Ecumenical Councils III

For those not keeping track of the ongoing discussion, Mike Liccione has responded to my previous post over at his blog Sacramentum Vitae. His response was as always, both cordial and thought provoking. There are now over 100 comments between the thread at Cathedra Unitas and Mike’s thread over at SV. Thank you to everyone who has commented. Given the large number of comments many of the counterpoints which I had intended to make in reply to Mike’s post have inevitably already been addressed. Also in a couple of cases Mike appears to be repeating questions and concerns which I raised in my aforementioned post. However I do think it desirable to very briefly amplify some of my previous comments and respond to a few items he raised.

First, I want to correct what may be a misapprehension. My previous post was not intended as a declaration that I think we are on the verge of restoring communion with Rome. Nor was it intended to lay out a blue print for that process to occur. Rather it was an observation that there is some peculiar wording in the joint declaration from the most recent discussions between the various Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church on some of the theological issues dividing us. Specifically I was referring to a phrase which I thought rather inconsistent with the customary understanding of the Latin position vis a vis their take on the councils of the Roman Church post 1054. It appears to be a very slight hedging on their part. A half step if you will back from the usual line that those councils are true ecumenical councils whose declarations are binding upon the Church Universal. I noted there, and wish to reiterate, my skepticism that Rome sees the wording in that light. Mike’s own response has much strengthened that skepticism.

However on the off chance that I am wrong, I opined that this would be a significant move on the part of the Western Church that could open the door to a much more serious discussion. But to be honest I must join many of the Roman Catholic commenters over at SV as also Owen the Ochlophobist in expressing my profound pessimism at the prospect of restoration of communion. But if there is any chance of it happening this is probably how it would start. At present I tend to see the annual meetings between our churches as useful for building personal good will and better understanding. But beyond that I think they are of limited use. Unless the terrain on which we are all dancing shifts there is a limit to what these discussions can accomplish.

To whit in a recent discussion over at SV Mike and I had an interesting and almost amusing exchange. He had been arguing that Orthodoxy need not cease to be, and become Catholic (large ‘C’) in order for communion to be restored. This has been a recurring theme on his part and one that I (and Owen) have generally been skeptical of. Prompting the following…

Mike,
For clarification, does your vision of restored communion between Orthodoxy and Rome include acceptance on the part of the Eastern Churches of the post schism doctrinal definitions of the Western Church?

ICXC
John
Ad Orientem | Homepage | 11.04.07 - 11:33 am | #

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John:

I've often answered that question before. But before I resurrect that horse, I have a question for you: would healing the schism between the EOs and the OOs require the latter to accept the Christology of Chalcedon?

Best,
Mike
Mike L | Homepage | 11.04.07 - 1:34 pm | #

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Mike,
Yes.

ICXC
John
Ad Orientem | Homepage | 11.04.07 - 5:03 pm | #

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John:

Yes.

Best,
Mike
Mike L | Homepage | 11.04.07 - 6:00 pm | #

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The premise of my previous post is based on Mike’s above answer becoming a “no.” A true Ecumenical Council aimed at reconciliation must in my opinion, begin from the idea that there has not been a true council whose definitions are binding on The Church since before the schism. (We shall for the moment ignore the question of the dating of the schism which Dr. Tighe has written about extensively.) This is what I meant when I asked if Rome was prepared to take the risk of walking into such a council. It would have to be one, whose outcome was not limited to two possible scenarios, acceptance of the western doctrinal developments or failure. In the current discussion over at SV, I noted that if the lack of a dogmatic anathema from Orthodoxy was the basis for the Western Church’s dreams of a restored communion then it is precisely the fact that Rome has dogmatized certain beliefs which must be reduced to theologumen in order for such a council to even have a chance of ever meeting that constitute the greatest barrier. If the purpose of such a council is for us to simply show up and rubber stamp the West’s dogmas they can save themselves the postage for the invitations.

