And yet, in spite of many challanges, the Orthodox are comparatively free of the liturgical and doctrinal chaos you and many others cite as a running rampant in the Latin Rite. Does nobody in the west consider that it might be the highly centralized modern Papacy, dogmatized in Pastor Aeternus, that is the very reason for all that you decry? For that is the big difderentiator between east and west. No connection or correlation, possibly?
And yet, the crisis in the west continues - have you a solution?
Certainly, everything in the liturgical life of the Church is true. Ours at least, that is very much what Orthodox believe. Is all that is true to be found in the liturgical life of the Church? Said another way, what outside of that which is prayed by all is required for salvation, to be in communion with Christ and His Church? The rule of prayer drives the rule of faith, does it not? Conversely, if something is not prayed, is it be believed?
For Orthodox, the liturgical life of the Church is quite resilient to caprice and innovation, and part of why when we talk of the "sensus fidelium", we speak of the laity as having co-ownership to guard the deposit of faith in concert with our bishops and clergy. Can Roman Catholics say the same on these fronts? Evidence these past 60 years would suggest no, and this is due in no small measure to the clericalism so rampant in the West up to and including the time of the Second Vatican Council, and distillation of that ownership into the highly centralized Papacy that developed apart from the East, culminating in Pastor Aeternus. Hence, when the progressives got ahold of the Papal machine, 99% of the hierarchy just rolled over and obeyed the Pope, and the laity too had no ownership muscle left, reduced as they were to "pay,pray and obey" to resist the innovations. Which haven't ended, based on your reports and other trads and sedes. And probably never will, so long as you cling to Pastor Aeternus. What's the saying about fruits and trees?
"Everything inside this book is true" is not convertible to "Everything true is inside this book", and the same applies to the liturgy. It's a really weird idea, parallel to Sola Scriptura. We're not interested in it. The fact that you can't see that, or don't care, is very strange.
"For Orthodox" – a sentence that begins with this is of little interest. We are not interested in what schismatics do.
I really don't get why you keep commenting here, because it's been said over and over again, "We don't believe these men to have been legitimate", and your questions don't seem to take account of that.
Your adjudication of their not being legitimate means What and to Whom, in terms of the crisis being solved? That you'll just have to wait it out? By what means would whatever you think needs to happen, happen? And by whom, and in what timeline?
The idea that only those things which are mentioned in the liturgy are true is a primitive notion, a fallacy that an uneducated layman unfamiliar with anything but the liturgy would come up with, which shows the poor state of the theology of the schismatics. Fr. Fortescue had something to say about that.
You forget that the Catholic Church is not just the Latin rite. The Eastern Catholic Churches all adhere to the same Catholic Faith (including Pastor Aeternus, and thank God for its beautiful and holy doctrine), and yet they still keep the traditional rites, as do all Traditional Catholics.
It was St. Athanasius, the glorious defender of the Apostolic Faith and Patriarch of Alexandria who said: "Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ."
I kinda agree with Stephen Keeler. The Schism was a blessing in disguise for it saved the Eastern Church from the gnostic liberalism of Vatican II. No papal legate can excommunicate a whole Church, that is just plain nonsense. He wasn't sent there to do that and the pope died while he went there thus nullifying his legitimacy.
The Eastern Orthodox have done a better job of keeping Holy Tradition than the Latin West. As a Trad Catholic myself, I do not find the Orthodox schismatic at all. It's just a pissing contest between two prima donnas!
I find it funny that Catholics preach subsidiarity while upholding Caesaro-papism! What hypocrisy. That Rome appointing bishops would preserve orthodoxy but the exact opposite has occurred--new bishops are heretical and apostate. Bishops should be elected by their own faithful of their diocese--not appointed by liberals from 3000 miles away!
What is just plain nonsense is your comment. Whether you as a layman find the Schismatics schismatic is totally irrelevant - it is the judgment of the Church that counts. Neither do the Schismatics keep Tradition but have changed several things which don't suit them (e.g. they permit divorce and adulterous "second marriage", they reject the Primacy which their ancestors professed etc.). The rest of your comment deserves no response, except for the following.
