The Sign of The Cross (A Sign of Papist Anger?)

[Seraphim Reeves]

LatinTrad,

I've had arguments with Orthodox about contraception, divorce, the Dormition of the most holy Theotokos, etc. etc., so who's "changing"?

We know contraception is a sin. So is the typical practice of "natural family planning" as used by most Roman Catholics, if you're going to go by the evangelical perfection of the Fathers. Our whole, modern, calculating "have it all" mentality is very antithetical to the spirit of Scriptures. The only people who condone this sin, are the same people who pray with your leaders at "ecumenical" conferences.

As for divorce, short story is that the Scriptures themselves contain limited allowances for it, with the clear understanding it is hateful to God (in the case of fornication according to the Gospels, or to those converting with unbelieving spouses - they don't have to, but they can avail themselves of the choice to divorce their pre-Christian spouse.) What allowances the Church has for this, it has to be understood it doesn't equal "no fault divorce" - it's certainly more difficult to obtain an ecclessiastical divorce, than it is the farsically named "annulments" of the RCC. However, the Orthodox Church does have a limit on the number of marriages, regardless of whether they end due to the physical death of one spouse, or divorce (three).

The subject of divorce and the RCC vs. Orthodox Christianity is one which has long puzzeled me - the RC "conservatives" take their seeming strictness (I say seeming, since declarations of nullity can be obtained relatively easily - your church even expanded the grounds for such declarations since Vatican II to include "psychological grounds" - like "I hate you" or "you're a lazy bum"...sorry, I jest) as a badge of honour.

However, I don't see how this strictness is always commendable. I don't see what's commendable about forcing two sinners who obviously cannot live with each other to stay together - particularly when it is the one spouse who is the die-hard offender in such a case. I don't see what is accomplished by keeping a battered woman with a monster of a "man", or something similarly grave to this. Btw. permission to "remarry" is only granted to the "offended" party, and is a low key service without the joyful flourish of the typical Orthodox marriage rite (since it is a pragmatic accomodation to sinners.)

OTOH, very little is made by Latin apologists of the rampant liberalism which characterizes their own tradition, and in areas hardly dealing with so sensitive and grave human failings. If anything, these liberalizations by the RCC only deprive people of the very means of avoiding further sins.

Whether it be liturgical matters (and I don't simply mean Vatican II - Latin liberties with their liturgy go back far further than this), disciplinary matters, or something as essential to the Christian struggle as fasting (which before Vatican II was quite minimal, and now is for all purposes non-existant...I think the only way to violate the RC rules for eucharistic fasting, would be to carry a bag of cheesies into Mass), these have been incredibly stripped down.

The "Latins" have maintained the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith "as handed down from the Apostles through the Orthodox Fathers, always with the same meaning and in the same purport" (Pope St. Pius X).

Ok, now we know how you and Pope Pius X think. Do you think Pius X would recognize the modern RCC?

I agree with you that even those things that belong not to the essence of the Faith, but to its expression, should remain as immutable as possible--otherwise they do not reflect the immutable Faith too well. Nevertheless, it is absurd to assert that the "Latins" have altered the dogmas of Faith.

Filioque? Expansion of Papal perogatives? Re-founding the entire discussion of the Christian revelation upon pagan philosophical speculation? "Development of doctrine"? Indulgences?

With all of the talk of "east" and "west", there is the tendency for people to anachronistically read back current differences into the past. If you could take a snap shot of a Mass in St.John the Lateran's circa 700 A.D., what you'd see (iconographically, praxis wise, doctrinally, etc.) would look and feel far more like a modern "Byzantine" service than a modern "Western" one.

Seraphim

[mwoerl]

Latin Trad,
Are you familiar with the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception? With the
Dogma of Papal Infallibility? And, yes, again, the Filioque (despite any ridiculous recent "mutual statements")? How aboout Purgatory?
If you think these are "Dogmas" of the Apostolic Undivided Church prior to the separation of ten fifty four, I would strongly recommend further research. Perhaps I can recommend two pertinent works:

The History of the Council of Florence
Ivan Ostroumoff
which includes the quote from Saint Mark of Ephesus, "...we, in fact, have broken all ties with them [the Latins], for the very reason that they are heretics."

The Papacy
Abbe Guettee
who states: "...the Papacy, from and after the ninth century, attempted to impose, in the name of God, upon the Universal Church, a yoke unknown to the first eight centuries....this ambition called forth a legitimate opposition on the part of the Eastern Church...the Papacy was the first cause of the division...the Papacy perpetuated and strengthened this division by its innovations, and especially by maintaining as a dogma the unlawful sovereignty that it had assumed...which is the doctrine every Christian must prefer? That of God, or that of the Pope? That of the Church, or that of the Court of Rome...there is no possible compromise..."
Abbe Guetee was "a French divine [Roman Catholic priest], reared in the communion of Rome..his learning having led him to conclusions other than the Jesuits, he is ...proscribed by the Papacy for the fidelity with which he has pursued and illustrated the study of Church History, he accepts the logical consequence of this position, and finds himself a true Catholic at last, receiving the communion in both kinds at the hands of the Greeks, in the Church of the Russian Embassy in Paris." The first English translation of this wortk was published in eighteen sixty-six.

michael woerl