Melkites

[Patrick]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1891135' date='Jun 15 2009, 12:20 AM']Yes, I think you get the basic thrust of the Melkite Catholic Church's initiative, and you also see the problems inherent within it, because you are right, Rome does at times -- although not always -- present its local variations as somehow universal. This is one of the problems that Eastern Catholics have when we discuss theology with our Roman Catholic brothers, because as we continue to move ahead with the process of de-Latinization, a process that Rome itself started, there are still large numbers of lay Roman Catholics who have never heard about this process, and -- to be honest -- there are many who have never even heard about the existence of Eastern Catholics. I experienced the latter problem quite frequently while I was working on my MA in Theology at Franciscan University.[/quote]

So I am left with this:

Basically, the Melkites are hoping they can distance themselves enough from Rome and the Melkite-acknowledged Roman errors so as to be acceptable to the Orthodox through de-Latinization.

And I'm wondering if there is such a point to which they can distance themselves without leaving Rome...

Which leads me to the question, "Why did the Melkites ever hook up with Rome in the first place?" But I can do my own reading on that for the moment.

Thank you so much. This has been very informative.

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1891140' date='Jun 15 2009, 02:28 AM']Read them for yourself in Greek, and you will see that the distinction is there, and that it is held to be of the ontological order.[/quote]

Perhaps when I've leared more than baby Greek I will go and read them. I will find that there is no real distinction between the Divine Essence and Attributes in most of those writers, and that what the Holy Roman Church teaches is the general consensus of the Fathers.

Edited June 15, 2009 by Resurrexi

[Resurrexi]

I will also try to integrate scholasticism with the Easten Fathers.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Patrick' post='1891142' date='Jun 15 2009, 12:29 AM']So I am left with this:

Basically, the Melkites are hoping they can distance themselves enough from Rome and the Melkite-acknowledged Roman errors so as to be acceptable to the Orthodox through de-Latinization.

And I'm wondering if there is such a point to which they can distance themselves without leaving Rome...[/quote]
Well, I would not put it that way, because that makes it sound like an underhanded scheme intended to trick the Orthodox into communion with Rome. I believe that it is a sincerely held position. I personally hold it to be a truthful way of understanding the differences between the East and the West, which avoids the tendency to constantly declare one side or the other heretical.


[quote name='Patrick' post='1891142' date='Jun 15 2009, 12:29 AM']Which leads me to the question, "Why did the Melkites ever hook up with Rome in the first place?" But I can do my own reading on that for the moment.

Thank you so much. This has been very informative.[/quote]
That is something that I have not studied in any detail, i.e., the history surrounding the movement for communion with Rome in the Patriarchate of Antioch in the early 18th century. What I do know is that it caused a rupture within the Antiochian Patriarchate that separated families from each other, much as the later schisms in the Ruthenian Catholic Church in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which were often instigated by the Latin hierarchy in America interfering in the affairs of that small Church, divided families from each other.

As far as the Ruthenian schisms are concerned, Cardinal Keeler apologize for the heavy handed way in which the Latin bishops in the United States treated the Ruthenians in the late 19th century by trying to impose Latin customs upon them.

Edited June 15, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Patrick]

Briefly, on the topic of essence/energies:

Here's how I think of it. It might be wrong. If so, please point it out, and I'll examine. But this is what I think of when I think of Palamos.

How can we both claim that God is knowable, and that God is utterly unknowable at the same time? This is the fundamental question. But if I consider my wife, this makes sense. I say I know my wife. I can predict what she'll do and say with a fair degree of accuracy. But I can never fully know my wife. She will always remain a mystery to me. I don't have access to her deep down mystical part (essence), just in how she interacts with me (energies). Similarly with God.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Resurrexi' post='1891145' date='Jun 15 2009, 12:32 AM']I will also try to integrate scholasticism with the Easten Fathers. [/quote]
Rather than read a later philosophical construct into what they say, you should simply take what they say at face value.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Patrick' post='1891150' date='Jun 15 2009, 12:38 AM']Briefly, on the topic of essence/energies:

Here's how I think of it. It might be wrong. If so, please point it out, and I'll examine. But this is what I think of when I think of Palamos.

How can we both claim that God is knowable, and that God is utterly unknowable at the same time? This is the fundamental question. But if I consider my wife, this makes sense. I say I know my wife. I can predict what she'll do and say with a fair degree of accuracy. But I can never fully know my wife. She will always remain a mystery to me. I don't have access to her deep down mystical part (essence), just in how she interacts with me (energies). Similarly with God.[/quote]
That is a very rudimentary, but accurate way of describing the distinction.

In the metaphysics (for lack of a better term) of the Eastern Fathers, essence is absolutely simple and incommunicable, while the energies of God are both one and many, and because they are many, they can be received -- in varying degrees -- by human beings. It is participation in the divine energies, and most especially in the uncreated light of Tabor, that brings about the divinization of man.