The papal legate you are referring to did not excommunicate "a whole Church" but Cerularius and his followers, and the schism was not started there but a year earlier and consummated by Cerularius refusing to name the Pope in the Canon - before the excommunications. Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia, from the article on Cerularius:
"Cærularius then sent to the other patriarchs a treatise written by Nicetas Pectoratus (Niketas Stethatos in Greek), a monk of Studion, against azyme bread, fasting on Saturday, and celibacy. Because of these "horrible infirmities", Nicetas describes Latins as "dogs, bad workmen, schismatics, hypocrites, and liars" (Will, op. cit., 127-36). Cærularius's third move made it plain that he meant war to the knife. Still entirely unprovoked, he closed all the Latin churches at Constantinople, including that of the papal legate. His chancellor Nicephorus burst open the Latin tabernacles, and trampled on the Holy Eucharist because it was consecrated in azyme bread."
Then the Pope sent his legates.
"[The legate] Cardinal Humbert wrote defences of the Latin customs, and incidentally converted Nicetas Pectoratus (Will, 93-126, 136-50). Cærularius refused to see the legates or to hold any communication with them: he struck the pope's name from his diptychs, and so declared open schism. The legates then prepared the Bull of excommunication against him, Leo of Achrida, and their adherents, which they laid on the altar of Sancta Sophia on 16 July, 1054. Two days later they set out for Rome. The emperor was still on good terms with them and gave them presents for Monte Cassino. Hardly were they gone when Cærularius sent for them to come back, meaning to have them murdered (the evidence for this is given in Fortescue, "Orthodox Eastern Church", 186-7). Cærularius, when this attempt failed, sent an account of the whole story to the other patriarchs so full of lies that John of Antioch answered him: "I am covered with shame that your venerable letter should contain such things. Believe me, I do not know how to explain it for your own sake, especially if you have written like this to the other most blessed patriarchs" (Will, 190)."
The unicity of the Church. The identity between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Christ. The fact that schism, along with heresy and apostasy, cuts one off from that Church. The primacy of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff. The infallibility of the Roman Pontiff (i.e., here. https://substack.com/@wlindsaywheeler283449/note/c-321226107).
In addition to heresy, your article conveys a whole load of errors of a lower censure, and implies the denial of dogma without directly doing so – i.e., the way you talk implies a denial of the Filioque or that Outside the Church there is no salvation, for example.
I have a question then. The See of Alexandria was started by St. Mark the Evangelist. Is that See under the Pope of Rome, or is it autonomous and sovereign? Same goes for the See of Antioch.
As Fr. Boniface explains, there are four apostolic Sees in the East while there is only one in the West. Are they all under the pope of Rome? Why would these Sees be under Roman jurisdiction for?
The Greeks baptize the “children” of sodomites freely and with no correction by their bishops. Please, don’t preach about the resistance to liberalism in the East.
"They [the Roman Pontiffs] defend throughout the catholicity of the church against Greek nationalism, and the independence of the kingdom of Christ on earth against its subjection to the secular empire, which was attempted and finally succeeded at Constantinople, and is the case in Russia, Great Britain, and all modern schismatical and heretical states and empires."
What most people don't understand is that there is no such thing as a universal Eastern Schismatic ("Orthodox") Church, it is just a bunch of independent national sects, with the emphasis being on "national". The schismatics have no notion of what a universal church is, unlike Catholics, who are at home in any church where a Catholic liturgy is celebrated, whether Roman, Greek, Coptic, Armenian etc. We don't even have to know the language.
So it doesn't bother you that you and your bishop are in communion with this bishop at this link, and so many others like him? How do you account for the liturgical crisis in the west - or is that not really a big problem after all? https://youtube.com/shorts/vEtBwO_TR0k?is=Kst6PZOXxM9-cLiD
To the best of my knowledge, I have no local bishop over me. Also, I am not in communion with heretics. I don't know if that bishop is a heretic, but he certainly seems to be.
I agree that it is both strange and sad. It is what the clergy and people of Constantinople wrote the Emperor after Nestorius began preaching heresy: "An Emperor we have, but no bishop."
What is even more strange and sad is your apostasy from the Universal Church and joining one of those national sects.
And yet, in spite of many challanges, the Orthodox are comparatively free of the liturgical and doctrinal chaos you and many others cite as a running rampant in the Latin Rite. Does nobody in the west consider that it might be the highly centralized modern Papacy, dogmatized in Pastor Aeternus, that is the very reason for all that you decry? For that is the big difderentiator between east and west. No connection or correlation, possibly?
Of course we have considered it. And we have decided that it is not the case.
