The common polemic against "imaginative prayer" is especially frustrating. I'm happy to admit imagination's limits, even its dangers. But if it can't be piously devoted to divine things, it's effectively excluded from the sanctifying bath of divine light, and hence irredeemable.
I agree. Without imagination, many of the most prevalent Byzantine icons would lose much of their depth and symbolism. In the Theophany icon, we see Christ trampling the monsters of the sea in the River Jordan; in the icon of the nativity, St. Joseph is being tempted by Satan. Neither of these images is conveyed in Scripture, but were imaginative and holy additions by the original iconographers.
With regard to the following quote, the goalposts have been shifted a bit. “The Catholics recognize that the living tradition of the Church can make pronouncements and clarifications on the deposit of Faith, that immutable Truth given by Jesus Christ, as they are currently and always guided by the Holy Spirit.”
The Orthodox believe this. What they do not believe is that clarifications can create new dogmas. That’s basically the rub and heart of the matter. If the Orthodox and Catholics were to reunite based on the shared faith of 1054, the Orthodox would say great. Any post 1054 Orthodox clarifications (I’m thinking mainly of the Palamite ones) would be viewed as compatible with the faith beforehand. Now, that is, of course, debatable, but that’s the viewpoint. But Catholics could not accept such a reunion, because no one in 1054 accepted the infallibility of the pope. In other words, Orthodoxy sees itself as backwards compatible in a way that Catholicism cannot. Unless of course, one wants to hold that Christians believed the pope to be infallible before 1054, but they didn’t. A matter of salvation for today’s Catholics was not even a theological opinion before the schism—it was nonexistent.
And we can't be so quick to say there was nothing like Papal infallibility in the first millennium. Cyrprian, Jerome, Leo, Gregory the Great, and the Emperor Gratian all give principles that point to such a doctrine. I think it is ultimately part of the necessary consequence of holding apostolic succession and unity. And, of course, St. Maximos the Confessor seems to think so:
St. Maximos the Confessor: "These confines of the inhabited world, and those throughout the world who confess the Lord in a pious and orthodox manner, look straight to the most holy Church of Rome, towards her confession and faith, as to a sun of perennial light, receiving from her the bright splendor of the holy teachings of the fathers, as they were explained piously and in all purity by the six holy councils [the five ecumenical councils, plus the Lateran Council], which were inspired and dictated by God in proclaiming very clearly the Symbol of Faith. For ever since the Word of God condescended to us and became man, all the Churches of Christians everywhere have held, and hold the great Church there as their sole basis and foundation, because, according to the very promises of the Lord, the gates of hell have never prevailed over her, but rather she has the keys of the orthodox faith and confession; she opens the genuine and only piety to those who approach her piously, but closes every heretical mouth that speaks injustice... "[PG 91: 137-40]
Thank you for your comment! This is a great point, and you are right to point to the Palamite teachings as a possible parallel development. I think it is highly debatable (as you say) whether anyone in the first millennium of the Church held anything like an essence-activity distinction.
But, to the main point, Catholics also believe in backward compatibility, hence the quotation from Gregory Nazianzen and Clement of Alexandria. If one geometer writes the first two pages and the first book of Euclid, and another comes along and expounds that into the second and third books, that is one and the same science (backwardly compatible, as you say). My claim, and it is not fully fleshed out here, but any Catholic teaching post the death of the Last Apostle is like this.
Haha, that’s definitely not what I meant, but I like what you did there to twist what I had written. I said debatable in the sense that people may disagree—not in the sense that it was unlikely.
Thank you for the correction! I am still undecided on the point. It may be a genuine development of patristic teaching, or it might not be (from my point of view). The cleanliness of Aquinas's esse and essence distinction is where I lean, and I like what Scholarious has to say on the subject.
Long on assertions and short on proof. The issue of 1054 is supposed to be an attempted unilateral exercise of authority on the part of the pope for all Christians. (Exactly like Leo overturning Ephesus II.) It seems clear that at least the Latin Church must have believed he could do this; then there’s the reunification councils to contend with, where in at least one case the Orthodox hierarchy was willing to accept the very exercise of authority that occasioned the Schism.
