Reply To a Bulgarian Orthodox

N.B.: The following writing by Mr. James Likoudis, is a reply to a Bulgarian Orthodox raising objections to Catholic Doctrine. Normally, this would be posted in the Letters and Correspondence INDEX, however due to the importance of the subject matter, which might be of interest to Eastern Orthodox, it is posted here. (website manager)

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September 29, 2019

Dear Yadrobov,

Thank you for writing your objections to Catholic doctrine. They have long been dealt with by Catholic theologians who have pointed out:

1) The Catholic Church rejects the penal substitutionary atonement theory just as traditional Orthodox teaching does.

2) That theory was in fact developed by the Protestant John Calvin and held by many fundamentalist/evangelical Protestants and it is a profound error and misunderstanding to confuse it with Catholic doctrine. You explain well the origin of "that ongoing tendency" among Orthodox theologians traceable to the Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky's "moral monism" which has resulted in much doctrinal confusion among the Orthodox.

3) So in view of the difference among Orthodox theologians concerning the very meaning of the Redemption and also of Original Sin, what is the Orthodox doctrine on such matters? As with other matters of doctrine, it is impossible to determine what is "Orthodox doctrine" as distinguished from heterodox theological speculation or "theologoumena". This is because in modern Pan-Orthodoxy, there is, as Fr. Robert Taft (the world's greatest authority on the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom) noted :

"THERE IS NO MAGISTERIUM". There is no supreme authority, no infallible head of the episcopate to provide doctrinal consensus for the resolving of doctrinal disputes. Since the Schism with the Apostolic See of Rome, acclaimed by the Fathers and Councils as "head of all the Churches of God", the 14 or so Eastern Orthodox Churches in their collectivity remain acephalous, headless, and for a thousand years unable to hold an Ecumenical Council, [which is] still regarded by many as the "supreme authority" in the Church (though even that has been rejected by some Orthodox writers of the Slavophile/sobornost school of theologians).
In their truncated condition, these Churches of the Imperial Byzantine tradition CAN NOT constitute the one Body of Christ described in the epistles of St. Paul. For they do not constitute a single unitary Church posssesssing an undivided visible unity made possible by the Papacy serving as the Church's center of unity.
The Petrine Primacy of universal authority and jurisdiction of the Pope is necessary for the hierarchical unity of the Episcopate which must, in fact, mirror the undivided unity of the Trinity. It is the existence of the Papacy that makes possible amidst all the confusing bodies claiming to be the "true Church" for anyone to easily distinguish with certitude the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church (so declared in the Creed) from the false claimants which are the heirs of Schism and Heresy.
It is the possession of a divinely instituted center of visible unity that enables the seeker of truth to determine which group of Bishops formally separating from the others to be in Schism or Heresy! Thus, the famous axiom of St. Ambrose : "WHERE PETER IS, THERE IS THE CHURCH".

4) As to the Filioque, you say, "there is a logical reason why the Filioque is untrue". Your logic is not convincing. You totally ignore the Eastern Fathers who clearly taught that the Holy Spirit proceeds ETERNALLY from the Father and (or through) the Son, and specifically that there is NO TIME GAP (i.e., there is NO BEFORE OR AFTER IN THE INNER LIFE OF THE TRINITY) between the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father through the Son. None of the Fathers ever taught (as the modern Orthodox insist today) that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father ALONE. That was Photius' 'kainotomeia' (innovation) in the 9th century. From the 4th century to 1054 A.D. the Western Fathers of the Church (Sts. Augustine, Ambrose, Hilary, and Pope Leo the Great – and Western synods and councils afterwards – all professed that the Holy Spirit eternally proceeded from the Father and the Son. There was doctrinal agreement on the subject of the Holy Spirit's procession between the Fathers of East and West as the Reunion Council of Florence (1439) would again affirm after endless debates.

5) Your position that the Filioque is "heretical" is undermined by the recommendation by the Orthodox participants in a recent North American Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue that the Filioque should cease being called heretical! Will the real Orthodox stand up? The truth concerning the Filioque is again asserted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Would that the Orthodox had a similar Catechism setting forth defined Church teaching.

6) Lastly, you are correct in observing that Papal infallibility logically flows from the Papacy's possessing a universal authority and jurisdiction over the Churches of both East and West. His doctrinal judgments ending disputes over faith and morals and intended to be definitive and binding on the faithful "must be infallible as pronouncements" if the truths of Revelation are to be safeguarded by the Church to whom the "Deposit of Faith" was committed.

That the Apostolic See of Peter was regarded in the first Millennium as both indefectible in professing the truths of the Faith and infallible in teaching such truths to be held by the Universal Church was the teaching of the orthodox Popes such as Leo the Great, Hormisdas, Hadrian I, Agatho, Hadrian II, and Nicholas the Great, among others. These are venerated as Saints by the Orthodox who strangely reject their teaching on Papal supremacy and universal jurisdiction.

Such Popes vigorously asserted their special prerogatives as the visible head of the Church Militant:

• when they received the many appeals from bishops world-wide who were deposed by heretical synods and councils;
• when they excommunicated and deposed heretical Patriarchs of major sees and proceeded to appoint new Patriarchs;
• when they squashed "Robber Councils" or declared null and void the 28th canon of Chalcedon;
• when throughout the Church there was recognition that there could be NO Ecumenical Council without its confirmation as ecumenical by the Church's "FIRST SEE", the See of Peter at Rome.

Such exercises of Papal power (exousia) were inconceivable without the Church's believing that the Petrine Primacy of the Pope was divine in origin and grounded in the texts of Holy Scripture spoken by the Son of God Himself (Matt. 16:18-19; Luke 22:31-33; John 21:15-17) for maintaing the visible unity of the Church amidst the inevitable schisms and heresies that would mark Her history across the centuries.

If the Church has remained undivided in Her visible unity despite schisms and heresies (and it has), it is because She possesses by the grace of the Holy Spirit an indefectible and infallible Chief Bishop, the successor of Peter.

Interestingly, the desirability of a Universal Primacy in the Church (historically declared "heretical" by those Orthodox all too eager to maintain the Schism with the Apostolic See of Rome) was upheld by Constantinople in the heydays of Byzantium as it sought supremacy over all Eastern Sees.

Today we see Constantinople again claiming to exercise a Universal Primacy in Pan-Orthodoxy with Moscow charging the Patriarchate of Constantinople with "Papism". Now that Constantinople has broken eucharistic communion with Moscow over Ukranian autocephaly (resulting in a real Schism), perhaps you can state which Church or Churches siding with either disputant are the "true Orthodox"?

Hoping the above will clarify Catholic teaching on matters you sent for comment and in prayer that "All may be one in God's 'one Flock'", in His "one and only Church... 'that the world may believe'",

 

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