Scott1
Well-Known Member
IacobPersul (James) and I started a conversation in another thread.... but this is the proper place to have this discussion.
Question: What are the prospects of unity for the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Catholic Churches?
What are the major conflicts?
How do we achieve unity?
Scott
Question: What are the prospects of unity for the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Catholic Churches?
What are the major conflicts?
How do we achieve unity?
I hope a few others jump in with their views..... if not, I'll start in on this later.IacobPersul said:I'm not sure what it would take for reunion in the opinion of other Orthodox, but from my own point of view I'm afraid to say that most of the give would have to be on the Roman Catholic side.
Firstly, we're unlikely to get anywhere while the Uniate issue is so hot. What I mean is, the Uniates in the Ukraine should stop asking for their Cardinal to be a Patriarch, amicable discussions over Church property should be begun etc. I'm not one to suggest the Uniates shouldn't exist, but they need to stop antagonising (often deliberately) the Orthodox. I don't think this should be too hard to achieve, though.
On matters of doctrine, there are really two major issues I can see, and these are the ones that precipitated the Schism in the first place. Firstly, the Pope must be willing to be first in honour without having authority over the other Patriarchs and secondly the filioque must be removed from the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. These are really non-negotiable, I feel. I realise that the Roman Catholic understanding of the filioque has started to move closer to the understanding we have of the Holy Spirit only having His origin in the Father and an economic procession through the Son, but the Creed is solely concerned with the origin of the Holy Spirit and not how He comes into the world in history.
There are, of course, a host of lesser issues, but these are the only ones I feel would need to be accepted up front. The others could probably be settled in a council.
Scott