The Pontificator has posted an interesting excerpt from Papal Primacy by Klaus Schatz, SJ.
“[T]he Church learns through the experience of schisms that it needs an enduring center of unity. But because the Church cannot ‘create’ its essential elements, but lives its life as a Church founded by Jesus and endowed with certain gifts and traditions, it cannot produce such a unity out of nothing. It must seek within its apostolic traditions for such a point of unity. An artificially created center of unity devised for practical purposes could, of course, have a certain usefulness as an administrative clearinghouse and center for arbitration of disputes, but in times of real crisis and when the faith is in danger there is no guarantee that the Church can maintain itself in truth purely by relying on such a manufactured office of unity. In effect, the Christian imperial throne from Constantine onward was such an ‘artificially manufactured,’ human devised center, and it is prime illustration of the problems involved. The Church must therefore seek within its own tradition to see whether it does not possess at least the elements of such a center. In the course of that search it discovers the Roman church, which has an advantage over all the other ‘apostolic’ churches in its ties to the beginning by the fact that it is associated with Peter and Paul, and therefore as a potentior principalitas.”
I have been listening since this blog began (and enjoying the discussions greatly). And, while I am an aspiring traditional catholic, I admire and respect the orthodox Church and wish that the Churches could be reunited.
One thing that has perplexed me, though, is how the Orthodox deal with times when bishops go ‘off the rails’. Unfortunately, here in the West, we have had some bishops indulging not only in liturgical bad taste, but we have suffered awful sexual scandals, etc. Recently, Bishop Milingo had to be excommunicated (and I wonder what the Orthodox think about that?)
With the “cathedra unitatis” in Rome, we have a remedy for these situations (not that Rome always does something about it, but at least the possibility is there). How do the Orthodox deal with these situations? What if a patriarch becomes a heretic? Without an “administrative center”, how can the Church survive these things?
Of course, I can foresee some responses. “How shall the RCC deal with a Pope that becomes a heretic?” And “the Orthodox churches have survived a thousand years with out the Pope, thank you very much.”
Basically, an Orthodox bishop would be removed by his church’s synod of bishops. If he’s a bishop of the Moscow Patriarchate, then the Holy Synod makes the call. It’s pretty straitforward. What the guy does next is the interesting part. Does he form a breakaway church? Maybe. But it’s considered schismatic and non-canonical, out of communion w/ the major Orthodox Churches.
The cases I’m familiar w/ are usually similar to an SSPX situation, with the bishop proclaiming himself “more Orthodox than the Patriarch”. (You don’t see many Milingo’s in Orthodoxy.) So you have some small “Rad-Trad Orthodox” churches in Greece, Russia, the US, etc. Or you have the Ukrainian situation, where the bishop doesn’t recognize the new local patriarch and declares himself such.
A more complicated case is the one in England, where the bishop “switched jurisdictions” from the Moscow Patriarchate to Constantinople. That kind of thing doesn’t happen in the Catholic Church, though I suppose you could have a bishop leave the Ukrainian Catholic Church for the Melkite Church, but Rome would have to ultimately approve that, so it wouldn’t be the same situation.
Tony is right. There can be authority and accoountability even if there is more than one center of authority.
And you are right to anticipate the response that “the Orthodox have survived without a Pope for a thousand years”; except that it’s not a thousand years, it’s two thousand years. The Orthodox Church has never had a Pope in the way that modern Roman Catholicism has a Pope. Even before the schism, the Pope did not function the way he does now. The Orthodox disciplined wayward bishops in the first millenium the same way that they do now: the provincial synod of bishops handled it. The Pope was not involved.
Chris: You assume as given what you have not even demonstrated, much less proved. I respectfully submit that the historical record flatly contradicts your assertions–especially the “pope was not incolved” claim. There were certainly instances in which the pope was very much involved, as Luke Rivington (among others) points out.
But I am impressed. It is quite a feat to pack so many factual errors and distortions into so few sentences.
We Orthodox have indeed survived for many centuries and two millenia without a universal Pope as the Roman Church understands that office with its apostolic perogatives, etc.
It is a gross distortion to accuse the East of Caesaro-papism, but I wonder if it is not also true that we have survived so well in part because of the Roman Emperor who called councils and put things in order? he made alot of messes, too, that the Church had to correct, like the monothelite and iconoclastic affairs, but no one can deny that at times emperors like Theodora were vital in cleaning up even those imperial messes.
