Schism and Photius

Xeno.of.athens said:

The texts of the council in Latin differ from those in Greek but the Greek texts are not contemporary with the council while the Latin are. It is the Latin text that the Catholic Church receives as Oecumenical. Whatever deviations from the Latin may be present in the later Greek text are irrelevant to the teaching of the council as it is received by the Catholic Church.

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When did we start talking about differences in the Latin and Greek acts? I haven't looked this up in ACO myself but my understanding is that the events we're talking about are attested to both in Latin and Greek sources.

Xeno.of.athens said:

Is it your contention that Pope Vigilius or Pope Saint Leo the first is a bad pope and also led the Catholic Church to embrace the Nestorian heresy as Church teaching in the fifth century (St. Leo I) or sixth century (Pope Vigilius)?

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Not at all, only that this statement

Xeno.of.athens said:

The Bishops of Rome convoked these assemblages, or at least consented to their convocation; they presided by their legates over all of them, except the first and second Councils of Constantinople, and they confirmed all these eight by their authority.

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is false, unless you take an incredibly broad view of what "consented to their convocation" means.

Xeno.of.athens said:

Now, since this thread is about Photius the schismatic I see this excursion into Pope Vigilius' alleged theological peccadillos as, at best a side issue, and at worst a diversion to take the thread away from its topic and from the Original Post's content.

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95% of your OP was about papal supremacy, not Photius. You mentioned him in the first 2 sentences and then quoted paragraph after paragraph of a cardinal talking about papal supremacy. I have to wonder how you don't see the relevance of a response to a claim in that lengthy apologetic.

Xeno.of.athens said:

If it is your thinking that a bad pope (and I do not agree that Pope Vigilius is a bad pope) implies loss of papal infallibility, then you've fallen into the error of equating infallibility with impeccability.

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No, I never said anything about papal infallibility. I said that a specific claim is false and further that the council did not see itself as subject to unilateral decrees of the pope.

Xeno.of.athens said:

Leo was not and is not regarded as Nestorian by any Catholic theologian nor by the Magisterium.

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Of course, Catholicism excuses its teacher. Like any denomination, it will protect its heroes. But this does not clear Leo from heresy.

Xeno.of.athens said:

Your approximate translation distorted the passage to make the translated text that you offered serve your theological position.

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We've gone off topic. You said that all denominations recognize Leo as an authority. I have shown that this is not so, the Oriental Orthodox Churches anathematize Leo. Therefore, the authority of the pope is not confirmed by history from the very beginning. How can you defend the papacy after this?

Xeno.of.athens said:

I cannot agree with your statement that "To have an Eastern perspective is to have the correct perspective." To have an eastern perspective is to share a mainly Catholic perspective but with some errors; such is a vast improvement over a Protestant perspective which is what Cardinal Gibbons was chiefly addressing in his book Faith of our Fathers. In the Original Post for this thread Cardinal Gibbons makes a very good case for the eastern churches following the lead of the Catholic Church's holy see in Rome.

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If an Eastern church had produced Fiducia Supplicans or been responsible for the Inquisition and the auto da fe, I might agree with your opinion.

Also the fact we have never had an issue with widespread abuse of children by our clergy such as recently happened in the Roman Catholic Church I think also indicates that there are systemic problems in the RCC.

But the biggest problem is that one Pope can reverse his predecessor, with Traditiones Custodes, in a manner cruel to traditional Catholics, and also not just Pope Benedict XVI, but Pope St. John Paul II, and then authorize the blessing of homosexual relations, which are not to be blessed but to be anathematized.

In the Eastern churches, decisions are taken according to the principle of Sobornost, or Conciliarity, and the entire church is configured in a way as to resist sweeping changes to the Apostolic faith, as happened with the liturgy under Annibale Bugnini, or more recently, with sexual morality under Amoris Laetitia and the absolutely unacceptable Fiducia Supplicans.

Also I would note that the Eastern sui juris Catholic Churches such as the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Churches, owing to their Orthodox liturgical and theological background, have emerged as some of the harshest critics of Fiducia Supplicans.

Really, the only parts of the Catholic Church I have a highly positive opinion of are the Traditional Latin Mass communities which Pope Francis has harmed so much, and the sui juris Eastern Catholic Churches, and the more traditional monasteries and mendicant orders, such as the Dominicans. The average Ordinary Form parish tends to be beset with liturgical abuses, for example, not using incense on Sundays other than major feast days and not using Gregorian chant as required under Tra la solicidtudini.

Tigran1245 said:

Of course, Catholicism excuses its teacher. Like any denomination, it will protect its heroes. But this does not clear Leo from heresy.

We've gone off topic. You said that all denominations recognize Leo as an authority. I have shown that this is not so, the Oriental Orthodox Churches anathematize Leo. Therefore, the authority of the pope is not confirmed by history from the very beginning. How can you defend the papacy after this?

