure, and a novel practice. I beseech you, bear with me willingly: what I write about this is for the common good. For what we have received from the blessed Apostle Peter, these things I signify to you." (Letter to Eusebian Bishops of Antioch, 22; Jurgens, FEF, vol. 1, 346.)

007 - Pope St. Damasus I ( d. 384 )

"The holy Roman Church has been placed at the forefront not by the conciliar decisions of other Churches, but has received the primacy by the evangelic voice of our Lord and Savior, who says: You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church . . . " (Decree of Damasus, (From Council of Rome in 382), 3; Jurgens, FEF, vol. 1, 406.)

008 - Pope St. Innocent I ( d. 417 )

"Following the examples of ancient tradition, . . . you have acknowledged that judgment is to be referred to us, and have shown that you know what is owed to the Apostolic See . . .The Fathers . . . did not regard anything as finished, even though it was the concern of distant and remote provinces, until it had come to the notice of this See, so that what was a just pronouncement might be confirmed by the total authority of this See, and thence other Churches - just as all waters proceed from their own natal source and . . . remain pure liquids of an incorrupted head - might take up what they ought to teach." (Letter to the Council of Carthage, 29,1; Jurgens, FEF, vol. 3, 181-182.)

009 - Pope St. Boniface (d. 422)

"... it is clear that this Roman Church is to all churches throughout the world as the head is to the members, and that whoever separates himself from it becomes an exile from the Christian religion, since he ceases to belong to it's fellowship." (Epistle 14, 1)

010 - Pope St. Celestine I (d. 432)

i) "We enjoin upon you the necessary task of guarding the authority of the Apostolic See. And if the instructions handed you have to mention this and if you have to be present in the assembly, if it comes to controversy, it is not yours to join the fight, but to judge of their opinions." (276. Letter to the Papal Legates, 17; Jurgens, FEF, vol. 3, 184.)

ii) "We have special anxiety about all persons because on us, in the holy apostle Peter, Christ conferred the necessity of making all men our care, when he gave him the keys of opening and shutting." (Third Letter to Illyrian Bishops, in Migne, Latin Fathers, 50:428; cited in Jaki, Stanley, The Keys of the Kingdom, Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1986, 190.)

011 - Pope St. Leo The Great (d. 461)

i) "From the whole world only one, Peter, is chosen to preside over the calling of all nations, and over all the other Apostles, and over the Fathers of the Church . . . Peter . . . rules them all, of whom, too, it is Christ who is their chief ruler." (Sermons, 4,2; Jurgens, FEF, vol. 3, 275.)

ii) "The Lord . . . wanted His gifts to flow into the entire body from Peter himself, as if from the head, in such a way that anyone who had dared to separate himself from the solidarity of Peter would realize that he was himself no longer a sharer in the divine mystery . . .

The Apostolic See . . . has on countless occasions been reported to in consultation by bishops . . . And through the appeal of various cases to this see, decisions already made have been either revoked or confirmed, as dictated by longstanding custom." (Letter to the Bishops of Vienne, 10,1-2; Jurgens, FEF, vol. 3, 269.)

iii) "Although bishops have a common dignity, they are not all of the same rank. Even among the most blessed Apostles, though they were alike in honor, there was a certain distinction of power. All were equal in being chosen, but it was given to one to be preeminent over the others . . . The care of the universal Church would converge one See of Peter, and nothing should ever be at odds with this head." (Letter to Bishop Anastasius of Thessalonica, 14,11; Jurgens, FEF, vol. 3, 270.)

The following quote is of the same passage immediately above, but taken from a different translation source:-

"Though priests have a like dignity, yet they have not an equal jurisdiction, since even among the most blessed apostles, as there was a likeness of honor, so was there a certain distinction of power, and the election of all being equal, pre-eminence over the rest was given to one, from which type the distinction between the bishops also has risen, and it was provided by an important arrangement, that all should not claim to themselves power over all, but that in every province there should be one, whose sentence should be considered the first among his brethren; and others again, seated in the greater cities, should undertake a larger care, through whom the direction of the Universal Church should converge to the one See of Peter, and nothing anywhere disagree with its head." (Epistle. 14)

012 - Pope St. Gelasius (d. 496)

"Yet we do not hesitate to mention that which is known to the Universal Church, namely, that as the See of Blessed Peter the Apostle has the right to loose what has been bound by the judgments of any bishops, whatsoever, and since it has jurisdiction over every church, so that no one may pass judgment on its verdict, the canons providing that an appeal should be to it from any part of the world, no one is permitted to appeal against its judgment." (Thiel, Ep. 26)

013 - Pope Gregory the Great :-

"As to what they say of the Church of Constantinople, who doubts that it is subject to the Apostolic See? This is constantly owned by the most pious Emperor and by our brother and Bishop of that city." (Lib. IX, Ep. 12)

"If any fault is found among bishops, I know not any one who is not subject to it [the Apostolic See]; but when no fault requires otherwise, all are equal according to the estimation of humility." (Lib. IX, Ep. 59)

Fr. Michael Shanbour originally posted:-

>> " ... our Father among the Saints, Gregory Pope of Rome, stated emphatically to his 'brother' the Patriarch of Constantinople that NO Bishop should or can ever be called 'universal.' To do so, was a complete innovation and utter outrage according to his own writings." <<

My Reply:-

The following is an online document on Pope Gregory the Great and the Universal Papacy (http://web.archive.org/web/20030604071302/ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ152.HTM). While the opening sentence gives pause to question, by its parenthetical reference to the Eastern Orthodox, the article nontheless merits our serious and prayerful consideration. I offer it here in the spirit of brotherly love.

Pope Gregory the Great and the Universal Papacy (http://web.archive.org/web/20030604071302/ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ152.HTM)

Protestants (and Eastern Orthodox) somehow manage to simultaneously claim that Pope St. Gregory the Great was 1) the first pope, but nevertheless 2) a denier of papal supremacy (see below). Neither is true. I therefore ask Protestants (particularly anti-Catholics): who, then, was the first pope, if Gregory the Great was not one in any Catholic sense of the word? Or is the argument more subtle than that?

The commonly-heard polemic of Gregory the Great allegedly eschewing the universal jurisdiction of the papacy is easily disposed of. One must examine context and the rest of the author's works and actions, if possible (just as with biblical exegesis). When that is done in this particular instance, Gregory's meaning becomes quite clear, and alas, it is not what the anti-Catholic endeavor would have hoped.

Gregory the Great condemned the title universal bishop in the sense of meaning that all other bishops are not really bishops, but mere agents of the one Bishop, a concept that is blatantly contrary to Catholic teaching, which holds that all bishops are by divine institution true successors of the Apostles. For he states:

For if one, as he supposes, is universal bishop, it remains that you are not bishops. {Epistle LXVIII}

Elsewhere, in the very same correspondence in which he condemns this term in the sense above, Gregory clearly upholds the universal authority and supremacy of the Roman bishop:

Now eight years ago, in the time of my predecessor of holy memory Pelagius, our brother and fellow-bishop John in the city of Constantinople, . . . held a synod in which he attempted to call himself Universal Bishop. Which as soon as my said predecessor knew, he dispatched letters annulling by the authority of the holy apostle Peter the acts of the said synod; of which letters I have taken care to send copies to your Holiness. {Epistle XLIII, emphasis added}

To all who know the Gospel it is clear that by the words of our Lord the care of the whole Church was committed to Blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles . . . Behold, he received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the power to bind and loose was given to him, and the care and principality of the entire church was committed to him . . . Yet he was not the universal Apostle. But . . . John would be called universal Bishop . . . [Popes had never assumed this title, though it had been given them], lest all the Bishops be deprived of their due meed of honor whilst some special honor be conceded to one. {Epistles, 5, 37; to Emperor Maurice, emphasis added}

In writing to John, Bishop of Constantinople, who had usurped "this new, proud and profane title," Gregory wonders,

how one, who had professed himself unworthy to be called a Bishop at all, should now despise his brethren, and aspire to be called the sole Bishop. {Epistles, 5,44}

The title Universal Bishop may also be used in the sense of Bishop of Bishops, and in this sense it was applied by Eastern Christians (i.e., Catholics - this is before the Schism) to Popes Hormisdas (514-523), Boniface II (530-532) and Agapetus (535-36), although the popes never used it themselves (ostensibly wishing to avoid the above interpretation) until the time of Leo IX (1049-54).

Pope St. Gregory the Great, like St. John Chrysostom two centuries earlier, and Pope St. Leo the Great 150 years earlier (arguably with even more force and vigor), states the Catholic doctrine of papal supremacy in many passages of his letters. He calls the Roman See "the head of the faith," and the "head of all the churches," because "it holds the place of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles." "All Bishops," including Constantinople, "are subject to the Apostolic See." {Taken from: The Question Box, Bertrand Conway, NY: Paulist Press, 1929 ed., 158-159}

Likewise, (the formerly) Lutheran historian Jaroslav Pelikan (now Orthodox) writes:

The churches of the Greek East, too, owed a special allegiance to Rome . . . One see after another had capitulated in this or that controversy with heresy. Constantinople had given rise to several heretics during the fourth and fifth centuries, notably Nestorius and Macedonius, and the other sees has also been known to stray from the true faith occasionally. but Rome had a special position. The bishop of Rome had the right by his own authority to annul the acts of a synod. In fact, when there was talk of a council to settle controversies, Gregory asserted the principle that "without the authority and the consent of the apostolic see, none of the matters transacted [by a council] have any binding force."