Thanks for this essay. I appreciate especially some of the discussion on imaginative prayer and doctrinal development. Another commenter argues that the Palamite doctrine is not a doctrinal development in the same way that papal infallibility is. I'm not sure that's true. And it's an important test case for the whole topic.
I really appreciate that you write from specifically an Eastern Catholic perspective. Eastern Catholic theology is underdeveloped and understudied. One point that I often repeat is that the vocation of being an Eastern Christian in communion with Rome is difficult and messy. It is in fact a form of crucifixion: Eastern Catholic churches are stretched between two poles: that of Rome, the Church that "presides in love" (St. Ignatius), and that of the corresponding Eastern Church that is out of communion with Rome, but which Rome teaches is to continue to be a touchstone for liturgical practice, piety, theological language, etc. This is truly a difficult position to be in, and anyone who says otherwise has not fully grasped the reality.
And yet it is also a *blessed* position to be in. Being stretched between two ecclesial poles means that one can be a bridge between them. This is the vocation of the Uniate—a word considered derogatory, given its history, but in which Fr. Aidan Nichols (in *Rome and the Eastern Churches*) finds a great beauty: to be a unifying element in the Church. The peacemaker may at times find himself misunderstood or perhaps even hated by both parties he hopes to reconcile. But the Eastern Catholic must go on living out his vocation of peace and unity, a vocation of synthesizing two or more lines of church tradition which have grown apart and become alienated from each other—and by so doing, stitching together the torn garment of Christ. Not easy, not neat. Simpler to be Roman Catholic or Orthodox: Davis is not entirely wrong there. But I think as Eastern Catholics we live at a place very close to the heart of the Gospel, to the heart of Christ.
I appreciate you noting the unlikelihood of any recent convert to Orthodoxy having an ability to write with much depth on what an Orthodox "mindset" entails. The reference to Florovsky in the piece you're critiquing is key here. One can study Florovsky for years and come to realize that that popular notions of what constitutes genuine Orthodoxy in the American convert sphere are far from normative across Orthodox time and space.
I appreciate your measured and respectful tone, but in my opinion this is marred by your use of the term "Ersadox." I get the point you're making there, but I'm not sure it will help an Orthodox audience give you a fair hearing. Just my thought, for what it's worth.
Dominic, why am I reading this at 2 am while I should be sleeping before a workday? Why are you writing this at this critical moment for Christianity and I dare say the world, when we are witnessing events in Rome that are greatly unsettling?
The answer my friend, is blowing in the Wind, or more accurately THE Blowing Wind.
The Holy Spirit is surely active in Substackland and we know He blows where He wills.
My point? Well the mirror of a unified Mystical Body of Christ cracked in two (1054), then one side split again (1517), and again 1534, now the shattering of that split is numbered in the 100s if not thousands. And now the remnant is on the verge...TLM and NO.
Meanwhile the Holy Spirit is 'obligated' to blow across the surface of this mirror and make good the COVENANT promise of never leaving the Church. Talk about writing straight with crooked lines!
My conclusion? Because of man's brokenness we are fast approaching Our Lord's Second Coming and that's why I would be up all night as a watchman on the wall for the duration 'if inspired' because a soldier does not quit his post until properly relieved (1st General Order).
Reconciliation at such a late hour is not possible without significant Divine Intervention (illumination?) and that too is a sign of His Coming.
Revelation 10-11 is where and when 'it is finished' and as 12 opens, there is no more mystery (7th Trumpet) and apparently no more time, for chronology ceases.
Fantastic comment! You have mentioned a few things here that I have not yet considered in depth. Thank you for taking the time to respond to MWD. This is why I enjoy Substack.
Very edifying.
The common polemic against "imaginative prayer" is especially frustrating. I'm happy to admit imagination's limits, even its dangers. But if it can't be piously devoted to divine things, it's effectively excluded from the sanctifying bath of divine light, and hence irredeemable.