[Patrick]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1891146' date='Jun 15 2009, 12:34 AM']Well, I would not put it that way, because that makes it sound like an underhanded scheme intended to trick the Orthodox into communion with Rome. I believe that it is a sincerely held position. I personally hold it to be a truthful way of understanding the differences between the East and the West, which avoids the tendency to constantly declare one side or the other heretical.[/quote]

Oh, I see how you could think that from how I worded it. I'm a strategical thinker, and I was thinking tactically. My apologies. I didn't intend, or feel, any underhanded scheme.

How about this instead: That the Melkites are trying to adequately express the extent to which they simultaneously have unity of faith with the East and yet also don't accept the errors of the West, through the process of de-Latinization.

Then my concern still stands, that I wonder if it is an issue of expression only...

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Patrick' post='1891159' date='Jun 15 2009, 12:43 AM']Oh, I see how you could think that from how I worded it. I'm a strategical thinker, and I was thinking tactically. My apologies. I didn't intend, or feel, any underhanded scheme.

How about this instead: That the Melkites are trying to adequately express the extent to which they simultaneously have unity of faith with the East and yet also don't accept the errors of the West, through the process of de-Latinization.

Then my concern still stands, that I wonder if it is an issue of expression only...[/quote]
Much better.

Although, I would amend your comment slightly, because not all things peculiar to the West need to be seen as "errors." Some things are simply differences in outlook or approach.

[Apotheoun]

Click the link below to read an interesting thread from some time ago:

[url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=81541"][b][u]God as Unknowable[/u][/b][/url]

[Patrick]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1891164' date='Jun 15 2009, 12:45 AM']Much better.

Although, I would amend your comment slightly, because not all things peculiar to the West need to be seen as "errors." Some things are simply differences in outlook or approach.[/quote]

Oh sure, granted. But simple differences of custom are not those that concern us when we think of reunification with Rome. But, yes, I agree.

Interesting that it's the same open question with the Monophysites regarding reunification with Orthodox: Is it indeed only a matter of expression, or is there something more at play there?

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Patrick' post='1891169' date='Jun 15 2009, 12:50 AM']Interesting that it's the same open question with the Monophysites regarding reunification with Orthodox: Is it indeed only a matter of expression, or is there something more at play there?[/quote]
Yes, the real position of the Monophysites (or Miaphysites as they prefer) is an interesting question. On the question of the Monophysites I myself vacillate between the theological differences being merely semantical and their being substantive.

[Patrick]

[quote name='Resurrexi' post='1891137' date='Jun 15 2009, 12:25 AM']He would, but I would reply that the Pope has teaching authority over the universal Church.

I think it is quite ridiculous that one would willingly put himself in visible communion with Rome but reject what Rome teaches.[/quote]

Resurrexi, I'm curious to know what you think of the de-Latinization process, and what you understand it to be, and what its effects are. I think hearing a more Latin view on the de-Latinization process is relevant to the topic.

[Resurrexi]

I am in full support of liturgical and disciplinary de-Latinization. In the past few centuries, there were many harmful things going on in Eastern churches. For example, the three sacraments of Christian initation were no longer celebrated just after birth, but, contrary to immemorial Eastern tradition, were spaced out over a number of years as in the Latin West. I also think it was harmful to oblige Eastern Catholic priests to practice celibacy, as in Eastern tradition only bishops are required to remain celibate. These, and other harmful Latinizations, were serious problems that needed to be addressed.

However, I am not support of doctrinal de-Catholicization of the East. With St. Paul I believe that there is "one faith." The East and the West cannot have two different faiths. I believe that all Catholics, both Eastern and Latin, need to accept the all the dogmas defined by the Roman Pontiffs and by the [i]twenty-one[/i] ecumenical councils of the Catholic Church.

The Pope, though supporting the disciplinary and liturgical de-Latinization process, has never supported de-Catholicizing the beliefs of those in the East. The Holy Father has always said that Eastern Catholics, just like their Latin brethren, must believe what the Holy Roman Church (cf. John Paul II, Ad Tuendam Fidem).

[Apotheoun]

By its very nature liturgical de-Latinization will bring about spiritual, theological, and doctrinal de-Latinization, because the life of faith experienced in the divine liturgy is a holistic reality, i.e., the liturgy is the spiritual and doctrinal expression of the tradition that it embodies and makes manifest. In other words, one cannot isolate the divine liturgy from the Byzantine theological tradition, i.e., unless one wants a dead liturgy.

Finally, as far as Resurrexi's assertion that theological de-Latinization is actually "de-Catholicization" is concerned, this would only follow if one were to accept the proposition that Latin / Scholastic formulations and expressions in connection with the one faith are somehow normative within Christianity, which -- as I see it -- is a false proposition. The formulations and expressions used in the Eastern Catholic Churches are by and large 200 to 500 or more years older than those used in the Latin West, and certainly one cannot simply accuse all the Eastern Fathers of theological heresy because they failed to use Aristotelian concepts and terminology when speaking about the Orthodox faith. Diversity in theological expression -- to paraphrase a comment made by Ukrainian Catholic Major Archbishop Lubomyr Husar -- does not of its nature involve a difference in faith.

Edited June 15, 2009 by Apotheoun