{The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600), Univ. of Chicago Press, 1971, 354; cites Gregory's Epistle 9.156}

(Message edited by theophilus on 30 May, 2005)

[Ken McRae]

Pope St. Leo the Great (r. 440-461) and Papal Supremacy (http://web.archive.org/web/20030416155438/ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ235.HTM)


Pope St. Leo the Great, who reigned from 440 to 461, considered by many Protestant and secular historians as the first pope, and revered as a saint by the Orthodox, spoke perhaps more clearly than anyone up to that time concerning Roman primacy and papal duties, prerogatives, and supremacy, yet his views were merely the culmination and more advanced development of what had been the essential beliefs of the universal (that is, Catholic) Church from the beginning:

1) The Lord . . . wanted His gifts to flow into the entire body from Peter himself, as if from the head, in such a way that anyone who had dared to separate himself from the solidarity of Peter would realize that he was himself no longer a sharer in the divine mystery . . . The Apostolic See . . . has on countless occasions been reported to in consultation by bishops . . . And through the appeal of various cases to this see, decisions already made have been either revoked or confirmed, as dictated by longstanding custom. {Letter to the Bishops of Vienne, July, 445 A.D., 10:1-2; in Jurgens, William A., ed. and tr., The Faith of the Early Fathers (FEF), 3 volumes, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1970, vol. 3, p. 269; emphasis added}

2) Although bishops have a common dignity, they are not all of the same rank. Even among the most blessed Apostles, though they were alike in honor, there was a certain distinction of power. All were equal in being chosen, but it was given to one to be preeminent over the others . . . the care of the universal Church would converge in the one See of Peter, and nothing should ever be at odds with this head. {Letter to Bishop Anastasius of Thessalonica, c.446 A.D., 14:11; in Jurgens, FEF, vol. 3, p. 270; emphasis added}

3) From the whole world only one, Peter, is chosen to preside over the calling of all nations, and over all the other Apostles, and over the Fathers of the Church . . . Peter . . . rules them all, of whom, too, it is Christ who is their chief ruler. Divine condescension, dearly beloved, has granted to this man in a wonderful and marvellous manner the aggregate of its power; and if there was something that it wanted to be his in common with other leaders, it never gave whatever it did not deny to others except through him. {Sermons, 4:2; in Jurgens, FEF, vol. 3, p. 275; emphasis added}

4) For not only was the power of binding and loosing given to Peter before the others, but also to Peter more especially was entrusted the care of feeding the sheep. Yet anyone who denies that the headship must be denied to Peter, cannot really diminish his dignity: but is puffed up with the breath of his pride, and plunges himself to the lowest depth. {Letters, 10:2, 450 A.D., in Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers - Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, 2nd series, vol. 12 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 9; emphasis added}

5) . . . the Universal Church has become a rock (petra) through the building up of that original Rock, and the first of the Apostles, the most blessed Peter . . . {Letters, 156:2, 458 A.D., in Schaff, ibid., 100}

6) [after citing Lk 22:31-32] . . . special care is taken of Peter by the Lord, and he asks specially for the faith of Peter, as if the state of the others would be more certain if the mind of the chief were not overcome. So then in Peter the strength of all is fortified, and the help of divine grace is so ordered that the stability which through Christ is given to Peter, through Peter is conveyed to the apostles . . . Since then, beloved, we see such a protection divinely granted to us, reasonably and justly do we rejoice in the merits and dignity of our leader, rendering thanks to the eternal King, our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, for having given so great a power to him whom he made chief of the whole Church . . .
{Sermo 4 - Gaudeo, dilectissimi in J.P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Latina (Paris, 1866), 54:149; emphasis added}

7) LETTER CXIX.

TO MAXIMUS, BISHOP OF ANTIOCH, BY THE HAND OF MARIAN THE PRESBYTER, AND OLYMPIUS THE DEACON.

II. Maximus is to keep the churches of the East free from these two opposite heresies. And therefore, beloved brother, you must with all your heart consider over which church the LORD has set you to preside, and remember that system of doctrine of which the chief of all the Apostles, the blessed Peter, laid the foundation, not only by his uniform preaching throughout the world, but especially by his teaching in the cities of Antioch and Rome: so that you may understand that he demands of him who is set over the home of his own renown those institutions which he handed down, as he received them from the Truth Itself, which he confessed. And in the churches of the East, and especially in those which the canons of the most holy Fathers at Nicaea (3) assigned to the See of Antioch, you must not by any means allow unscrupulous heretics to make assaults on the Gospel, and the dogmas of either Nestorius or Eutyches to be maintained by any one. Since, as I have said, the rock (petra) of the catholic Faith, from which the blessed Apostle Peter took his name at the LORD'S hands, rejects every trace of either heresy; . . .

III. Antioch as the third See in Christendom is to retain her privileges.

And so it behoves you to use the utmost vigilance, lest these depraved heretics dare to assert themselves; for you must resist them with all the authority of priests, and frequently inform us by your reports what is being done for the progress of the churches. For it is right that you should share this responsibility with the Apostolic See, and realize that the privileges of the third See in Christendom (4) give you every confidence in action, privileges which no intrigues shall in any way impair: because my respect for the Nicene canons is such that I never have allowed nor ever will the institutions of the holy Fathers to be violated by any innovation. For different sometimes as are the deserts of individual prelates, yet the rights of their Sees are permanent: and although rivalry may perchance cause some disturbance about them, yet it cannot impair their dignity. Wherefore, brother, if ever you consider any action ought to be taken to uphold the privileges of the church of Antioch, be sure to explain it in a letter of your own, that we may be able to reply to your application completely and appropriately . . .

V. If Leo's legates in any way exceeded their instructions, they did so ineffectually.

Of course, if anything is alleged to have been done by those brethren whom I sent in my stead to the holy Synod, beyond that which was germane to the Faith, it shall he of no weight at all: because they were sent by the Apostolic See only for the purpose of extirpating heresy and upholding the catholic Faith.

For whatever is laid before bishops for inquiry beyond the particular subjects which come before synodal councils may admit of a certain amount of free discussion, if the holy Fathers have laid down nothing thereon at Nicaea. For anything that is not in agreement with their rules and constitutions can never obtain the assent of the Apostolic See. But how great must be the diligence with which this rule is kept, you will gather from the copies of the letter which we sent to the bishop of Constantinople, restraining his cupidity; and you shall take order that it reach the knowledge of all our brethren and fellow-priests . . .

Dated the 11th of June, in the consulship of the illustrious Opilio (453).

{Letter 119:2,3,5, in Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers - Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, 2nd series, vol. 12 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 85-87, emphasis added }

8) LETTER VI.

TO ANASTASIUS, BISHOP OF THESSALONICA. Leo to his beloved brother Anastasius.

I. He is pleased to have been consulted by the bishops (6) Illyricum on important questions.

The brotherly love of our colleagues makes us read with grateful mind the letters of all priests (7); for in them we embrace one another in the spirit as if we were face to face, and by the intercourse of such epistles we are associated in mutual converse (8). But in this present letter the affection displayed seems to us greater than usual: for it informs us of the state of the churches (9), and urges us to a vigilant exercise of care by a consideration of our office, so that being placed, as it were, on a watch-tower, according to the will of the LORD, we should both lend our approval to things when they run in accordance with our wishes, and correct, by applying the remedies of compulsion, what we observe gone wrong through any aggression: hoping that abundant fruit will be the result of our sowing the seed, if we do not allow those things to increase which have begun to spring up to the spoiling of the harvest.

II. Following the examples of his predecessors he nominates Anastasius Metropolitan of Illyricum.

Now therefore, dear brother, that your request has been made known to us through our son Nicolaus the priest, that you, too, like your predecessors, might receive from us in our turn authority over Illyricum for the observance of the rules, we give our consent and earnestly exhort that no concealment and no negligence may be allowed in the management of the churches situated throughout Illyricum, which we commit to you in our stead, following the precedent of Siricius of blessed remembrance, . . .

III. Ordinees must be carefully selected with especial reference to the Canons of the Church . . .

IV. The Metropolitans must not ordain hastily nor without consulting their Primate . . . . .

V. Points which cannot be settled at the provincial synod are to be referred to Rome.

Any of the brethren who has been summoned to a synod should attend and not deny himself to the holy congregation: for there especially he should know that what will conduce to the good discipline of the Church must be settled. For all faults will be better avoided if more frequent conferences take place between the priests of the LORD, and intimate association is the greatest help alike to improvement and to brotherly love. There, if any questions arise, under the LORD'S guidance they will be able to be determined, so that no bad feeling remains, and only a firmer love exists among the brethren. But if any more important question spring up, such as cannot be settled there under your presidency, brother, send your report and consult us, so that we may write back under the revelation of the LORD, of whose mercy it is that we can do ought, because He has breathed favourably upon us (7): that by our decision we may vindicate our right of cognizance in accordance with old-established tradition and the respect that is due to the Apostolic See: for as we wish you to exercise your authority in our stead, so we reserve to ourselves points which cannot be decided on the spot and persons who have made appeal to us.

VI. Priests and deacons may not be ordained on weekdays any more than bishops.

You shall take order that this letter reach the knowledge of all the brethren, so that no one hereafter find an opportunity to excuse himself through ignorance in observing these things which we command . . .

Dated the 12th of January, in the consulship of Theodosius (18th time and Albinus (444).

{Letters, 6:1-2,5, in Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, eds.,_Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers - Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, 2nd series, vol. 12 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 4-6, emphasis added }

9) LETTER CIV

TO MARCIAN AUGUSTUS

III. The City of Constantinople, royal though it be, can never be raised to Apostolic rank.

Let the city of Constantinople have, as we desire, its high rank, and under the protection of God's right hand, long enjoy your clemency's rule. Yet things secular stand on a different basis from things divine: and there can be no sure building save on that rock which the Lord has laid for a foundation.

He that covets what is not his due, loses what is his own. Let it be enough for Anatolius that by the aid of your piety and by my favour and approval he has obtained the bishopric of so great a city. Let him not disdain a city which is royal, though he cannot make it an Apostolic See [3]; and let him on no account hope that he can rise by doing injury to others. For the privileges of the churches determined by the canons of the holy Fathers, and fixed by the decrees of the Nicene Synod, cannot be overthrown by any unscrupulous act, nor disturbed by any innovation. And in the faithful execution of this task by the aid of Christ I am bound to display an unflinching devotion; for it is a charge entrusted to me, and it tends to my condemnation if the rules sanctioned by the Fathers and drawn up under the guidance of God's Spirit at the Synod of Nicaea for the government of the whole Church are violated with my connivance (which God forbid), and if the wishes of a single brother have more weight with me than the common good of the Lord's whole house.
Dated the 22nd of May in the consulship of the illustrious Herculanus (452).

{Letter 104:3, in Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers - Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, 2nd series, vol. 12 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 75, emphasis added }

10) LETTER CVI.

TO ANATOLIUS, BISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE, IN REBUKE OF HIS SELF-SEEKING.

Leo, the bishop, to Anatolius, the bishop.

III. The Synod of Chalcedon, which met for one purpose, ought never to have been used for another.

Accordingly these things which are found to be contrary to those most holy canons are exceedingly unprincipled and misguided. This haughty arrogance tends to the disturbance of the whole Church, which has purposed so to misuse a synodal council, as by wicked arguments to over-persuade, or by intimidation to compel, the brethren to agree with it, when they had been summoned simply on a matter of Faith, and had come to a decision on the subject which was to engage their care. For it was on this ground that our brothers sent by the Apostolic see, who presided in our stead at the synod with commendable firmness, withstood their illegal attempts, openly protesting against the introduction of any reprehensible innovation contrary to the enactments of the Council of Nicaea.

And there can be no doubt about their opposition, seeing that you yourself in your epistle complain of their wish to contravene your attempts. And therein indeed you greatly commend them to me by thus writing, whereas you accuse yourself in refusing to obey them concerning your unlawful designs, vainly seeking what cannot be granted, and craving what is bad for your soul's health, and can never win our consent. For may I never be guilty of assisting so wrong a desire, which ought rather to be subverted by my aid, and that of all who think not high things, but agree with the lowly . . .

V. The sanction alleged to have been accorded 60 years ago to the supremacy of Constantinople over Alexandria and Antioch is worthless. "Be not highminded," brother, "but fear( 2)," and cease to disquiet with unwarrantable demands the pious ears of Christian princes, who I am sure will be better pleased by your modesty than by your pride. For your purpose is in no way whatever supported by the written assent of certain bishops given, as you allege, 60 years ago (3), and*ever brought to the knowledge of the Apostolic See by your predecessors; and this transaction, which from its outset was doomed to fall through and has now long done so, you now wish to bolster up by means that are too late and useless, viz., by extracting from the brethren an appearance of consent which their modesty from very weariness yielded to their own injury . . .

