“That said, I think that Stephen is on fairly safe ground in saying that a higher percentage of Orthodox professed beliefs are found in the liturgy of St John Chrysostom than Catholic beliefs are found in the Novus Ordo Missæ.”

To which, as a Latin Rite Catholic I can only say: “Goodness gracious, I certainly hope so”. Not to say, of course, that the NO is less than fully catholic in it’s essence. But it presumes upon a knowledge of Catholic theology that most Catholic laymen simply do not possess. Ultimately, that’s just not good enough.

Moderator: Since I don’t want to alienate a new commenter by deleting his comment, this is the very last comment I’ll allow on this subject in this post.

When I am speaking of the presence of the Spirit outside the Church, I am only doing so to the extent that He is present in the Mysteries and transforming them into their true reality of uniting one to Christ. This is not to exclude the Spirit working on men’s hearts outside the Church, that Christ is not to some extent to be found in every man who is the image of God and that there is not truth outside the Church. The issue is only regarding the nature of the Mysteries/Sacraments.

I agree that the Baptism used by heretics belongs to the Church as to all the other truths that they hold/practice. What I am arguing is that the Holy Spirit does not transform the actions performed in heretical/schismatic groups into the reality of Christ in these groups because they are apart from Christ. If these mysteries were transformed and fulfilled by the Spirit then these groups would be united to Christ in the Church and properly Churches. These groups would not be separate from the Church and heresy/schism would be just another personally accountable sin such as fornication/theft. This is not the understanding I receive from the Fathers including St Augustine. I don’t think that St Augustine’s solution, although he raises some good points and properly critiques a strict St Cyprian approach, properly addresses this issue as it is left with the difficulties discussed earlier.

Fr Patrick,

Florovsky’s view as I am sure you know is that while it is not quite accurate to say that the schismatic is still “in the Church,” it is still paradoxically true that the Church still is present in the schismatic, awaiting the moment when the heart of the schismatic will burn again with the flame of desire for catholic unity. It seems possible, though, not only for an individual but for a parish or diocese, that this process of igniting the flame of passion for catholicity can and does begin before the moment at which visible unity is achieved. So Fr Alexander Schmemann was able to say (it’s somewhere in his journals) about the evangelics led by Gilquist et al in the early period of their investigation into Orthodoxy, “They’re Orthodox only they don’t know it yet,” or something very close to that. What he meant was that they were, and had been, heading that way; it was a sort of foregone conclusion to him that they would HAVE to end up in the Orthodox Church, not because of what they lacked but because of what already was clear to him in their way of looking at the world and at the life in Christ. In all of this, I guess I am in agreement with Augustine’s fundamental point in De Baptismo that there can be something Catholic outside the Catholic Church. Or to paraphrase, there can be something Orthodox outside the Orthodox Church. This isn’t to say it isn’t, so to speak, “proper to Orthodoxy,” i.e. inherently BELONGS to the Church even if it isn’t yet united fully with the Church. But it is to say that elements of truth exist in the schismatic community, and I’m not sure then how you can say that something true is true in any sense at all if it is totally apart from the H.S.

The meaning of the word “valid” is something that I am wanting to flesh out in this discussion and to determine exactly what everyone means by this.

Personally, I accept the word used only to the extent to say whether a particular form of baptism is valid or not. I am unhappy with it being used to mean that the Mystery of Baptism, putting on Christ, (or any other Mystery) has been completed and thus the Mystery is fulfilled materially and spiritually in the Spirit. The author (as I have named him) can be read consistently with this but St Augustine is a different matter. Even though, St Augustine replied to one option in that those baptised in heresy/schism do not receive remission of sins, he, in the next reply, permits that such can happen but is immediately withdrawn afterwards. Thus it seems that he can accept a complete baptism in form and spirit among heretics/schismatics, although he would say that the baptism is nevertheless of the Church and so not of the heretics/schismatics as such (or “outside” the Church).

My objection, again if I am repeating myself, is that there cannot be a complete baptism in form and spirit, thus uniting one to Christ, outside the union of those in Christ and that the Christ acts through His concrete Priests to effect the Mysteries. If a “mystery” is not performed by a Priest of the Church then it is not performed by Christ and cannot be said to be performed by the Church. So, the Church cannot act in the Mysteries “outside” herself or invisibly in the acts of heretics or schismatics. Nevertheless, Christ (the Church) can accept the form of a Mystery from outside the Church as if it had been performed by Himself and fill it with its Spiritual content. I think this distinction is essential in reconciling the Church practice with the theoretically correct position of St Cyprian. St Augustine does not seem to make such a distinction, at least not explicitly, whereas I believe that St Basil does and the author can be read consistently with such. St Augustine can be read in such a manner in parts of his work but I sense with some of his comments that this is not the framework within which he is thinking. So, if Augustine can consistently be taken to mean valid in the same manner in which I would use it then he can be read in line with St Cyprian but if not then this is where I would have a problem, although I am interested to see what other meanings for valid there may be.

Will,

I have rather lumped together schisms and heresies for the sake of this discussion. I understand that well established schisms effectively become no different from heresies. Both cut one off from the Church and this is the issue here. Some schisms at an early stage or by their nature may not necessarily separate one from the Church. In the case of ROCOR, even though they were not in communion with Moscow and communion was severed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the reasons for these “separations” may not necessarily have been justified and also ROCOR maintained communion with the Patriarchates of Serbia and Jerusalem. This type of “schism” is hard to judge. For the purpose of the discussion I have ignored dealing with defining what is a schism or heresy but want to focus on assuming they have been cut off from the Church then how can the Mysteries and/or Spirit be with/within them.

Fr Patrick,
Your various remarks about the diff btn those who receive unworthily and those who are altogether in schism bear further attention / reflection. A couple of questions and thoughts, though, occur to me at this point. If I’m remembering correctly, I think in one of your previous posts you acknowledged the difficulty of discerning precisely when a community is in schism, i.e. outside the church in a definitive way. If you do — as I do — then this seems no small matter. For example, what does one say about the spiritual state of R.O.C.O.R. on May 16 of this year, in contrast to its spiritual state on May 17? Did the H.S. enter in only on the 17th? Obviously not. The H.S. was involved already in leading R.O.C.O.R. and the Moscow Patriarchate to reunite. Once they did, this casts a new retroactive light, too, it seems to me, on what really was going on within R.O.C.O.R. during all those years of separation from canonical Orthodoxy. There are better examples of the healing of a division than this one, but since it’s so fresh on many of our minds, I offer it as an illustration — an illustration of why, among other things, it seems that it is important to make a more careful distinction between heretics and schismatics than your post #63 seemed to do.

St Basil I think is more complicated than your reading would suggest. In one of the letters you quote (letter 188), there is that earlier passage, too, where he says quite a different thing about schismatics — certain ones, not all — going so far as to say that they are actually still in the Church! And Basil does take care to differentiate between schismatics and heretics, and even to offer further calibrations within these categories.

There are times — like in the Arsenite schism within the patriarchate of C’ple — when it doesn’t seem so evident at all that one or the other party necessarily fell away from the truth, when the division between the two opened up, especially if, later on, it is healed….healed, moreover, without one or the other side being required to undergo rebaptism, reordination, etc

None of this is to say there isn’t such a thing as rejection of Christ, rejection of the Church. But I’m not so sure that the “consensus of the Fathers” was that every visible or canonical rupture involved such a rejection.

I am afraid that I have misquoted St Augustine and he does not necessarily see those baptised outside the Church as being regenerate. This was an argument of the Donatist’s to refute St Augustine. St Augustine replies that baptism in heresy/schism does not grant remission of sins.