Now, we have Constantinople to clean up messes. But let’s look at this Schatz’ fellow’s point about apostolic vs. accomodationist foundations again. We have no empire (despite the nostalgic or apocolyptic wishes of some among us), so that puts Constantinople’s position in a potentially precarious position, especially since his flock is dwindling to the thousands. Suppose that Moscow, the most politically significant and populous patriarchate today, is successful enough in discrediting Constantinople with its own claim of being the “third Rome…” What then? What will we do? Who do we look to? Who gets to decide for all of us what the best accomodation for the 21st century is? Do we really want brute force to determine who gets to be primus inter pares? And how do we gaurantee that whomever comes out on top won’t use that primacy for selfish ends? Call me cynical, but I suspect that the reason that America has so many splintered jurisdictions today is, at least in part, because of the monetary benefit that Constantinople derives from having a subordinate Greek Archdiocese here. Alas for Yakovos’ aborted efforts for jurisdictional unity.
Furthermore, there are other reasons why this is not so hypothetical. Why haven’t we been able to hold that pan-Orthodox council that we have been trying to hold since the 1960′s? isn’t it because of the current struggle between Moscow and Constantinople, two rival claimants for the chair of Roman primacy in the East? It was much easier for the emperor to call an ecumenical council… but what do we do now?
An Orthodox Catholic,
Thank you for bringing up the dwindling of the flock in Constantinople, due not to lack of faith but rather to Turkish oppression. Since the law there, as I understand it, forbids the office of Patriarch to non-citizens, and no longer permits a seminary in Constantinople, won’t there soon be a time when there are no eligible priests to be named Patriarch?
I was wondering if there was a claim on the part of Moscow towards primacy, especially now that the Orthodox church in Russia is enjoying a revival, or so I have heard.
Would this dilemma possibly encourage a dialogue between Rome and the Orthodox churches, or is that unlikely?
I respectfully submit that the historical record flatly contradicts your assertions
Fine — now prove it. Cite me a case in which an Eastern provincial synod in the first millenium was unable to, or failed to, discipline one of her wayward bishops, and the Pope disciplined him instead. While you are at it, show me where in the ecumenical canons of the first millenium the Pope is given jurisdiction — immediate or appellate — outside of the Patriarchate of Rome.
It is quite a feat to pack so many factual errors and distortions into so few sentences.
Factual errors I am quite capable of; I am no scholar, and if I am shown that I have been mistaken I shall stand corrected. But I have written honestly what I believe the case to be; there are no distortions. For you to accuse me of distortion is to impugn my honesty.
You write I respectfully submit …; but from where I sit I don’t see anything respectful about it.
Chris, I’m no scholar, either. I am an extremely busy working mom who does not always have time to follow up. I don’t know when I’ll have time to provide documentation, but I will definitely do so. (It would be nice if Dr. tighe or someone would beat me to it, though.
)
I am sorry if my tone sounded less than respectful…but I suggest (respectfully!) that your airy dismissiveness toward papal-historical claims was perhaps a tad disrespectful, too. After all, Catholics are not such boobs that they would base their ecclesiology on an utter lack of patristic evidence for universal Petrine primacy. There’s just the ghost of a chance that we do have a viable historical argument for our case. Know what I mean?
Diane,
I have stated on many occasions that I consider the historical case for Papal supremacy to be respectable, and even strong. But it is not, to me at least, compelling. Indeed, I have said, in so many words, that it is not possible to choose between the Orthodox position and the Roman Catholic position on historical grounds alone. It is, to be precise, a matter of faith.
So certainly the historical case for the Papal claims is not to be “dismissed”, airily or otherwise. I have always argued strongly against the Papal claims, but that is because I recognize that it is a formidable position that cannot be dismissed; it must be argued against. But just because I do not provide a thorough, documented, and footnoted argument every time I make a one-paragraph summary of my position in a combox does not mean that I am dismissing the Catholic position without having thought it through.
Let’s look at the assertions that I have made, looking for that dismissive attitude that you are talking about:
The Orthodox Church has never had a Pope in the way that modern Roman Catholicism has a Pope.
Notice that this assertion leaves open the possibility that the Orthodox Church did indeed “have a Pope” at one time, but a Pope who operated in a different manner than the way the Pope does today. When you think about it, that is really rather generous to the Roman Catholic position. “Airily dismissive” would have been to say The Orthodox Church has never had a Pope, and neither did the early Church in the West. The “Papacy” was an invention of Charlemagne (or Hildebrand, or Boniface, or pick some other villain).
Even before the schism, the Pope did not function the way he does now.
That is just a statement of historical fact. Check with Pope Benedict XVI; he’ll confirm it for me.
The Orthodox disciplined wayward bishops in the first millenium the same way that they do now: the provincial synod of bishops handled it.
Again, simple historical fact. This is the way discipline is prescribed in the ecumenical canons, and it is the way that it was normally handled.
The Pope was not involved.