Dated the 22nd of May in the consulship of the illustrious Herculanus (452).

{Letter 106:3,5, in Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers - Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, 2nd series, vol. 12 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 77-79, emphasis added }

11) LETTER IX

TO DIOSCORUS, BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA

I. . . . the most blessed Peter received the headship of the Apostles from the LORD, and the Church of Rome still abides by His institutions . . .

{Letter 9:1, c.445, in Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers - Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, 2nd series, vol. 12 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 7; emphasis added}

12) LETTER XII

TO ALL THE BISHOPS OF MAURITANIA CAESARIENSIS IN AFRICA

I. . . . that solicitude which by the Divine command we bestow on the whole Church . . .
{Letter 12:1, August 10, 446, in Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers - Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, 2nd series, vol. 12 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 12}

13) LETTER XIV

TO ANASTASIUS, BISHOP OF THESSALONICA

II. . . . I . . . have delegated my authority to you, beloved, so that you, imitating our gentleness, might assist us in the care which we owe primarily to all the churches by Divine institution . . .

XII. . . . Though they have a common dignity, yet they have not a uniform rank; inasmuch as even among the blessed Apostles, notwithstanding the similarity of their honourable estate, there was a certain distinction of power, and while the election of them all was equal, yet it was given to one to take the lead of the rest . . . The care of the universal Church should converge towards Peter's one seat, and nothing anywhere should be separated from its Head.

{Letter 14:2,12, in Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers - Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, 2nd series, vol. 12 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 16,19, emphasis added }

14) SERMON III.

ON HIS BIRTHDAY, III: DELIVERED ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF HIS ELEVATION TO THE PONTIFICATE.

I. The honour of being raised to the episcopate must be referred solely to the Divine Head of the Church.

As often as GOD's mercy deigns to bring round the day of His gifts to us, there is, dearly-beloved, just and reasonable cause for rejoicing, if only our appointment to the office be referred to the praise of Him who gave it. For though this recognition of GOD may well be found in all His priests, yet I take it to be peculiarly binding on me, who, regarding my own utter insignificance and the greatness of the office undertaken, ought myself also to utter that exclamation of the Prophet," LORD, I heard Thy speech and was afraid: I considered Thy works and was dismayed (7)." For what is so unwonted and so dismaying as labour to the frail, exaltation to the humble, dignity to the undeserving? And yet we do not despair nor lose heart, because we put our trust not in ourselves but in Him who works in us. And hence also we have sung with harmonious voice the psalm of David, dearly beloved, not in our own praise, but to the glory of Christ the LORD. For it is He of whom it is prophetically written, "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedeck (8)," that is, not after the order of Aaron, whose priesthood descending along his own line of offspring was a temporal ministry, and ceased with the law of the Old Testament, but after the order of Melchizedeck, in whom was prefigured the eternal High Priest.

And no reference is made to his parentage because in him it is understood that He was portrayed, whose generation cannot be declared. And finally, now that the mystery of this Divine priesthood has descended to human agency, it runs not by the line of birth, nor is that which flesh and blood created, chosen, but without regard to the privilege of paternity and succession by inheritance, those men are received by the Church as its rulers whom the Holy Ghost prepares: so that in the people of GOD's adoption, the whole body of which is priestly and royal, it is not the prerogative of earthly origin which obtains the unction (9), but the condescension of Divine grace which creates the bishop.

II. From Christ and through S. Peter the priesthood is handed on in perpetuity.

Although, therefore, dearly beloved, we be found both weak and slothful in fulfilling the duties of our office, because, whatever devoted and vigorous action we desire to do, we are hindered by the frailty of our very condition; yet having the unceasing propitiation of the Almighty and perpetual Priest, who being like us and yet equal with the Father, brought down His Godhead even to things human, and raised His Manhood even to things Divine, we worthily and piously rejoice over His dispensation, whereby, though He has delegated the care of His sheep to many shepherds, yet He has not Himself abandoned the guardianship of His beloved flock.

And from His overruling and eternal protection we have received the support of the Apostles' aid also, which assuredly does not cease from its operation: and the strength of the foundation, on which the whole superstructure of the Church is reared, is not weakened (1) by the weight of the temple that rests upon it. For the solidity of that faith which was praised in the chief of the Apostles is perpetual: and as that remains which Peter believed in Christ, so that remains which Christ instituted in Peter. For when, as has been read in the Gospel lesson (2), the LORD had asked the disciples whom they believed Him to be amid the various opinions that were held, and the blessed Peter bad replied, saying, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living GOD," the LORD says, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and flood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father, which is in heaven. And I say to thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shall loose on earth, shall be loosed also in heaven (3)."

III. S. Peter's work is still carried out by his successors.

The dispensation of Truth therefore abides, and the blessed Peter persevering in the strength of the Rock, which he has received, has not abandoned the helm of the Church, which he undertook. For he was ordained before the rest in such a way that from his being called the Rock, from his being pronounced the Foundation, from his being constituted the Doorkeeper of the kingdom of heaven, from his being set as the Umpire to bind and to loose, whose judgments shall retain their validity in heaven, from all these mystical titles we might know the nature of his association with Christ. And still to-day he more fully and effectually performs what is entrusted to him, and carries out every part of his duty and charge in Him and with Him, through Whom he has been glorified. And so if anything is rightly done and rightly decreed by us, if anything is won from the mercy of GOD by our daily supplications, it is of his work and merits whose power lives and whose authority prevails in his See. For this, dearly-beloved, was gained by that confession, which, inspired in the Apostle's heart by GOD the Father, transcended all the uncertainty of human opinions, and was endued with the firmness of a rock, which no assaults could shake.

For throughout the Church Peter daily says, "Thou an the Christ, the Son of the living GOD," and every tongue which confesses the LORD, accepts the instruction his voice conveys. This Faith conquers the devil, and breaks the bonds of his prisoners. It uproots us from this earth and plants us in heaven, and the gates of Hades cannot prevail against it. For with such solidity is it endued by GOD that the depravity of heretics cannot mar it nor the unbelief of the heathen overcome it.

IV. This festival then is in S. Peter's honour, and the progress of his flock redounds to his glory.

And so, dearly beloved, with reasonable obedience we celebrate to-day's festival by such methods, that in my humble person he may be recognized and honoured, in whom abides the care of all the shepherds, together with the charge of the sheep commended to him, and whose dignity is not abated even in so unworthy an heir.

And hence the presence of my venerable brothers and fellow-priests, so much desired and valued by me, will be the more sacred and precious, if they will transfer the chief honour of this service in which they have deigned to take part to him whom they know to be not only the patron of this see, but also the primate of all bishops.

When therefore we utter our exhortations in your ears, holy brethren, believe that he is speaking whose representative we are: because it is his warning that we give, nothing else but his teaching that we preach, beseeching you to "gird up the loins of your mind (4)," and lead a chaste and sober life in the fear of GOD, and not to let your mind forget his supremacy and consent to the lusts of the flesh.

Short and fleeting are the joys of this world's pleasures which endeavour to turn aside from the path of life those who are called to eternity. The faithful and religious spirit, therefore, must desire the things which are heavenly, and being eager for the Divine promises, lift itself to the love of the incorruptible Good and the hope of the true Light. But be sure, dearly-beloved, that your labour, whereby you resist vices and fight against carnal desires, is pleasing and precious in GOD'S sight, and in GOD's mercy will profit not only yourselves but me also, because the zealous pastor makes his boast of the progress of the LORD'S flock. "For ye are my crown and joy (5)," as the Apostle says; if your faith, which from the beginning of the Gospel has been preached in all the world has continued in love and holiness. For though the whole Church, which is in all the world, ought to abound in all virtues, yet you especially, above all people, it becomes to excel in deeds of piety, because founded as you are on the very citadel of the Apostolic Rock, not only has our LORD Jesus Christ redeemed you in common with all men, but the blessed Apostle Peter has instructed you far beyond all men. Through the same Christ our LORD.

{Sermon 3:1-4, in Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers - Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, 2nd series, vol. 12 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994, 116-118), emphasis added }

[Vasilis Kirikos]

> Thank you, Fr Rapeael. > Xristos Anesti! Pikhristus aftonf! Christ Is Risen! First allow me to identify myself. I am a cradle Orthodox Christian; i.e., I was taken into The Church when I was an infant. Both of my parents are Greek; and both are Greek Orthodox Christians. Regarding Father Raphael's comments, I have attended Roman Catholic services where I have heard open disparagement of The Orthodox Church; even our patriarch. And I take strong exception to anyone having similar designs bringing their attacks against The Church to this Orthodox forum. I have NEVER heard an Orthodox priest or members of any Orthodox group or meeting publicly attack any other faith. NEVER! I also would like to add that at different times I have been a dues paying member of the Greek, Russian and Antiochian Orthodox Church communities. Presently, for matters of convenience and saving money on gasoline, I have been considering becoming a member of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church since there is one just up the street from where I live. From my experience there is little or no difference in any of these jurisdictions as far as the liturgies are concerned. And I always know EXACTLY where the service has progressed at any point in time, regardless of the language of the Devine Liturgy. The Greek Orthodox, along with the Ukrainian Orthodox, usually have few members of the congregation receiving Holy Communion. This compared to the Russian and Antiochian Orthodox where most of the congregations receive.

I have been told that, as far as the Greeks are concerned much of this has been due to the 450 years of Muslim Turkish occupation /persecution of Greece's Orthodox Christians. The Church was forced underground in many areas of occupied Greece (much of which is now Turkey) and there were few priests. Even today, there are areas in Turkey having a mosque hiding a church, deep underground beneath the mosque. So most of the small communities were without a priest on Sundays. Upon his departure the communicants would ask the visiting priest what they should do during his absence and consequently no Devine Liturgy for the coming Sunday. The priests usual reply was to tell the people to fast for three days. Now it has become a tradition to fast three days before communion when this is against the rule of not fasting on Saturdays with the single exception of the Saturday of Holy Week. And I think that is why there are so few participants who receive communion during the Devine Liturgy on Sundays in the Greek Church. It is my understanding that the Ukrainians have a similar history of prosecution.. Vasilis

// /"there has been a turn towards aggressive attacks against our Faith. Then there are those who are non-Orthodox presenting what they feel is Orthodox teaching or giving what they think is Orthodox advice to Orthodox Christians without clearly indicating that they are not Orthodox." /

[Kosmas Damianides]

My Roman Catholic Bretheren,

I am Orthodox -- Greek Orthodox.

My hypotyhetical question was not answered before. Allow me to ask this question again but in another way.

If the new Pope who was elected was an Eastern Right Catholic in other words a Uniate, would you still believe that the Pope has infalliblity? Would you in one day change your beliefs and practices? Since I know that you two do not agree on certain points.

Furthermore, can you prove that only Roman Catholics can go to heaven since they have inherited the keys (from Peter) alone?