Have you considered that your novel theology of "everything we believe must be found in the liturgy" is made up junk?
And yet, the crisis in the west continues - have you a solution?
Certainly, everything in the liturgical life of the Church is true. Ours at least, that is very much what Orthodox believe. Is all that is true to be found in the liturgical life of the Church? Said another way, what outside of that which is prayed by all is required for salvation, to be in communion with Christ and His Church? The rule of prayer drives the rule of faith, does it not? Conversely, if something is not prayed, is it be believed?
For Orthodox, the liturgical life of the Church is quite resilient to caprice and innovation, and part of why when we talk of the "sensus fidelium", we speak of the laity as having co-ownership to guard the deposit of faith in concert with our bishops and clergy. Can Roman Catholics say the same on these fronts? Evidence these past 60 years would suggest no, and this is due in no small measure to the clericalism so rampant in the West up to and including the time of the Second Vatican Council, and distillation of that ownership into the highly centralized Papacy that developed apart from the East, culminating in Pastor Aeternus. Hence, when the progressives got ahold of the Papal machine, 99% of the hierarchy just rolled over and obeyed the Pope, and the laity too had no ownership muscle left, reduced as they were to "pay,pray and obey" to resist the innovations. Which haven't ended, based on your reports and other trads and sedes. And probably never will, so long as you cling to Pastor Aeternus. What's the saying about fruits and trees?
"Everything inside this book is true" is not convertible to "Everything true is inside this book", and the same applies to the liturgy. It's a really weird idea, parallel to Sola Scriptura. We're not interested in it. The fact that you can't see that, or don't care, is very strange.
"For Orthodox" – a sentence that begins with this is of little interest. We are not interested in what schismatics do.
I really don't get why you keep commenting here, because it's been said over and over again, "We don't believe these men to have been legitimate", and your questions don't seem to take account of that.
Your adjudication of their not being legitimate means What and to Whom, in terms of the crisis being solved? That you'll just have to wait it out? By what means would whatever you think needs to happen, happen? And by whom, and in what timeline?
I really think these are the least problematic parts of it all
The idea that only those things which are mentioned in the liturgy are true is a primitive notion, a fallacy that an uneducated layman unfamiliar with anything but the liturgy would come up with, which shows the poor state of the theology of the schismatics. Fr. Fortescue had something to say about that.
Well, don't be so cryptic like a gnostic, what does this Fr. Fortescue say?
You forget that the Catholic Church is not just the Latin rite. The Eastern Catholic Churches all adhere to the same Catholic Faith (including Pastor Aeternus, and thank God for its beautiful and holy doctrine), and yet they still keep the traditional rites, as do all Traditional Catholics.
It was St. Athanasius, the glorious defender of the Apostolic Faith and Patriarch of Alexandria who said: "Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ."
I kinda agree with Stephen Keeler. The Schism was a blessing in disguise for it saved the Eastern Church from the gnostic liberalism of Vatican II. No papal legate can excommunicate a whole Church, that is just plain nonsense. He wasn't sent there to do that and the pope died while he went there thus nullifying his legitimacy.
The Eastern Orthodox have done a better job of keeping Holy Tradition than the Latin West. As a Trad Catholic myself, I do not find the Orthodox schismatic at all. It's just a pissing contest between two prima donnas!
I find it funny that Catholics preach subsidiarity while upholding Caesaro-papism! What hypocrisy. That Rome appointing bishops would preserve orthodoxy but the exact opposite has occurred--new bishops are heretical and apostate. Bishops should be elected by their own faithful of their diocese--not appointed by liberals from 3000 miles away!
I regret to warn you that your message is riddled with heresy. I’m leaving it there as a standing warning to others.
What is just plain nonsense is your comment. Whether you as a layman find the Schismatics schismatic is totally irrelevant - it is the judgment of the Church that counts. Neither do the Schismatics keep Tradition but have changed several things which don't suit them (e.g. they permit divorce and adulterous "second marriage", they reject the Primacy which their ancestors professed etc.). The rest of your comment deserves no response, except for the following.