I agree. Without imagination, many of the most prevalent Byzantine icons would lose much of their depth and symbolism. In the Theophany icon, we see Christ trampling the monsters of the sea in the River Jordan; in the icon of the nativity, St. Joseph is being tempted by Satan. Neither of these images is conveyed in Scripture, but were imaginative and holy additions by the original iconographers.
Thank you for the comment!
With regard to the following quote, the goalposts have been shifted a bit. “The Catholics recognize that the living tradition of the Church can make pronouncements and clarifications on the deposit of Faith, that immutable Truth given by Jesus Christ, as they are currently and always guided by the Holy Spirit.”
The Orthodox believe this. What they do not believe is that clarifications can create new dogmas. That’s basically the rub and heart of the matter. If the Orthodox and Catholics were to reunite based on the shared faith of 1054, the Orthodox would say great. Any post 1054 Orthodox clarifications (I’m thinking mainly of the Palamite ones) would be viewed as compatible with the faith beforehand. Now, that is, of course, debatable, but that’s the viewpoint. But Catholics could not accept such a reunion, because no one in 1054 accepted the infallibility of the pope. In other words, Orthodoxy sees itself as backwards compatible in a way that Catholicism cannot. Unless of course, one wants to hold that Christians believed the pope to be infallible before 1054, but they didn’t. A matter of salvation for today’s Catholics was not even a theological opinion before the schism—it was nonexistent.
And we can't be so quick to say there was nothing like Papal infallibility in the first millennium. Cyrprian, Jerome, Leo, Gregory the Great, and the Emperor Gratian all give principles that point to such a doctrine. I think it is ultimately part of the necessary consequence of holding apostolic succession and unity. And, of course, St. Maximos the Confessor seems to think so:
St. Maximos the Confessor: "These confines of the inhabited world, and those throughout the world who confess the Lord in a pious and orthodox manner, look straight to the most holy Church of Rome, towards her confession and faith, as to a sun of perennial light, receiving from her the bright splendor of the holy teachings of the fathers, as they were explained piously and in all purity by the six holy councils [the five ecumenical councils, plus the Lateran Council], which were inspired and dictated by God in proclaiming very clearly the Symbol of Faith. For ever since the Word of God condescended to us and became man, all the Churches of Christians everywhere have held, and hold the great Church there as their sole basis and foundation, because, according to the very promises of the Lord, the gates of hell have never prevailed over her, but rather she has the keys of the orthodox faith and confession; she opens the genuine and only piety to those who approach her piously, but closes every heretical mouth that speaks injustice... "[PG 91: 137-40]
Thank you for your comment! This is a great point, and you are right to point to the Palamite teachings as a possible parallel development. I think it is highly debatable (as you say) whether anyone in the first millennium of the Church held anything like an essence-activity distinction.
But, to the main point, Catholics also believe in backward compatibility, hence the quotation from Gregory Nazianzen and Clement of Alexandria. If one geometer writes the first two pages and the first book of Euclid, and another comes along and expounds that into the second and third books, that is one and the same science (backwardly compatible, as you say). My claim, and it is not fully fleshed out here, but any Catholic teaching post the death of the Last Apostle is like this.
Haha, that’s definitely not what I meant, but I like what you did there to twist what I had written. I said debatable in the sense that people may disagree—not in the sense that it was unlikely.
Thank you for the correction! I am still undecided on the point. It may be a genuine development of patristic teaching, or it might not be (from my point of view). The cleanliness of Aquinas's esse and essence distinction is where I lean, and I like what Scholarious has to say on the subject.
Long on assertions and short on proof. The issue of 1054 is supposed to be an attempted unilateral exercise of authority on the part of the pope for all Christians. (Exactly like Leo overturning Ephesus II.) It seems clear that at least the Latin Church must have believed he could do this; then there’s the reunification councils to contend with, where in at least one case the Orthodox hierarchy was willing to accept the very exercise of authority that occasioned the Schism.