In addition, how is it possible that a seat has a special grace from Christ? Remember Peter (who is in heaven now by the way) was not based in Rome, most of his bishops were made in the East which means that His true Episcopal Chair/See technically speaking should not be in Rome but over the East; in Antioch to be exact.

Plus if you believe in Papal infallibility, then why do you have a Pope (Pope Liberius 355AD) who turned against St Athanasius and the Nicean Creed?

Furthermore how can you call the Pope who succeeded him (Pope Damasus I 366-384) infallible (and a Saint for that matter), when it is well documented that he organised the murder of his opposition and the newly elected Pope Ursinus (366AD) by hiring a private papal army that massacred hundreds of people in the basilica -- innocent un-armed bishops and priests and other faithful supporters? Is this what you call papal authority given from God?

This not only makes papal infallibility sound more like Papal tyranny but Apostolic Succession seems to fly out of the window over in the Vatican.

It is ironic that your history books claim that he was the one who raised the status of the See of Rome QUOTE: "In all St Damasus set a new stamp on the papacy: Rome was to be simultaneously the city sanctified by the martyrs, from Sts Peter and Paul onward, and the authoritative teacher and legislator of the Christian World." Lives of the Popes by Michael J Walsh.

It seems that actions speak louder than words.

I am sure that the Orthodox world also is not immune from corruption and many Bishops did go wrong at some time--I'm not judging your faith-- but at least there is still a sense of humility and they do not claim to have infallibility from St Peter.

For crying out loud Pope Inocent I was the son of the previous Pope -- Pope Anastasius I. through his mistress. Yet you call both of them Saints & keepers of the Truth. (Not so Innocent were they?)

I have got to grant it to you, you have a good sense of humour.

In Brotherly Love

Kosmas

[leandros]

Dear Roman-Catholics Friends,

I ask you to search under which circumstances "Vatican I" fabricated the doctrine of "Papal infallibility".

You are going so back in the past in order to justify this new doctrine that you forget Vatican's recent past that is so unmerited!

Let me remind to forum members, how this NEW DOCTRINE was imposed over Roman-Catholic Church:

"'Papal infallibility' is the idea that the pope's words (at certain times at least, see below) can be considered to be absolutely beyond question. This is actually a relatively recent doctrine, having been formally declared only in 1870 (during the First Vatican Council). Since then, the pope has been considered to be disseminating an 'infallible teaching' only when:

1. he speaks ex cathedra, that is, in his official capacity as pastor and teacher
2. he speaks with the manifest intention of binding the entire church to acceptance
3. the matter pertains to faith or morals taught as a part of divine revelation handed down from apostolic times

Needless to say, perhaps, this legalistic definition was put together by a group of men sitting around a table. And it was a legal definition that was both necessary and overdue, it would seem, since even within the church the notion of papal infallibility has had a controversial history.

The idea was first mooted by the 13th century Franciscan Peter Olivi, and Peter Olivi's own pope, pope Nicholas III, accepted the idea, whereas later popes rejected it outright. For example, Pope John XXII (1316-1334) went so far as to call it 'a work of the devil... the Father of Lies', and in 1324 pope John XXII actually issued a papal bull condemning the idea of papal infallibility as a heresy. Such was the situation for many hundreds of years, until the First Vatican Council, convened by pope Pius IX met in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome in 1869 and 1870 (meeting a grand total of 93 times!).

(This is exactly the time period that Roman-Catholics never speak off, but at that time exactly is the beggining of the NEW DOCTRINE - just 134 years old !)

The opinion of the official theologian for the Second Vatican Council, (in the 1960's) Hans Küng, is instructive here:

'Pius IX had a sense of divine mission which he carried to extremes; he engaged in double dealing; he was mentally disturbed; and he misused his office'.


'So repressive were the agenda and official proceedures; so one-sided and partisan were the selection of main theological experts and the composition of both the concilar commissions and the conciliar presidium; so numerous were the means of pressure (moral, psychological, church-political, newspaper campaigns, threatened withdrawal of financial support, harasment by the police) to which the bishops of the anti-Infallibilist minority and the Infallibilist majority were exposed; so varied were the forms of manipulation applied, at the pope's behest, to advance the definition before, during, and after the Council that ... as painful and embarassing as it may be to admit, this Council resembled a well-organized and manipulated totalitarian party congress rather than a free gathering of Christian people'.

As a consequence of the voicing of these opinions, in 1979 Küng was forbidden from teaching theology in the name of the Catholic Church, anywhere in the world. Also in 1979 however, Father August Bernhard Hasler, Catholic priest, historian, and former staff member of the Vatican's Secretariat for Christian Unity, published a book called 'How The Pope Became Infallible: Pius IX And The Politics of Persuasion'. Hasler's basic position is similar to that of Küng, but Hasler provides yet more detail on the lengths to which Pius was prepared to go in order that the doctrine of papal infallibility should have become 'passed'. It was clear to Hasler also that Pius' behaviour was quite innappropriate, seriously undermining the validity the council and it's edicts, as well as calling Pius' sanity into question.

August Bernhard Hasler : «Wie der Papst Unfehlbar wurde - Macht und Ohnmacht eines Dogmas» - English title: How the Pope became infallible: Pius IX and the politics of persuasion
You can find the book here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385158513/motorheaven-20/104-2027949-1361542
This book was written by Father August Bernhard Hasler, Catholic priest, historian, and former staff member of the Vatican's Secretariat for Christian Unity.


<u>Two scenes help epitomize Vatican I.</u>
During a key debate there on infallibility, Archbishop Josef Strossmayer of Bosnia and Herzogovina made a mistake. He was speaking well of Protestants. The council president rang a bell and said, «This is not the place to praise Protestants.» &#40;The Council&#39;s sessions were being held in St. Peter&#39;s Basilica, built from the sale of indulgences; when Martin Luther first beheld St. Peter&#39;s early in the 16th century, he began thinking about the Church&#39;s need for reform. The rest was history. The Church had been battling Luther - and Protestants - ever since.&#41; Strossmayer objected to the put down. Protestants, he said, were acting in good faith. Now throatier members of the majority started shouting him off the podium. One called out, «He is Lucifer, anathema, anathema.» And another screamed, «He is another Luther. Let him be cast out.» An English translation of the official Latin transcript of that session has everyone then shouting, «Come down! Come down!»
«I protest! I protest!» cried Strossmayer. But he came down.

Strossmayer was the best theologian among the thousand bishops at that council. &#40;A vast majority of them hailed from Western Europe, and a majority of them from Italy.&#41; He and some of the several hundred bishops in the minority knew that a declaration of the pope&#39;s infallibity was very bad for the Church. Infallibility not only said the pope was infallible, but that all the popes of history were infallible, too. A declaration now would only enhance papal responsibility for the discredited acts of the buried and repented past. Often enough, popes launched these initiatives with often ditzy pronouncements, called «bulls.» Lord Acton named some of them:
The Bulls which imposed a belief in the deposing power, the Bulls which prescribed the tortures and kindled the flames of the Inquisition, the Bulls which erected witchcraft into a system and made the extermination of witches a frightful reality, would become as venerable as the decrees of Nicaea, as incontrovertible as the writing of S. Luke…. And the sentences of every Protestant judge &#40;by the Bull Qum ex Apostolatus Officio &#41; would be invalid.

The author of these lines was one of the most fascinating figures at Vatican I, a member of the English nobility named Acton - John Dalberg, Lord Acton - with blood ties to the nobility of two European nations, as well as England. In the bull Qum ex Apostolatus Officio, Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth, declared her a non-queen, and told the English people they no longer owed her loyalty and civil obedience. Naturally enough, the Queen&#39;s good servants made English Catholics pay for the pope&#39;s spouting off by launching a bloody persecution that lasted for decades. Dozens of English Jesuits felt the effects of Pius V&#39;s asinine act most acutely. They were hanged, drawn and quartered.
Acton was a descendant of the small remnant that survived Pius V&#39;s destruction of the Catholic Church in England - which helps explain why, though he was only 36 at the time, Acton helped lead the anti-infallibility faction at Vatican I. Not only did he write secret news dispatches out of Rome, first printed in the Augsburg Allegemeine Zeitung under the soubriquet, Quirinus, he even wrote speeches for some of the Council Fathers, who didn&#39;t think it opportune for the pope and his loyalists to dictate a new doctrine in the Church. When one of the bishops dared point out that the doctrine had no precedent in ancient Church tradition, Pius IX exploded. Traditio sono io, he said. «I am tradition.» And then he added, Sono io la chiesa. »I am the Church.»

Acton and the minority bishops had more perspective than the pope did, and they knew what was driving him - his acute need to preserve the temporal power of the papacy. And they knew that he had one sole justification, something that he had not picked up from Scripture but from the crowned heads of Europe, who assured him that he, like they, ruled absolutely, by divine right. Of these popes, Lord Acton was moved to observe, «Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Most great men are also bad men.» To Acton, Pius IX was a bad man.

Pius IX a bad man? Perhaps not bad. But he had more than several idiotic moments. In his Papal Sin , Garry Wills has detailed one of his extended follies - his adoption of a Jewish lad, Edgardo Mortara, who was baptized by a Catholic maid without his parent&#39;s knowledge, and, on that basis, taken from his parents and deposited in the papal household, never to see his parents again. Another loony tune in the Pio Nono Hit Parade came wafting out of Vatican I - the story told by the Greek Melkite Patriarch Gregor Yussuf who was himself summoned to the papal chambers to answer to Pius IX, angry at the patriarch&#39;s vocal opposition on infallibility. When Yussuf kissed the foot of the pope in the traditional fashion, the pope placed his other foot on the patriarch&#39;s head like a pagan conqueror, and said, «Gregor, you hard head, you.» Then he rubbed his foot about on the patriarch&#39;s head a while longer. After Pius died, the Holy Synod of the Greek-Melkite Church filed two separate reports of this event in Rome to order to block any attempt to canonize Pius IX. &#40;This story comes from August Bernhard Hasler, How the Pope Became Infallible. Hans Kung&#39;s praise of the book in a jacket blurb only served to anger those in the Roman Curia who were after him.&#41; Yussuf was not alone in his anger. Many of the bishops at Vatican I left Rome in protest over the pressure they were getting from the pope. On July 13, 1870, only 601 remained to vote in secret on the decree, Pastor Aeternus - though 1054 were eligible.

Those voting placet &#40;yes&#41; numbered 451, those voting non placet : 88; some 62 voted yes with reservations - that is to say, if they could modify the wording of the decree &#40;which defined the pope&#39;s primacy as well as his infallibility&#41;, they might vote yes. Here is Richard McBrien&#39;s account of what the decree meant:

It gave him «full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, not only in matters that pertain to faith and morals, but also in matters that pertain to the discipline and government of the Church throughout the whole world.» This power is «ordinary and immediate [i.e., not exercised over some other party] over each and every Church [and] over each and every shepherd and faithful.» Regarding infallibility: «It is a divinely revealed dogma that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when acting in the office of shepherd and teacher of all Christians, he defines, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, possesses through the divine assistance promised to him in the person of Blessed Peter, the infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to be endowed in defining the doctrine concerning faith or morals; and that such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are therefore, irreformable of themselves, not because of the consent of the Church.