So far as I am aware, the Pope did not normally involve himself in the internal discipline of other Patriarchates; and when he attempted to do so, his involvement was protested, not accepted, by those other local Churches. I’m not “dismisssing” well-founded historical counter-examples; I’m simply unaware of any. That’s why I asked you to provide one.
Perhaps my remarks seemed a bit sweeping and unqualified. But that is in the nature of a one-paragraph summary. If there’s “airy dismissal” going on on this thread, it’s not coming from me.
Your Website remains most interesting and nicely non-polemical (except from some of your Eastern Orthodox interlocutors.I do think my books noted on my Website might help both you and your readers in clarifying some of the doctrinal points at issue between Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.
After reading some of the material on your Website, my question to you is : When faced with the complex argumentation from both sides that is the heir of centuries, how is the ordinary simple person (who is not a patristic scholar or church historian and incapable of determining the truth of contradictory doctrines proposed by the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox) able to determine which is the True Church?
I am also surprised that you appear to ignore that there is no Unity of Faith among the Eastern Orthodox. They can’t even agree on whether the Filioque is heretical ! or whether Catholic sacraments are valid ! And what about that horrible heresy of Azymes which medieval Byzantines used to justify their sepration from the See of Peter ?
In Christ and the Theotokos,
James Likoudis
Mr. Likoudis,
A man of your learning and level of familiarity with Church history must surely be aware of the fact that the arguments and negative observations contained within your last paragraph cut both ways. One wonders how this kind of polemical rhetoric would have sounded during the theological controversies, abuse of papal power, and rise of conciliarism during the Medieval period.
Mr. Likoudis,
My blog focuses on Church history; I’ll be sure to email you when I discuss the contents of your book.
So presumably the Pope is speaking ex cathedra when he begins an
encyclical like this:
___
Rise, Peter, and fulfill this pastoral office divinely entrusted to
you as mentioned above. Give heed to the cause of the holy Roman
Church, mother of all churches and teacher of the faith, whom you by
the order of God, have consecrated by your blood. Against the Roman
Church, you warned, lying teachers are rising, introducing ruinous
sects, and drawing upon themselves speedy doom. Their tongues are
fire, a restless evil, full of deadly poison. They have bitter zeal,
contention in their hearts, and boast and lie against the truth.
We beseech you also, Paul, to arise. It was you that enlightened and
illuminated the Church by your doctrine and by a martyrdom like
Peter’s. For now a new Porphyry rises who, as the old once wrongfully
assailed the holy apostles, now assails the holy pontiffs, our
predecessors.
In virtue of our pastoral office committed to us by the divine favor
we can under no circumstances tolerate or overlook any longer the
pernicious poison of the above errors without disgrace to the
Christian religion and injury to orthodox faith….
We have therefore held a careful inquiry, scrutiny, discussion, strict
examination, and mature deliberation with each of the brothers, the
eminent cardinals of the holy Roman Church, as well as the priors and
ministers general of the religious orders, besides many other
professors and masters skilled in sacred theology and in civil and
canon law. We have found that these errors or theses are not Catholic,
as mentioned above, and are not to be taught, as such; but rather are
against the doctrine and tradition of the Catholic Church, and against
the true interpretation of the sacred Scriptures received from the
Church. Now Augustine maintained that her authority had to be accepted
so completely that he stated he would not have believed the Gospel
unless the authority of the Catholic Church had vouched for it. For,
according to these errors, or any one or several of them, it clearly
follows that the Church which is guided by the Holy Spirit is in error
and has always erred. This is against what Christ at his ascension
promised to his disciples (as is read in the holy Gospel of Matthew):
“I will be with you to the consummation of the world”; it is against
the determinations of the holy Fathers, or the express ordinances and
canons of the councils and the supreme pontiffs. Failure to comply
with these canons, according to the testimony of Cyprian, will be the
fuel and cause of all heresy and schism.
____
And among the things that we cannot believe, according to the enyclical:
33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.
But (33) is clearly true; therefore when the Pope speaks ex cathedra
defining matters of faith and dogma he does not always speak the
truth.
If it is argued that in this case he’s not speaking ex cathedra, what
in the world does it take to do so? How do you have to preface the
assertion?
The big one here is (33), but there are others that seem dubious, e.g:
16. It seems to have been decided that the Church in common Council
established that the laity should communicate under both species; the
Bohemians who communicate under both species are not heretics, but
schismatics.
Source: http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo10/l10exdom.htm
Mermen,
Yes; and so? *Exsurge Domine* is a splendid encyclical, whatever the personal failures (mostly in the area of indolence and sloth) of Leo X; and the world would have been much better had Martin Luther been apprehended and burned at Worms in 1521, much as John Hus had been a century earlier (cf. the deathbed confession of Charles V in 1558 that honoring his world to let Luther go in 1521 was the worst mistake he had ever made).