The papal legate you are referring to did not excommunicate "a whole Church" but Cerularius and his followers, and the schism was not started there but a year earlier and consummated by Cerularius refusing to name the Pope in the Canon - before the excommunications. Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia, from the article on Cerularius:
"Cærularius then sent to the other patriarchs a treatise written by Nicetas Pectoratus (Niketas Stethatos in Greek), a monk of Studion, against azyme bread, fasting on Saturday, and celibacy. Because of these "horrible infirmities", Nicetas describes Latins as "dogs, bad workmen, schismatics, hypocrites, and liars" (Will, op. cit., 127-36). Cærularius's third move made it plain that he meant war to the knife. Still entirely unprovoked, he closed all the Latin churches at Constantinople, including that of the papal legate. His chancellor Nicephorus burst open the Latin tabernacles, and trampled on the Holy Eucharist because it was consecrated in azyme bread."
Then the Pope sent his legates.
"[The legate] Cardinal Humbert wrote defences of the Latin customs, and incidentally converted Nicetas Pectoratus (Will, 93-126, 136-50). Cærularius refused to see the legates or to hold any communication with them: he struck the pope's name from his diptychs, and so declared open schism. The legates then prepared the Bull of excommunication against him, Leo of Achrida, and their adherents, which they laid on the altar of Sancta Sophia on 16 July, 1054. Two days later they set out for Rome. The emperor was still on good terms with them and gave them presents for Monte Cassino. Hardly were they gone when Cærularius sent for them to come back, meaning to have them murdered (the evidence for this is given in Fortescue, "Orthodox Eastern Church", 186-7). Cærularius, when this attempt failed, sent an account of the whole story to the other patriarchs so full of lies that John of Antioch answered him: "I am covered with shame that your venerable letter should contain such things. Believe me, I do not know how to explain it for your own sake, especially if you have written like this to the other most blessed patriarchs" (Will, 190)."
Here is my post on Vatican II and the Catholic, Orthodox divide.
https://wlindsaywheeler283449.substack.com/p/vatican-ii-the-catholicorthodox-divide
It's just a load of heresy. You say you are a trad Catholic, but you're basically as ecumenical as Vatican II – and even more in your denial of dogma!
Denial of what dogma?
The unicity of the Church. The identity between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Christ. The fact that schism, along with heresy and apostasy, cuts one off from that Church. The primacy of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff. The infallibility of the Roman Pontiff (i.e., here. https://substack.com/@wlindsaywheeler283449/note/c-321226107).
In addition to heresy, your article conveys a whole load of errors of a lower censure, and implies the denial of dogma without directly doing so – i.e., the way you talk implies a denial of the Filioque or that Outside the Church there is no salvation, for example.
I have a question then. The See of Alexandria was started by St. Mark the Evangelist. Is that See under the Pope of Rome, or is it autonomous and sovereign? Same goes for the See of Antioch.
As Fr. Boniface explains, there are four apostolic Sees in the East while there is only one in the West. Are they all under the pope of Rome? Why would these Sees be under Roman jurisdiction for?
The Greeks baptize the “children” of sodomites freely and with no correction by their bishops. Please, don’t preach about the resistance to liberalism in the East.
This part deserves repeating:
"They [the Roman Pontiffs] defend throughout the catholicity of the church against Greek nationalism, and the independence of the kingdom of Christ on earth against its subjection to the secular empire, which was attempted and finally succeeded at Constantinople, and is the case in Russia, Great Britain, and all modern schismatical and heretical states and empires."
What most people don't understand is that there is no such thing as a universal Eastern Schismatic ("Orthodox") Church, it is just a bunch of independent national sects, with the emphasis being on "national". The schismatics have no notion of what a universal church is, unlike Catholics, who are at home in any church where a Catholic liturgy is celebrated, whether Roman, Greek, Coptic, Armenian etc. We don't even have to know the language.
So it doesn't bother you that you and your bishop are in communion with this bishop at this link, and so many others like him? How do you account for the liturgical crisis in the west - or is that not really a big problem after all? https://youtube.com/shorts/vEtBwO_TR0k?is=Kst6PZOXxM9-cLiD
To the best of my knowledge, I have no local bishop over me. Also, I am not in communion with heretics. I don't know if that bishop is a heretic, but he certainly seems to be.
How can you not have a bishop? Very strange, and sad.
I agree that it is both strange and sad. It is what the clergy and people of Constantinople wrote the Emperor after Nestorius began preaching heresy: "An Emperor we have, but no bishop."
What is even more strange and sad is your apostasy from the Universal Church and joining one of those national sects.
Stephen's comments are unfortunately too braindead to be allowed, so it's a thirty day ban for him. This has gone on too long.