The bishops voted again on the same matter five days later in a public session, with each Council Father shouting his placet in a ceremony where the elements of a storm added to the high drama. Each yes vote seemed to be delivered to the accompaniment of a flash of lightning, followed by a bolt of thunder, while the pope himself added up the votes inside a dim St. Peter&#39;s by the light of a taper.

The very next day, the forces of the Italian Risorgimento marched into Rome. The Council was suspended in mid-course. The pope fled his Quirinal Palace and retreated in pouting isolation to a 107-acre kingdom across the Tiber and became a self-styled «prisoner in the Vatican.» [i]He had lost most of the papacy&#39;s temporal power, but, thus embattled, ascribed an absolute spiritual power for himself and for his successors that made the papacy, as defined in Aeternus Pastor , even more of an anachronism.

According to Richard McBrien, «No definitions could have been further removed from the teaching of the Council of Constance &#40;1414-18&#41;, from the theology and practice of the Eastern Churches, and from the practice of the universal Church, West and East alike, of the first Christian millennium.» After Vatican I, a significant number of Catholics who had opposed infallibility seceded from the Church.&#34;

So, my Roman-Catholic friends please do not ask from us, Orthodox, to show good will for such an unjust canonical, theological, and liturgical aberration.

[Kosmas Damianides]

Friedrich Nietzsche -- a faithful man with almost an Orthodox mindset has often been wrongly labeled an atheist for criticising western Christianity. He was in fact very close to Fyodore Dostoevsky, his writings are aimed at a Protestant German audience. He did not publish this book I have quoted from below, but his evil selfish sister published it for him after he died, unjustly naming it &#34;The Antichrist&#34; but it was originally called --- &#34;The Re-evaluation of all Values&#34; and indeed I think many of us do have to do this in order to filter what is false from what is the truth in what we personally believe.

This was what he felt about the &#34;new christians&#34;.

&#34;Protestantism itself, it is peccatum originale&#40;ie original sin&#41;. Definition of Protestantism; the partial paralysis of Christianity and reason...an insidious theology...they lie innocently.

Whoever has this theologian blood in their veins sees all things in a distorted and dishonest perspective to begin with. The passion/pathos which develops out of this they call fide, closing their eyes to oneself once and for all, lest one suffer the sight of incurable falsehood...no other perspective is conceded of any further value, once one&#39;s own has been made sacrosanct..&#34;

Indeed, ibelieve this is a warning for us all. &#40;By the way I&#39;m not endorsing Nietzsche&#39;s philosophy, nor am I saying that he represents the Orthodox Christian view in all his writings, only that some of his writing is very profound and eye-opening&#41;.

If we open our eyes we will see more clearly.

in christ
Kosmas

[leandros]

Fr Raphael Vereshack,

I am like you an Orthodox, a Greek Orthodox. I ask for your blessing. I am new in this forum.

I understand your frustration &#40;and I feel it the same myself&#41;.

But I feel that we must welcome those newcomers that making such a noise. We have to teach them and we have to learn from them. I am not talking of trying to proselytize one another. I am talking of living each other&#39;s lives.

Of course I understand that, one who posts several messages in sequence in an unremitting fashion, he is not actually interested to communicate with forum members. It seems that he is perfoming a monologue, and he has no intention to open his cockles of his heart to anyone. It seems that he is prepared for his mastery over inexpert people.

I think that we can coexist with non-Orthodox in this forum in the same sence that the rain is falling on both of us.

I understand your honest and pure pastoral concern about possible confusion of &#34;unsuspected&#34; brothers.

I venerate your Spirit Father, and I ask for your prayers for this ordeal.

PS: As a simple member of the forum, I ask from the forum moderator not to perfom any measures of censorship. If the &#34;intruders&#34; &#40;perhaps for somebody I also count as one of them&#41; are let in peace they will end up posting against themselves: the more they talk, the more they expose themselves as they are.

[Ken McRae]

leandros originally posted:-


Of course I understand that, one who posts several messages in sequence in an unremitting fashion, he is not actually interested to communicate with forum members. It seems that he is perfoming a monologue, and he has no intention to open his cockles of his heart to anyone. It seems that he is prepared for his mastery over inexpert people.

My apologies. Would you rather have me put it all in one post, though, or break it down into seperate posts? Surely you don't have a problem with me posting patristic material, do you? Or even a Catholic perspective on it?

I assure you I have full intentions of communicating with others, both by asking and replying to questions. Patience is essential in this respect. As a relatively new member here, you would do well to refrain from judging the "true" intentions of other members. If you were more familiar with my style of participation here, you would be aware of my normal reluctance to engage at length in such discussions.

I have made several posts in a row not only to break the material down into smaller posts, but also to ensure the material gets posted while the thread still remains open to new posts.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Leandros,

My concern is that in the past few days things have moved from a respectful wanting to know about Orthodoxy to an aggressive challenging of our Faith. At a certain point the issue should be set aside by others even if they disagree with us. Probably that point should have been when it was understood what the fundamental issues are that divide us. After all that is the point in the first place for a non-Orthodox person to be here- to find out about Orthodoxy.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear Theophilus,

Give us some time to consider your understandings nobody here wants to be untruthful or distortionist or intentionally deflective. I really don&#39;t think that we are reluctant because our understandings in reference to the test you have presented for our consideration, we need get a grip on all that you are saying. I&#39;ll do the best I can and I&#39;m sure others will as well. One of the things I&#39;ve seen in my life is when things move fast it is wise to slow down a bit. No we have no problem with you posting patristic material.

Dear Father Raphael,

Thank you for your good post. So much has been written that it is difficult for me respond to what is being said. I have some time constraints and it is very clear that the minds of our Latin friends are in some way very foreign to me.

I will address a few quick comment to Br. Alexis.

As far as your comment on living part of the faith, the infallible part of the papacy is not part of our faith. It is yours and that part is your experience.

His quote;

&#34;However, we must respect those whom Our Lord respected, and if we refuse to, we must acknowledge that we risk the fires of Hades as our just punishment.

If Our Lord honored the office which He bestowed upon Peter, we too must honor it.&#34;

This is not at all representative of the Orthodox faith. Most of our Saint&#39;s and our faith which can only be experienced by Orthodox Christians would see things if one moved into a realm in terms of our motivation. It really doesn&#39;t and can&#39;t come from fear of Hell fire as many have understood what it is from experience. I don&#39;t remember which father said something to the effect of if I&#39;m in hell then glory to God for all things for wise and loving art thou Lord God. That&#39;s not the exact quote but I think I got the essence of it correct. God is not Wrathful in the Latin way. We don&#39;t look at things out of fear of Hell Fire or the devil, and bring down such judgments. He is merciful and loving and His justice is not the just punishment that is being articulated. It is not just some thought of concept which precludes us from that way of looking at and living the Orthodox Catholic faith. It is actually impossible. It would require a rewrite of our Liturgical tradition, our theology and our understandings of
Patristic text.

I&#39;ll try to explain in words what I mean as I understand it. Don&#39;t take this as spiritual advise in any way because it is not my place and everybody needs to know their place with humility in the Church. Saint John of Kronstandt tells us something to the effect of when we truly repent hoards of demons rise up against us. They are not to be feared as they are not fought in the mind although it is that place that they war against us. They seek to change the heart. The heart is often refered to as the true source of &#34;divine knowledge&#34;. All things are subject to God&#39;s will and it is with that knowledge in heart and mind the Orthodox Fathers have endured persecution from the demons while they lived. There are some Icons that show an Orthodox monk being assaulted in such a way. For if they rose up against them spiritually or physically which has been known to happen they looked upon things with much sadness and no fear. The Orthodox understanding of Matthew 10:28

28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

It is the Lord God Almighty that we fear not the Devil or the punishment in Hell fire.

It can&#39;t work the for us the way that Br. Alexis sees it. The reason it can&#39;t work that way is because one can&#39;t be effective and fear the enemy or eternal damnation. One can fear the Almighty but not those that are subject to his will at all time and in all places. It is not the fear of damnation that is the motivating factor, but rather moving into the heart with sorrow for having offended God in word or thought or deed. The fear of despair or eternal hell fire goes against the Orthodox Patristic witness. &#34;Keep thy mind in hell and despair not&#34; comes to my mind. The Devil can&#39;t destroy anything unless God permits it, see the Book of Job and the Orthodox understanding of Holy writ.


I reference; &#34;What is a heart full of charity? It is a heart that burns with love for all creation, for humans and for demons, for all creatures....The man who possesses such a heart is moved by an immense compassion....He cannot endure that any sorrow, however trivial, should be inflicted on any creature. He prays even for reptiles, impelled by the infinite pity aroused in the hearts of those who have been assimilated into God.&#34;
-St Isaac of Syria

The devil works slowly in the minds of men and introduces things slowly in &#34;Churches&#34; that are not the Orthodox Catholic Church slowly through the passions of men. One is not going to really understand the Orthodox faith by doing goggle searches to find all the text with a certain word in it, reading the text and thinking using the God given capacity to reason etc. One is not going to understand the Orthodox Church and faith by doing the same with Patristic text to support infallibility. The Orthodox fathers are actually not read in the mind they are read in the heart. If you want to know how you read them from the eyes of your heart, perhaps we should all consider the words of Elder Passios;

If you want to help the Church, fix yourself and immediately a small piece of the Church will have been fixed.&#34;

Elder Passios

He also once sadly described the Church in such a manner. These are not his exact words but again I hope you get the meaning of them and that my conveyence of them is not incorrect. If you take a white dove and start plucking the feathers out one by one what will you have left.


There is an old story that reflects that lack of fear of eternal Hell fire.

...With the Sign of the Cross, the old monk Abba
Joseph trapped in his cell a dark and miserable demon
who had come to tempt him. &#34;Release me, Father, and let
me go,&#34; pleaded the demon, &#34;I will not come to tempt you
again&#34;. &#34;I will gladly do that, but on one condition,&#34;
replied the monk. &#34;You must sing for me the song that
you sang before God&#39;s Throne on high, before your fall.&#34;

The demon responded, &#34;You know I cannot do that; it will
cause me cruel torture and suffering. And besides, Father,
no human ear can hear its ineffable sweetness and live,
for you will surely die.&#34; &#34;Then you will have to remain
here in my cell,&#34; said the monk, &#34;and bear with me the
full struggle of repentance.&#34; &#34;Let me go, do not force me
to suffer,&#34; pleaded the demon.&#34; &#34;Ah, but then you must
sing to me the song you sang on high before your fall with Satan.&#34;

So the dark and miserable demon, seeing that there was
no way out, began to sing, haltingly, barely audible
at first, groping for words long forgotten. As he sang,
the darkness which penetrated and surrounded him began
slowly to dissipate. The song grew ever louder and
increasingly stronger, and soon the demon was caught
up in its sweetness, his voice fully lifted up in worship
and praise. Boldly he sang of the power and the honor
and the glory of the Triune God on High, Creator of the
Universe, Master of Heaven and Earth, of all things visible
and invisible. As the song sung on high before all ages
resounded in the fullness of its might, a wondrous and
glorious light penetrated the venerable Abba&#39;s humble cell,
and the walls which had enclosed it were no more. Ineffable
love and joy surged into the very depths of the being
of the radiant and glorious angel, as he ever so gently
stooped down and covered with his wings the lifeless body
of the old hermit who had liberated him from the abyss of hell.