Even beyond the monumentally improbable agreement of Rome to such a premise there are as I see it a whole series of other challenges to this scenario further adding to my profound skepticism. Mike raised the specter of a number of obstacles mostly relative to our side. Not only do I concede the existence of these obstacles, I actually wrote about many of them in my below post. Any serious attempt at a meeting with the Roman Catholic Church for the avowed purpose of restoring communion will absolutely spark schisms within Orthodoxy and it will lend weight to some that already exist. Being frank there is some occasional frustration in belonging to a church whose ecclesiology makes one despair of a great council being able to agree on a bathroom break without provoking another schism. But I think that if Rome announced it was backing off its dogmatic claims of authority for the Western Church councils it would be almost impossible for the Orthodox not to show up. (Yes, even the Russians.) This of course does not mean that we should expect Rome to show up and denounce the theogumen of their church as heretical before we finish the introductions. That would be just as unreasonable as the reverse scenario which I have already noted would be a nonstarter. But any council must begin with the premise that nothing is carved in stone for either church that has not been dogmatized by the decrees of the first seven councils. This might not only be challenging for the RCC but also for us since many (perhaps most) Orthodox recognize nine ecumenical councils the last two of which are most definitely NOT recognized by Rome.

In fairness I think many Roman Catholics enormously underestimate the deep opposition that would arise in their own church to such a move. Liberal Catholics would do almost anything to sabotage such a council and probably at least some would break off in schism over it. They would know with absolute clarity the danger posed to their ambitions by an Orthodox Catholic rapprochement. Personally I don’t see many orthodox Catholics shedding a lot of tears over that. But then you have to address the subject of the Traditionalists. These will oppose any concession to Orthodoxy beyond a willingness to let us kneel and kiss the Pope’s ring. Those who doubt this should take a look at some of the responses over at Rorate Caeli on the rare occasions I comment there. These people, who are already highly suspicious of Rome’s commitment to all manner of what they define as tradition ranging from the Tridentine Mass to ecumenism will bolt in large numbers if they think Rome is yielding even an inch. They are the Western equivalent to our Old Calendarists.

Yet another challenge posed to such an undertaking was noted by Owen, my favorite Ochlophobist. He points out in an extensive comment at SV that the absence of dogmatic anathemas are moot since many of the Western Church’s dogmatic developments are expressly repudiated in the words of our liturgy. This in itself opens a whole new can of worms. I refer the reader to his comment which should be read in its entirety.

And if all this is not enough, yet another interesting challenge that Mike throws out is the very definition of what is an ecumenical council.

In Orthodox terms, a given council counts as "ecumenical" only if the participating bishops represent the Church as a whole and its decrees are received by the Church as a whole. In that usage, the term "ecumenical" is primarily empirical rather than normative. It tells us what is, or would be, the case, and that is logically distinct from what ought to be the case, which is what Rome's usage ostensibly tells us. Now from Rome's standpoint a given council would count as ecumenical in the normative sense ('ecumenical-N') if, in fact, it counts as ecumenical in the empirical sense ('ecumenical-E'). For a council that would count as ecumenical-E, in both Catholic and Orthodox terms, would entail Rome's assent and ratification, which from Rome's standpoint would suffice to make it ecumenical-N. And even if the Orthodox faithful as a whole did not "receive" the decrees of such a council because of Rome's assent and ratification, such a council would in fact count as ecumenical in Orthodox terms, i.e. as ecumenical-E. By common consent, any council that is ecumenical-E would also be ecumenical-N.

As he notes in Roman Catholic ecclesiology a council is ecumenical if the Pope says it is. Ignoring the remarkable convenience of such a position and the questions this raises about the eighth council (879-880) and Rome’s assent (withdrawn in the eleventh century in favor of the Robber Council) it once again places the Orthodox in the position of being in a meeting for the sole purpose of rubber stamping the decrees of the Latin Church. Again such a proposition is a nonstarter. To borrow Mike’s terminology, in Orthodoxy a council that wishes to be Ecumenical N must also be Ecumenical E. The Latin approach negates the very concept of a council as understood in Orthodoxy.

If however the stars are all in alignment and thousands of saints are praying at once for a miracle, maybe something could actually happen. One very likely outcome of such a hypothetical council (presuming its success) would be a more developed ecclesiology on the part of the Orthodox Church. I have argued for a long time that Orthodoxy has greatly devalued the role of primacy over the last thousand plus years. This has been due to a number of factors including at least on some level a certain knee jerk reaction to the ultramontane decrees emanating from the West. I also think we might see a deeper appreciation for a less rigid ecclesiology on the part of the Roman Church. Exactly what the final form would take is purely speculative and I am content to leave that for others to dream about.

But in the end; this is all just some ruminations based on a weird choice of words stuck almost accidentally it seems, in an otherwise relatively bland document from the latest set of discussions that I tend to think of as the clerical equivalent to congressional junkets. A great excuse to travel and go to some nice cocktail parties. To move beyond that we will need some true miracles on both sides of this gulf.

[Note: This post has been slightly edited for grammar.]