Thanks for this essay. I appreciate especially some of the discussion on imaginative prayer and doctrinal development. Another commenter argues that the Palamite doctrine is not a doctrinal development in the same way that papal infallibility is. I'm not sure that's true. And it's an important test case for the whole topic.
I really appreciate that you write from specifically an Eastern Catholic perspective. Eastern Catholic theology is underdeveloped and understudied. One point that I often repeat is that the vocation of being an Eastern Christian in communion with Rome is difficult and messy. It is in fact a form of crucifixion: Eastern Catholic churches are stretched between two poles: that of Rome, the Church that "presides in love" (St. Ignatius), and that of the corresponding Eastern Church that is out of communion with Rome, but which Rome teaches is to continue to be a touchstone for liturgical practice, piety, theological language, etc. This is truly a difficult position to be in, and anyone who says otherwise has not fully grasped the reality.
And yet it is also a *blessed* position to be in. Being stretched between two ecclesial poles means that one can be a bridge between them. This is the vocation of the Uniate—a word considered derogatory, given its history, but in which Fr. Aidan Nichols (in *Rome and the Eastern Churches*) finds a great beauty: to be a unifying element in the Church. The peacemaker may at times find himself misunderstood or perhaps even hated by both parties he hopes to reconcile. But the Eastern Catholic must go on living out his vocation of peace and unity, a vocation of synthesizing two or more lines of church tradition which have grown apart and become alienated from each other—and by so doing, stitching together the torn garment of Christ. Not easy, not neat. Simpler to be Roman Catholic or Orthodox: Davis is not entirely wrong there. But I think as Eastern Catholics we live at a place very close to the heart of the Gospel, to the heart of Christ.
I appreciate you noting the unlikelihood of any recent convert to Orthodoxy having an ability to write with much depth on what an Orthodox "mindset" entails. The reference to Florovsky in the piece you're critiquing is key here. One can study Florovsky for years and come to realize that that popular notions of what constitutes genuine Orthodoxy in the American convert sphere are far from normative across Orthodox time and space.
I appreciate your measured and respectful tone, but in my opinion this is marred by your use of the term "Ersadox." I get the point you're making there, but I'm not sure it will help an Orthodox audience give you a fair hearing. Just my thought, for what it's worth.
Dominic, why am I reading this at 2 am while I should be sleeping before a workday? Why are you writing this at this critical moment for Christianity and I dare say the world, when we are witnessing events in Rome that are greatly unsettling?
The answer my friend, is blowing in the Wind, or more accurately THE Blowing Wind.
The Holy Spirit is surely active in Substackland and we know He blows where He wills.
My point? Well the mirror of a unified Mystical Body of Christ cracked in two (1054), then one side split again (1517), and again 1534, now the shattering of that split is numbered in the 100s if not thousands. And now the remnant is on the verge...TLM and NO.
Meanwhile the Holy Spirit is 'obligated' to blow across the surface of this mirror and make good the COVENANT promise of never leaving the Church. Talk about writing straight with crooked lines!
My conclusion? Because of man's brokenness we are fast approaching Our Lord's Second Coming and that's why I would be up all night as a watchman on the wall for the duration 'if inspired' because a soldier does not quit his post until properly relieved (1st General Order).
Reconciliation at such a late hour is not possible without significant Divine Intervention (illumination?) and that too is a sign of His Coming.
Revelation 10-11 is where and when 'it is finished' and as 12 opens, there is no more mystery (7th Trumpet) and apparently no more time, for chronology ceases.
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Our Lady of Revelation
Pray for us.
Maranatha,
Viva Cristo Rey!
Christ is Risen!
Thank you for your comment!
Fantastic comment! You have mentioned a few things here that I have not yet considered in depth. Thank you for taking the time to respond to MWD. This is why I enjoy Substack.
Thank you for your kind comment!
Excellent essay. I will be gladly adopting the tools/substance distinction!