We can see that the old hermit did not fear the demon or hell fire on the demon for they both understood what it really is and means. He could not use the fear of hell fire on any of God&#39;s creatures even on those that suffered in it.

Anyway Br. Alexis I thought I&#39;d convey that story to you. In Orthodoxy divine &#34;knowledge&#34; which comes from the heart as it did when Peter confessed &#34;thou art the Christ, the son of God&#34; is respected. I hope we did not somehow convey that it is not.

In Christ,

Matthew Panchisn

&#40;Message edited by Matthew_P on 30 May, 2005&#41;

&#40;Message edited by Matthew_P on 30 May, 2005&#41;

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear friends,

I've been away for the past several days, returning this evening to find quite a flurry of activity in this discussion community, which is always a joy to see. But flurries of posts, like flurries of snow, often require a little sweeping up (and I must confess it's nice to see the work at 'self moderation' of the forum expressed in several posts to the current thread).

While the present conversation is interesting in many respects, I am inclined to agree with several others in the community that it has tended to wander beyond the line of our focus in this forum. Might I just remind all of our Terms of Use (http://www.monachos.net/other/mb_tos.shtml) document, which spells out in particular detail the focus, purpose, etc., of this community. In particular, the following section is of relevance:

Section (d): The Monachos.net Discussion Community is not an interfaith forum for general discussions on Orthodoxy with respect to other Christian denominations or religious faiths. This means that general discussions on, e.g., ‘Orthodoxy vs. Protestantism’ are discouraged, and conversations which transform to such points of focus will often be terminated. However, discussions which compare doctrinal or practical issues across faiths, and which do so from the broad context of patristic, monastic, liturgical and ecclesiastical consideration are warmly welcomed and encouraged. In such conversations, however, the over-arching theme of discussion under the above purview, and not simply expression of personal opinion, is paramount.

I thank everyone for your cooperation in keeping the rather specific and 'narrow' focus of this forum precisely what it is; for there are a great many other fora on the internet which cater specifically to such matters as, for example, Orthodox/Roman Catholic relations on matters of doctrine, etc. Our purpose here is specifically to explore Orthodoxy in the heritage of the fathers, the monastics, the ecclesium and the history of its liturgy.

INXC, Matthew

[Ken McRae]

Dear Matthew,

Please accept my sincere apology for the breach, but I have felt that if an Orthodox member is alotted the freedom to post opinions or comments on post-schism Catholicism, then it is only fair game that Catholic members be granted an equal freedom to reply. Does the exploration of &#34;Orthodoxy in the heritage of the fathers, the monastics, the ecclesium and the history of its liturgy&#34; allow for a free an open discussion of post-schism Catholicism, by Orthodox members, without an equal freedom alotted to Catholic members to respond accordingly?

When you say that the purpose of Monachos is &#34;to explore Orthodoxy in the heritage of the fathers, the monastics, the ecclesium and the history of its liturgy,&#34; it is not entirely clear to me how that&#39;s accomplished. Is that exclusive to the East? For example, I have posted the following quote from Pope St. Boniface &#40;d. 422&#41;:-

&#34;... it is clear that this Roman Church is to all churches throughout the world as the head is to the members, and that whoever separates himself from it becomes an exile from the Christian religion, since he ceases to belong to it&#39;s fellowship.&#34; &#40;Epistle 14, 1&#41;

Is such a post permitted? And, according to the above stated purpose of Monachos, what type of commentary on it would be viewed as falling within the correct guidelines? A strict reading of the stated &#34;purpose&#34; would seem to limit any and all commentary to the theological experience and understanding of such within the pre-schism Church. Is this correct? Can you clarify for us? Many thanks!

humbly,
Theophilus

[Vasilis Kirikos]

&#62; &#34;Please accept my sincere apology for the breach, but I have felt that if an Orthodox member is alotted the freedom to post opinions or comments on post-schism Catholicism, then it is only fair game that Catholic members be granted an equal freedom to reply. &#34; If what you say it true, than your purpose for being in this forum seems to me to be counter to the purpose of this forum. I.e., to provide answers to the questions others, non-Orthodox as well as Orthodox members may have about our faith. BUT NOT TO PROVE RC OR ANY OTHER DOCTRINE ! The doctrine of Orthdox post-schism Catholicism is our doctrine and our view of that part of history has been explained...even if you don&#39;t like it is our view and doctrine. Clearly the purpose of this forum is NOT for you or anyone to attract the doctrine of OUR faith. If you want to preach the wonders of the rc church, than in my opinion, you should go elsewhere to do it. Of course this is merely my view. But I am persuaded to go into rc rooms and create such derision! I have an idea that there would be ZERO tolerance for such behavior. Now I have used more energy than I like to give in such matters. Henceforth should I receive more of your diatribes and discover them to contain like content to that supra I shall establish a habit to immediately delete all that you send. Sincerely, Vasilis

&#62;

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear Theophilus,

Matthew Steenberg is capable of understanding purposes so are the rest of us. The intent behind the use and the post is what is important. You know that Matthew Steenberg is not unreasonable in his moderation. Suffice it to say, you also know full well that there are many ways of looking at the text you now have presented. I haven&#39;t even had a chance to go over some to of the other text in the litany you have arranged and submitted for our consideration. As you know nowadays Rome doesn&#39;t see things that way and the text that you have presented is not in accordance with the current &#34;mind or heart&#34; of your Church. You further know that the Orthodox Church doesn&#39;t agree with that text and how other text had been arranged to create the infallibility found in the Papacy of today. Keep in mind that Rome is looking at the Papacy and how they can rearrange their understandings for the sake of Christian unity and peace with other people of other faiths.

In Christ,

Matthew Panchisin

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear all,

'Apatheia' is not merely a word or virtue for desert asceticism; it has its place on-line as well. There is no reason to abuse one another, even slightly. Personal comments can be made through e-mail or Private Messaging via the links in a member's User Profile.

Theophilus asked:


Is such a post permitted? And, according to the above stated purpose of Monachos, what type of commentary on it would be viewed as falling within the correct guidelines? A strict reading of the stated "purpose" would seem to limit any and all commentary to the theological experience and understanding of such within the pre-schism Church. Is this correct? Can you clarify for us? Many thanks!

This is a reasonable question. The response would be, 'It depends on its purpose'. Discussion and quotation are not in any wise limited to the pre-schism Church (though often through the focus of the forum tend to focus in that area); but discussion that moves beyond it must pay particular heed to the focus of the community and its purpose, which is not predominantly 'inter-faith'. The focus here is primarily the exploration of Orthodox thought and life, as given life through the heritage of the Church. In some cases this will be helpfully expounded and explored through a comparison with concepts in other traditions (for example, it might on occasion be helpful to explore the Orthodox notion of 'original sin' in comparison with other Western models, as a means of articulating what makes an Orthodox view distinct); but it is all too easy for such discussions to become focused instead on an 'East vs. West' bent, and extra vigilance is warranted.

This is perhaps a unique forum in this regard; but that's part of what makes it what it is.

INXC, Matthew

[Effie Ganatsios]

Bravo Leandros. &#40;post no. 30&#41; I was also wondering why, if papal infallibility is supposedly implicit from the very beginning of church history, the Roman Catholics waited until 1870 to pass a decree about it.

Knowing the impious lives of some of their popes, Roman Catholics sought to mend matters by stating that infallibility and impeccability are two different things. In other words : popes may be womanizers, they may be murderers, they may be schemers, they may be lots and lots of things but no-one said they were perfect and this is not what being infallible means!

They claim that infallibility applies only to solemn, official teachings on faith and morals - a pope’s private opinions are not infallible, only what he solemnly defines is considered to be infallible. So, can a Pope’s private thoughts be opposed to what he publicly proclaims???

Apparently, according to the Roman Catholic church, infallibility prevents a pope from solemnly and formally teaching as “truth” something that is, in fact, error. It does not help him know what is true, nor does it inspire him to teach what is true. ????????? I know this is supposed to mean that when the pope makes a solemn pronouncement about faith or morals, he is guarded by the Holy Spirit against teaching error. I have one question. How can a fallible man who has been elected by other fallible men act the way some of these men have acted and still believe the Holy Spirit will be present when it is time for him to make a solemn pronouncement……….. A man’s heart is not cleft in two. It is one and it is that which God knows.

St. John Chrysostom tells us : &#34;Just as perverse dogma will usually give birth to an &#39;unclean lifestyle&#39;, a corrupt and sinful lifestyle will give birth to perverse dogma.&#34;


Can a man spit at God 90% of the time and then be “infallible” with the help of the Holy Spirit? Infallibility belongs only to God.


Apostle Paul spoke to the Corinthians with the following words : &#34;I speak as unto wise men; judge ye what I say!&#34;

If the Apostle Paul asked that his words be judged, shouldn’t the words of popes also be judged?




&#34;Through the dogma of &#34;Infallibility&#34; the Western church lost its spiritual freedom. It lost its beauty and balance, and was deprived of the wealth of the grace of the Holy Spirit, the presence of Christ- from spirit and soul ended up a dead body. We are truly grieved for the injustice done to the church and we pray from the bottom of our hearts that the Holy Spirit illumine the mind and the heart of the Most Blessed Pontiff to have him return to the ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH that which he took from her, something that should never have taken place.&#34;
St. Nektarios

Two quotes from Roman Catholic popes :
“ We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff. “
Pope Boniface VIII

”Into this fold of Jesus Christ no man may enter unless he be led by the
Sovereign Pontiff, and only if they be united to him can men be saved. “
Pope John XXIII.

Our Lord Jesus Christ told us clearly : “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” &#40;John 14:6&#41;.

I recognize one head of my church and that head is Jesus Christ.

One last word : it’s sometimes more convenient to let others have their say without replying because of the negative effect disagreeing about some subjects sometimes has on us. It would be wise however to remember St. Basil’s words :

&#34;Anyone who is capable of speaking the truth but remains silent, will be heavily judged by God, especially in this case, where the faith and the very foundation of the entire chuch of the Orthodox is in danger. To remain silent under these circumstances is to betray these, and the appropriate witness belongs to those that reproach &#40;stand up for the faith&#41;.&#34;
St Basil the Great

[Alexis Flavian Bugnolo]

Dear Thread Members,

I have been somewhat surprised by the comments of some of the Orthodox members on this thread.

First, I am no expert on using community discussion boards, and generally login through a web interface to post to this thread. For that reason I can easily use the very excellent interface provided by Mr. Steenberg to check the personal profiles of other participants. For this reason I can see the religious affiliation of all. Anyone else can do the same. So I do not understand why anyone should be accused of purposefully hiding his religious affiliation. As for many small posts on the thread &#34;Immaculate Theotokos&#34; For those who receive these posts via dialup POPs, I was trying to avoid inconveniencing them by longer posts. I am sorry if I have offended both groups by short posts and long posts.