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Good point. I myself have regarded Leo I as being one of the main instigators of the schism; he did not need to write that Tome for Christology had been settled at Ephesus. Indeed Chalcedon was hailed by Nestorius in his memoir The Bazaar of Heraclides as accomplishing what he had set out to do.

Ironically, what saved the Eastern Orthodox from a Nestorian worldview, and this was I believe transmitted into the West through osmosis, was the influence of St. Severus of Antioch, who composed the hymn Ho Monogenes that serves as the finest test of Christological Orthodoxy, which Emperor Justinian added to the Divine Liturgy during his Theopaschite phase, before he changed his mind, embraced Apthartodocetism, and began a blood-soaked persecution of the Syriac Orthodox.

Xeno.of.athens said:

Your objection reads like hundreds of Protestant objections, yet the heroes of your own church will go unexamined by its members, eh? So, what is the point of such a complaint if you're going to do the ting you object to?

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In Orthodoxy, we scrutinize our leaders, and also no living bishop benefits from the veneration received by the Pope.

Xeno.of.athens said:

Your objection reads like hundreds of Protestant objections, yet the heroes of your own church will go unexamined by its members, eh? So, what is the point of such a complaint if you're going to do the ting you object to?

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This is not a complaint. My point is that it is incorrect to cite someone’s magisterium as an authority in an interdenominational dialogue. Objective facts or general authorities must be cited. And you said that Leo is not a Nestorian, because your Roman Church magisterium said so. For Oriental Orthodoxy this is not authority.

Xeno.of.athens said:

As your denomination dismisses pope Saint Leo the Great it ought not be a surprise to you that I do not have an especially high view of Oriental Orthodoxy; nevertheless, I do not anathematise it, as you appear to do to pope saint Leo the Great. But your stated view (if it is your view) is a lesson in the dangers of oecumenical discussion on CF.

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I did not say that we anathematize the entire Roman Church. We anathematize only Leo and Chalcedon. The Roman Church anathematizes St. Pope Dioscorus, St.Timophy, St.Acacius and Ephesus II. These are the facts, and they need to be recognized in dialogue.

I didn't understand what danger you're talking about...

The Liturgist said:

St. Photius was not a schismatic, as is proven by the fact that eventually Rome agreed to drop the filioque at the Eighth Ecumenical Council, before reinstating it a century later.

This can be confirmed by my Eastern Orthodox friends @prodromos @HTacianas and @FenderTL5

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Agree.
This council was originally accepted and fully endorsed by Rome, which had legates present at the behest of Pope John VIII. The council affirmed the restoration of St. Photius the Great to his see and anathematized any who altered the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, thus condemning the Filioque.

Rome reinstated the filoque of its own accord, absent Council, in the 11th century.

A great example of the schism element inside the Catholic Church as seen in actual History. It is not as if the first time it was ever noticed was at the time of the protesting Catholics during the life of Martin Luther.

The Liturgist said:

St. Photius was not a schismatic, as is proven by the fact that eventually Rome agreed to drop the filioque at the Eighth Ecumenical Council, before reinstating it a century later.

This can be confirmed by my Eastern Orthodox friends @prodromos @HTacianas and @FenderTL5

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Luther commented on that same pattern of unreliable council decrees

Xeno.of.athens said:

Cardinal Gibbons wrote the above. It relates to the first eight oecumenical councils as received by the Catholic Church.

1. First Nicaea
2. First Constantinople*
3. Ephesus
4. Chalcedon
5. Second Constantinople*
6. Third Constantinople
7. Second Nicaea
8. Fourth Constantinople

* Not presided over by papal legates.​

All convoked by the pope, or at least the pope consented to their convocation.​

​

So what is your objection here?

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Are you even reading my posts? Can you at least try responding to something I've written?

Xeno.of.athens said:

I complain that you've yet to identify exactly what was not right in what he wrote. I read what you think is wrong but what you think is wrong isn't what he wrote.

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I did identify it, in post 22, quoting you verbatim. I even bolded the particular section of the quote that was not right. If you disagree with my assessment, talk about why you disagree, don't just say it's wrong.

Xeno.of.athens said:

Photius was schismatic and the filioque has nothing to do with that.

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No, St. Photius was not schismatic. Canon VII of Ephesus prohibits modifying, altering, substituting or otherwise tampering with the Nicene Creed. The Roman Church does not have the right to set aside the canons of ecumenical councils it participated in (St. Celestine, Bishop of Rome, was an ally of Pope St. Cyril of Alexandria).

Also, Rome intruded on Byzantine canonical territory in Bulgaria, and began spreading the filioque there, which caused St. Photius to correctly suspend communion, for it is forbidden under the ancient canons for a bishop to intrude on the territory of another bishop or even to celebrate the Divine Liturgy or Mass in the diocese of a brother bishop without their consent. These canons apply to the Bishop of Rome, whose equality with the Pope of Alexandria and the Patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem is asserted by Canons VI and VII of Nicaea.



St. Photius the Great, defender of Holy Orthodoxy, pray for us!