William. I take it you are acknowledging that it was not against the will of the Spirit that heretics be burned. I myself can’t accept this. (For one thing, try to imagine the apostles burning someone at the stake for not accepting their teachings.)
PS. I agree that the world would be a better place if Luther had died early; however, it hardly needs to be pointed out in this company that the ends don’t justify the means.
Mermen,
Let’s try to make the comments as relevant as possible to the actual post. In this case, the post is about Klaus Schatz’s description of the role of the Roman See as the “cathedra unitatis” in the first millennium. I don’t see what a sixteenth century papal document and the burning of heretics has to do with the topic of this post.
Mr. Likoudis,
Thanks for your comments.
Admittedly this blog deals with some very complex and arcane historical and theological data. You’re quite right that this stuff will be lost on the ordinary person who is not germane to such topics. I don’t have a good answer to your question, how such a person would be able to tell which Church is the True Church, if (of course) he has whittled things down to Rome and Orthodoxy. I suppose at this point it comes down to matters of attraction and taste. I’d like to hear your answer to the question.
On the second point, about the unity of Faith or lack thereof on the part of Orthodoxy: Obviously Orthodoxy does have enough of a dogmatic, liturgical and sacramental core to distinguish itself from Protestantism. The way I was taught Orthodoxy may be mistaken, but it seems to me that Orthodoxy’s dogmas are relatively few, and Orthodoxy does offer individual theologians quite a bit of leeway in the area of theologoumena. What does dismay me, however, is that so many Orthodox individuals become dogmatic about their pet theologoumena. There seem to be so many varieties of Orthodoxy, based on which school or theologian or ethnicity or era one wants to follow. The Orthodox here will likely take issue with this, but this is how I see it.
CU,
If you think that is the case with Orthodoxy just start practicing Roman Catholicism. In my experience, the alleged diversity of Orthodoxy pales in comparison. Speaking of which, we should probably tighten up what we mean by the term “diverse.”
Jack,
I assume that you’re referring to my point about the “many varieties of Orthodoxy.” Actually, I don’t think that this is necessarily a bad thing. I wasn’t attacking; I was merely stating matter-of-factly.
I don’t think that there needs to be an absolute uniformity in theological perspective, or liturgical usage, or devotional habit (see the post with the Augustine quote). Rather, I’m all for the model of a diversity of historic expressions within a common dogmatic framework, and united in a visible communion.
Actually, my problem might be that Eastern Orthodoxy really isn’t diverse enough: by which I mean, it is almost entirely Eastern and Byzantine in thought and habit. The riches and patrimony of Latin Christendom are not only not paid attention to, but in many cases these are utterly anathematized.
Yes, yes, yes, the Church came from the East, etc. Indeed. But she did not come from Byzantium or Greece or Russia; she came from Jerusalem and became incarnate in many different cultures. The Faith has been lived and expressed in many different ways, by many different Saints and luminaries. I can’t imagine that the only ones faithful the Gospel are the ones approved by post-schismatic Byzantine thought.
Rome is by no means perfect, but I think that she better represents the sort of “unity-in-diversity” which I have come to long for.
Dear friends, As an non-Orthodox friend of the Orthodox Church, it always makes me wonder why people point to what they see as faults in the Orthodox Church. James Likoudis writes there is no unity of faith in the Orthodox Church. My experience tells me they are more united than we in the West; some of us say “Filioque”; some of us, following the lead of the Orthodox Faith, say: No! No way, St. John 15:26 says no way! to Filioque! Anyway, I don’t understand what he is thinking. It doesn’t agree with everything I’ve been taught about the Orthodox Church. It’s not a mechanical unity, based on an external office on the papacy of one fallible man. We are, all of us, fallible men. But the unaltered Faith of the Church remains in all of the Orthodox Church today (325 and 381 AD). I’m very far from perfect, but I believe the Orthodox Church is the true Church of Christ. They have real unity of “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” (St Jude 3); ethnic differences do not matter.
So, what church on earth does not have problems.
Look at all the problems the pride and arrogance of the Roman papacy have caused to the world, especially the Western Christendom, more than to the East.
Orthodoxy never had a Spanish Inquisition or Crusades.
or a Reformation or Vatican I.
Sincerely, Scott Harrington
Scott –
You should be forewarned that as the blog owner I have little patience for that sort of simplistic, combatative commentary. If you have any thoughts on the subject of this actual post (“Klaus Schatz on the ‘cathedra unitatis’”), you are welcome to post here. Otherwise, there are plenty of other places online where you can have it out with Catholics and vent your spleen.