I am also somewhat surprised to find that having been asked to respond to Orthodox objections or criticisms of the Catholic Doctrine of Papal Infallibility on the Thread on the Immaculate Theotokos, that the Catholic responses should be characterized as &#34;attacks&#34; on the Orthodox faith.

I try to be patient in all discussions, but when numerous misconceptions, erroneous facts, false accusations are hurled against Catholicism, I do not understand how it can be said that members of Monachos.net have never attacked any other religion.

I am also somewhat surprised that some members of this thread hold as a dogmatic definition of Orthodoxy &#34;disagreement with Rome&#34;, such that

1&#41; Much written in the past means what Orthodox say it means, and none of it means what Romans say it means

2&#41; If there is anything that appears or means what the Romans say it means, it need not be considered

3&#41; What matters most in ancillary subjects, such as the sins of those in other churches.

4&#41; We are not discussing the historical facts of what the Church before 1054 believed, but rather the unsupported dogmatic positions of what some Orthodox claim the Orthodox Churches believe today.

I do not think that Theophilus or myself have ever adverted to the sins of any clergyman in the Orthodox Church as the basis of the discussion, since we are supposed to be discussing Papal Infallibility on this thread, a discussion that began, when Orthodox members of the thread Immaculate Theotokos raised the issue.

I have the greatest respect for the patrimony of the Eastern Churches, but I am in utter dismay in the behavior I have seen.

The general category for this current thread is in Depth discussion of Texts, Fathers, etc.. We should confine ourselves to that, rather than hurling calumnies of the past or making the hurling of such an religious obligation.

-----------

I will take the good advice of St. Basil, and post here publically, my private reply to Dear Professor Damianides, regarding his objections, just made on this thread.

You wrote: &#62;&#62;&#62;&#62;
If the new Pope who was elected was an Eastern Right Catholic in other words a Uniate, would you still believe that the Pope has infallibility? Would you in one day change your beliefs and practices? Since I know that you two do not agree on certain points.

&#60;&#60;&#60;&#60;

Yes to the first question. In fact many Syrians were Popes in the 6-7th centuries.

No, to the second question. Eastern Rite Catholics believe all that Latin Rite Catholics believe. What points do we not believe the same things? -- that would be new to me.

Then you ask&#62;&#62;&#62;&#62;
Furthermore, can you prove that only Roman Catholics can go to heaven since they have inherited the keys &#40;from Peter&#41; alone?

&#60;&#60;&#60;&#60;

We do not believe that only Roman and/or Eastern Rite Catholics can go to heaven. We have always believed that even the Orthodox can go to heaven. But we do not believe that any Roman or Eastern Rite Catholic can go to heaven if he is a heretic or willful schismatic. The same applies to the Orthodox.

Then you ask &#62;&#62;&#62;&#62;
In addition, how is it possible that a seat has a special grace from Christ? Remember Peter &#40;who is in heaven now by the way&#41; was not based in Rome, most of his bishops were made in the East which means that His true Episcopal Chair/See technically speaking should not be in Rome but over the East; in Antioch to be exact.

&#60;&#60;&#60;&#60;

How can an &#34;office&#34; or duty have a special grace? If Christ wills it, it can be so, because He is Wondrous and His Power is beyond our understanding. I have never heard this question of yours before, and it is very profound. But I think it is beyond my ability to explain.

As for why Rome and not Antioch, it is because St. Peter did come to Rome &#40;there are numerous written and archeological proofs&#41;, and the Roman Church has always called its bishop, the successor of St. Peter, whereas Antioch has not, as far as I know.


Then you write:
&#62;&#62;&#62;&#62;
Plus if you believe in Papal infallibility, then why do you have a Pope &#40;Pope Liberius 355AD&#41; who turned against St Athanasius and the Nicean Creed?

&#60;&#60;&#60;&#60;

Infallibility is not impeccability. St. Athanasius did not always receive support from the Bishop of Rome, true: but we Catholics never believed that the Pope of Rome did not sin. Nor does the doctrine of Papal Infallibly require that. It only requires lack of error in imposing teachings upon all Christians to be believed. Its the same with the 7 ecumenical councils: not all the fathers at the councils were saints, or free of sin.

About St. Damasus I and Ursinus. Ursinus was an Arian and false claimant to the Patriarchy of Rome. He was exiled by the Emperor Valentinian I. As for the massacre, this was caused by the adherents of Ursinus not Damasus: cf. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04613a.htm

As for Pope St. Innocent I, his father was Innocentius not Pope Anastasius I, see http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08011a.htm

Sincerely in Christ,

Br. Alexis Bugnolo

[Alexis Flavian Bugnolo]

Dear Effie,

You write:&#34; was also wondering why, if papal infallibility is supposedly implicit from the very beginning of church history, the Roman Catholics waited until 1870 to pass a decree about it.&#34;

The same could be said regarding the dogmatic definitions of any of the 7 Ecumenical Councils. Indeed many protestants, who follow the theory of &#34;Sola Scriptura&#34; refuse the Nicean Creed on the same basis.

The Church has always responded to the errors of the day with dogmatic teaching, sometimes even with definitions. The dogmatic definition regarding Papal Infallibility in 1870 was a response to the growing anti-Christian secularism of the modern European States of the 19th century, especially after the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception in 1854. But Nicea came after Arius and the nearly worldwide acceptance of Arius&#39; heresy. Neither implies the doctrine did not pre-exist. In fact Theophilus on this thread and I on the thread &#34;Immaculate Conception&#34; have given links or citations to numerous pre-1054 Orthodox writers who held the same doctrines.

Then you write, &#34;I recognize one head of my church and that head is Jesus Christ.&#34; I think all of us on this thread share likewise in this believe. The doctrine of Papal Authority or Dignity has nothing to do with the claim that the Pope is the Head of the Church. We Catholics do not believe the Pope is the Head of the Church. That is why we call him &#34;Vicar&#34; rather than &#34;King&#34;.

Christ is King of Heaven and Earth and of the Church. It is not surprising then that the Church is hierarchical and monarchic in some qualities.

As for the rest of your post, I would ask the Orthodox members of this thread to comment on that.

Sincerely in Christ,

Br. Alexis Bugnolo

[leandros]

Here is the catholic view of historical environment that produced the &#34;Papal Infallibility&#34;:

Although the following text comes from a catholic site that is biased, nevertheless it gives the historical facts: http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=3067

&#34;...Though Pope Pius IX would serve for 32 years, the modern caricature of his papacy surrounds four events: his resistance to Italian unification and political trends in 19th century Europe; the Syllabus of Errors that appeared to set the Church squarely against democratic ideals; the “kidnapping” of Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish child taken from his family by authorities after his Christian baptism was discovered; and the definition of the doctrine of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council of 1870. It is these events that bear closer inspection, while keeping in mind the larger agenda of a pontificate that would see the Church reborn and revitalized after it appeared to be virtually destroyed at the beginning of the century...

In 1797, Pope Pius VI was forced by the French to accept the virtual destruction of the Papal States, the “patrimony of St. Peter” that the popes had ruled for over a thousand years. After a riot broke out over the planting of “Liberty Trees” around Rome, French troops entered the city and Pius VI, terminally ill, was carted off as a prisoner. He died under French imprisonment in August 1799. His successor faired no better. Pope Pius VII had returned to Rome when Napoleon had assumed complete power and appeared to moderate his position against the Church. He concluded an agreement with Pius over the reconstruction of the French hierarchy. Pius VII was forced to take part in Napoleon’s self-coronation as emperor in 1804.

Within a short time, however, Napoleon’s desire to become “King of All Italy” and to secure the Pope’s alliance in his war against the allies led to French occupation of Rome and cannons aimed at the papal residence. In July 1808, like his predecessor, Pope Pius VII was arrested by French troops when he refused to abdicate as sovereign of the Papal States. He would live as a monk &#40;he had been a Benedictine monk prior to his election&#41; in the episcopal residence at Savona for four years before being forced to France in 1812. He was unable to exercise any authority and on more than one occasion, came close to virtually surrendering his authority over the Church to the whim of the Emperor. But with Napoleon’s defeat, Pius returned to Rome on March 24, 1814, welcomed as a living martyr.4

...

The Church had been dramatically affected by the chaos of the French Revolution and its Napoleonic aftermath. The seizure and restoration of the Papal States had a strong impact on how the Church viewed itself and what was necessary for it to continue its mission in the 19th century. The Papal States were lands in Italy directly ruled by the Holy See, stretching back over the centuries. Though tradition held that they came by donation of the Emperor Constantine in the Fourth Century, they can directly be traced to the Donation of Pepin in 756. Varying in size, but always centered in Rome, the Papal States were ruled directly by the Pope as a temporal sovereign. Napoleon had annexed the Papal States to the French Empire in 1809. The reconstruction of Europe at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 restored the Papal States.

The Church had been dramatically affected by the chaos of the French Revolution and its Napoleonic aftermath. The seizure and restoration of the Papal States had a strong impact on how the Church viewed itself and what was necessary for it to continue its mission in the 19th century. The Papal States were lands in Italy directly ruled by the Holy See, stretching back over the centuries. Though tradition held that they came by donation of the Emperor Constantine in the Fourth Century, they can directly be traced to the Donation of Pepin in 756. Varying in size, but always centered in Rome, the Papal States were ruled directly by the Pope as a temporal sovereign. Napoleon had annexed the Papal States to the French Empire in 1809. The reconstruction of Europe at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 restored the Papal States.

...
The surrender of the Papal States by Pius VII and his virtual incarceration by Napoleon reinforced in the Church the vital need for the pope to maintain his position as a temporal ruler. Without the Papal States, the Emperor dominated Pius and his spiritual authority compromised. It became clear to the Church at the time what history appeared to teach: without the Papal States, the pope could become merely a pawn of whatever European ruler dominated at any given point. The pope should be a citizen of no country and not subject to the laws of individual rulers. Free exercise of the papal ministry was equated with the freedom guaranteed by being a temporal ruler subject to no other ruler or nation. “On the lips of Napoleon the call for the Pope to lay down his temporal sovereignty and to rely on spiritual authority had been blatant code for the enslavement of the papacy to French imperial ambitions. Without his temporal power, Pius VII…had come within a whisker of signing away his spiritual authority. If the Pope did not remain a temporal king, then it seemed he could no longer be the Church’s chief bishop.”5 That firm belief was central to Church’s understanding from 1814 on. But it would directly clash with the movement for Italian unification as a nation-state. The Papal States cut Italy in half and was centered in Rome, Italy’s most important and historic city.

While the Church struggled to rebuild after the devastation of the Napoleonic wars, the restoration of the monarchies established by the Congress of Vienna would prove a chimera. A new world was emerging where national identity -- rather than identity with ancient royal houses -- would become a driving forced in both politics and how people thought of themselves. It was an era when racial identity, and racism, became a growing and dangerous part of “modern” thinking. This new “racialism” would underlie many of the tragedies that would be faced by Giovanni Mastai-Ferretti &#40;Pope Pius IX&#41; when elected pope in 1846.
...
At the same time, however, the severity of what the Church faced must be understood. The new, “liberal” regimes that would arise in Europe were not as we might picture them. The separation of Church and State, for example, was not a constitutional prescription for both to operate independently of each other. It meant, instead, that the Church would be dominated by the new regimes. Church property was confiscated, religious orders suppressed, the Church banned from education. The government would determine Church appointments and anti-clerical legislation would be widespread. Papal authority to work with the bishops within the nation states would be severely limited, and government permission was needed -- and routinely denied -- for the publication of papal edicts and encyclicals. Throughout the 1830s and 1840s, Pope Gregory confronted over and over again governmental attempts to limit and suppress Church life. As will be seen in the section on papal infallibility, pressure for a clearer definition came from many bishops who had seen the papacy as their means of protection against state persecution and control.

At the very beginning of his pontificate, Pope Gregory had made what would be seen as a disastrous decision. Gregory had needed to call on the assistance of Austrian troops in the summer of 1831. The 1830 revolution in France overthrew the Bourbon monarchy reestablished at the Congress of Vienna and replaced it with the so-called “Citizen King,” Louis Phillippe, who would rule until overthrown in the revolution of 1848 that would return a Bonaparte to power. This sparked uprisings in Italy where there was growing popular movement for a unified Italian state. It was the birth of the risorgimento, the Italian reunification movement. Within weeks of Gregory’s election, rebels controlled many cities throughout the Papal States. He called on the Austrian government to help suppress the rebellion. “It was a fateful moment for the papacy, in which it threw its lot in with the big battalions, against a growing Italian desire for liberty and self-determination. The aftermath in the Papal States was disastrous. The papal prisons filled up, and exiles schooled Europe in anti-papalism.”7 Gregory’s rule of the Papal States, protected and propped up by foreign troops, was hated in Italy and became a symbol in Europe -- unfairly when compared to most contemporary governments -- of the worst in reactionary authority.

This was the legacy that would be inherited by Pope Pius IX: a commitment of the Church to the Papal States as the only means to assure the freedom of the popes to spiritually rule the Church; a rise in nationalism and racialism as the dominant aspects of European life; a growing reliance on papal authority as the only means to protect the Church from the anti-Catholic repression of the new “liberal” states; and an unfortunate reliance on foreign troops to maintain papal authority within the Papal States, forcing the pope to be seen as a hindrance to Italian dreams of unification.

...
In the year 1848, revolutions swept Europe. Louis Phillippe lost his throne in France and rulers throughout the states of Germany faced uprisings. In Austria, the architect of the Europe that arose from the Congress of Vienna, Chancellor Metternich, was overthrown. In a short time, Italy was in flames. Pius IX had instituted reforms in the government of the Papal States that were promising, and in 1848 he established elected municipal government in Rome.
...
Pius appointed Pelligrino Rossi to be his prime minister in September. Rossi “cleansed the police force of unreliable men, ordered an army battalion out of Rome, protected the Jews in the old ghetto who were at risk from the mob, brought in a strong force of police from outside Rome, and ejected to Naples a couple of well-known revolutionaries…”9 He hoped to counter the king of Piedmont in northern Italy who was making strong moves to head up a federated Italian state. He cleaned up the streets of Rome and made them safe. He gave all the appearances of a man putting down a rebellion. He was. And on November 15th he was stabbed to death.

Mob violence exploded in Rome. Outside the papal residence, the Quirinal palace, a mob demanded a new government, <u>and a monsignor standing next to the Pope was killed by gunfire.</u> When a revolutionary government was forced on the Pope, he decided to flee Rome and went to Gaeta under the protection of King Ferdinand of Naples. In Rome, the revolutionary government attempted to secure the Pope’s return but could not guarantee his freedom to reign over the Church, let alone the Papal States. The Roman rebellion turned ugly and though the new government attempted to restrain the mobs, priests were killed and churches desecrated. Five bishops were arrested and the government took over Church property. However, the revolts throughout Italy began to collapse under the crush of Austrian troops. At that point, the French, now under the dictatorship of Louis Napoleon, deemed it wise to invade Rome and restore order, rather than see the Austrians occupy the city. Nine months later, on April 12, 1850, the Pope returned. He abandoned the Quirinal for the Vatican, a symbolic move from the palace of his temporal authority to the home of his spiritual authority. For 20 years, Pope Pius IX would retain temporal power but solely through the occupation of Austrian and French troops in Rome.

...
After the revolutions of 1848 and 1849 and their suppression, Piedmont -- with a constitutional government under the monarchy -- became the hope for Italian unification by driving out the Austrians and taking over the Papal States. It became the darling of liberal and Protestant Europe, while the Papal States were tarred as a medieval throwback destined for the dustbin of history. Piedmont would launch a series of anti-Catholic legislative acts to prove its stripes in Europe and to maintain support toward its goal of assuming the leadership of the entire peninsula. Under the brilliant leadership of Count Camillo di Cavour, a consistent publicity campaign to undermine the credibility of papal rule was undertaken worldwide. The spreading impact of newspapers on the rising middle classes would be a tremendous source in undermining his reputation in Europe and America in particular. Newspapers of this era were little more than hysterical propaganda sheets, as this was long before there existed even the slightest commitment to objectivity and balance. &#40;It would be an important concept to remember when the Syllabus of Errors would condemn the concept of freedom of the press. This was a reaction not to objective and responsible journalism, but rather to the concept of hate literature and irresponsible political propaganda of which most newspapers thrived in that period.&#41; &#40;Leandros: nice explanation&#41;

Pope Pius IX inadvertently fueled this hate campaign when he reestablished the British hierarchy in 1850. The Catholic population in England had been growing through Irish immigration and had accelerated during the disastrous famine of the 1840s. The Catholic Church in England was ruled previously by vicars reporting directly to Rome. The reestablishment of the hierarchy allowed for direct and quicker action. It made sense. Also, the Oxford Movement within Anglicanism -- an attempt to recapture the apostolic and Catholic nature of the Church -- had recently led to a number of prominent conversions to Catholicism, including that of John Henry Newman. Combined with the reestablishment of the hierarchy, England saw all this and went through one of its periodic bouts of “no-popery.” A practical result of this was England’s formal declaration in 1856 that the Papal State was a European scandal and demanded that Austrian and French troops should be withdrawn.11

Cavour secured the support of France to oust the Austrians from their strongholds in Northern Italy and war broke out in the Spring of 1859. Cities within the Papal States erupted in support of the popular war to oust the Austrians. &#40;When a revolt in Perugia was ruthlessly suppressed by Swiss mercenaries, the papacy took another propaganda defeat in the eyes of Europe.&#41; Under the pretext of war, Piedmont annexed a large section of the Papal States. This was simple aggrandizement and Pius IX could do nothing but thunder in protest. With Garibaldi’s victories in Sicily and southern Italy, Victor Emmanuel, king of Piedmont, was declared king of a not-quite-united Italy in 1861. The Papal States by now virtually ceased to exist, leaving only Rome and a small strip of western Italy under papal control. Throughout Italy, the new Italian state would wage war on the Church with the Church fighting back by refusing the sacraments and not taking part in state celebrations. Bishops were jailed, monasteries and Catholic schools suppressed, convents disbanded. All that was left was the final taking of Rome. Prussia had overthrown Austrian power in 1866, leaving only the French troops in Rome to defend the Pope. In 1870, at the onset of the Franco-Prussian War, the French troops were withdrawn and Victor Emmanuel sent his soldiers to secure the city. On papal orders, only token resistance was offered. Italy was now unified, and the Pope declared himself a “prisoner” and retreated to the Vatican

While in the Catholic world Pope Pius was viewed as a martyr, his defense of the Papal States reinforced an image of him as a stern opponent of freedom. It is true that, in the end, the loss of the Papal States would actually serve to elevate the papal reputation worldwide. At the time, however, it was viewed as a stunning defeat by both the Church itself, and a secular world that assumed the Church had received a mortal blow. The Church would quickly understand, however, that loss of temporal authority for the Pope did not destroy his spiritual authority. In fact, it enhanced it in the eyes of the world....&#34;

It is easy for us, Orthodox, to see that &#34;Papal Infallibility&#34; was the invention of an antidote against lost power of Vatican state. An historical reaction. A historical invention of a &#34;spiritual statehood&#34;.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Brother Alexis,

Monachos is an Orthodox forum where the purpose is to deepen our understanding of our Church through a focus on the Holy God-bearing and monastic fathers.

For this to occur without hindrance we try to keep to the guidelines of monachos which is first of all that this is not primarily a place of debate but of conversation & exchange. It is too easy when by its very nature such a forum calls forth our deepest feelings about the Faith to fall into contention.

A second point is that as part of our conversation very often spiritual matters are brought up in which people openly or implicitly ask for advice. As is the teaching of the Orthodox Church, about these matters it is members of the Orthodox Church who offer a word about these matters. So those who are non-Orthodox need to respect this essential teaching of our Church & clearly indicate that they are coming from another confession if they offer advice. This is a simple matter of respect for our Church & Tradition. In spiritual matters caution is always a good thing.

As for non-Orthodox involvement at monachos we often see this and that is fine. But it would be helpful to point out that for many of us who are Orthodox monachos is much more than just a place of discussion about the Faith. Many or most of us feel that it is an actual expression of our Holy Church. As such many of the same principles at work in our parishes are at work here. And this same principle applies to those who visit us who are welcome but also need to respect our Orthodox life.

As Matthew S our moderator points out above we need to remember the principles of Orthodox Christian behaviour when we are here. We constantly respond to each other's posts but beyond a certain point this can only add to the spirit of contention. So much the more when it involves the extremely deep & deeply felt question of what divides Orthodoxy & Roman Catholicism. Of course as anyone can see the question is of real interest to us. But for a non-Orthodox visitor no possible benefit can result from trying to force the issue.

As you can probably see from the above in terms of the present question of Orthodoxy-Roman Catholicism what most of us at monachos would have been most at home with was getting to the point where can see what theologically divides us. This point was already achieved last week. Our concern is that going beyond this is like trying to force the issue.

Some things may be said here that we know are difficult for non-Orthodox Christians to hear. But this is our Orthodox home where it is natural and proper to speak of Orthodox theology & piety and that which touches our Church life such as western Christianity. Actually we sympathise with this and often express this in our posts. But part of being our guests is hearing these perhaps painful things. To not accept this would be to force the standards of your home on us. We don't expect you to agree with us. But we do ask that you respect our calling to be Orthodox & not try to unwittingly force us to accept what goes against our Faith & conscience through so many repetitions of argument about points we already understand.

In the love of Christ- Fr Raphael

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear all,

It seems clear that this thread has become counter productive, and my intention is now to &#39;close&#39; it to further posts, allowing us to concentrate -- and, I hope, re-focus -- our energies on other discussions in the community. This is not a judgement on any individuals or specific messages; the conversation has simply become unfruitful, and it has once been said that we know a tree by its fruits....

INXC, Matthew