An Orthodox Converting to Eastern Catholicism (Hypothetical)

[Justin Kissel]

I was wondering about something (dangerous, I know). Suppose an Orthodox Christian didn't really have a strong position on papal supremacy or infallibility--that is, they thought both sides had good arguments and they could go either way. Let's also suppose they didn't have issues with things like purgatory or the immaculate conception, though they personally wouldn't be dogmatic about such things. Now suppose this person got engaged to an Eastern Catholic person. What roadblocks would there be to this person becoming Eastern Catholic? Are the papal issues the main roadblocks? What are the sticking points here? And would it be apostasy in your opinion for the EO to become EC?


EDIT--I kant spelll apostasy apparentlee

[mike]

It would be an apostasy.

[Αριστοκλής]

Do we assume you are asking this of the ECs/RCs?

[Justin Kissel]

I was wondering about all opinions. It's not a situation I'm in (obviously), I was just curious. I figured since it was about EO/EC relations this was the best section to put it in.

[Αριστοκλής]

I still cannot understand your question. Roadblocks? Roadblocks how or to what? From the RC perspective or ours?

[Justin Kissel]

I guess I'm wondering if there are good reasons for such a person not to become Eastern Catholic... 

[Αριστοκλής]

I guess I'm wondering if there are good reasons for such a person not to become Eastern Catholic... 

That is what I thought, but was not sure, you were asking. I cannot see where we would have an opinion, RCs/ECs sure, but not us.

[Charles Martel]

It would be an apostasy.

To some people. 

[Justin Kissel]

I cannot see where we would have an opinion, RCs/ECs sure, but not us.

Maybe some of them will post here...

*bump*

[theistgal]

Do you want us to? I thought you were looking for reasons NOT to do so.

[theistgal]

FWIW my opinion is you should think about it carefully, pray about it A LOT and go where God and your conscience lead you.

[Ashman618]

My parish priest does not teach the immaculate conception, He says theosis is a process last lasts eternally after bodily death and as far as I know has never said anything about purgatory, the Filioque as been eliminated from the creed.  However during the Divine Liturgy He does pray for the holy most supreme pontiff, so as far as I can tell the Pope would be the deterrent, that and the Holy Mysteries not being legit.

[jah777]

I guess I'm wondering if there are good reasons for such a person not to become Eastern Catholic... 

Separation from the body of Christ and being cut off from the deifying mysteries would be sufficient reasons not to apostatize. 

[domNoah]

I was wondering about something (dangerous, I know). Suppose an Orthodox Christian didn't really have a strong position on papal supremacy or infallibility--that is, they thought both sides had good arguments and they could go either way. Let's also suppose they didn't have issues with things like purgatory or the immaculate conception, though they personally wouldn't be dogmatic about such things. Now suppose this person got engaged to an Eastern Catholic person. What roadblocks would there be to this person becoming Eastern Catholic? Are the papal issues the main roadblocks? What are the sticking points here? And would it be apostasy in your opinion for the EO to become EC?


EDIT--I kant spelll apostasy apparentlee

There would not be any roadblocks,it is very easy for an Orthodox to come over and be union with Rome.

However, to become Catholic is to consent to all that the Catholic Church teaches.  Our theology would condemn a convert who picked and chose what dogmas he was going to follow.

[MarkosC]

I'm not sure what would happen at an average Latin Catholic parish....

...but in my experience with Greek Catholic parishes is that there literally is no obstacle.  You show up, attend, and as long as you assert your baptism/chrismation is "valid" to use the Latin scholastic term, you're OK (this goes for Orthodox, Latin Catholics, even new Eastern Catholics.  AFAIK, there's no requirement to prove any of these things).   Really, given that Orthodox may reiceive the eucharist (from our standpoint), what obstacle or additional requirement would there be?  (and would such an obstacle be ecclesiologically defensible?)

Come to think of it, it would be even more so in a Latin Catholic parish.  Every one I've been to is so large that you have to make a genuine effort to get to know people, and if all you wanted to do is come in each week for church, no one would stop you.   

For what it's worth, I've know a few who've gone Orthodox to Greek Catholic (and a few more vice versa).  In each Orthodox to Greek Catholic case, pastoral issues were the reason (obviously the parishes in question are arguably better pastored than their local Orthodox counterparts.  I doubt poorly pastored parishes have any new members....).  One heartbreaking case was the son of a founder of an Orthodox parish who doesn't want to attend the parish he grew up in, because he doesn't speak the ethnic language, the services are all in the ethnic language and because he feels the people at the old parish are unwelcoming.     

[Father H]

I was wondering about something (dangerous, I know). Suppose an Orthodox Christian didn't really have a strong position on papal supremacy or infallibility--that is, they thought both sides had good arguments and they could go either way. Let's also suppose they didn't have issues with things like purgatory or the immaculate conception, though they personally wouldn't be dogmatic about such things. Now suppose this person got engaged to an Eastern Catholic person. What roadblocks would there be to this person becoming Eastern Catholic? Are the papal issues the main roadblocks? What are the sticking points here? And would it be apostasy in your opinion for the EO to become EC?


EDIT--I kant spelll apostasy apparentlee

I will just repeat retired Metropolitan Maximos on this.  The main issues in dialogue are God's being (essence & energy, and, subsequently, a continued disagreement on the Holy Spirit and the Holy Trinity in general, and its correllary effects on ecclesiology, marriage, relationships, etc.); and Christ as the sole head of the Church.   

[xariskai]

The Orthodox Church is more than an intellectual communion. It is a mystical body.

Joining any group that is not in communion with the one holy catholic and apostolic Church is problematic from an Orthodox perspective regardless of what intellectual sticking points are involved.

One can agree intellectually with 100% of Orthodox doctrine and still be out of communion with the Orthodox Church. That is the problem we have with groups like Jordan Bajis's Holy Trinity Orthodox Church; cf. also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Orthodox_Church

[Peter J]

I was wondering about something (dangerous, I know). Suppose an Orthodox Christian didn't really have a strong position on papal supremacy or infallibility--that is, they thought both sides had good arguments and they could go either way. Let's also suppose they didn't have issues with things like purgatory or the immaculate conception, though they personally wouldn't be dogmatic about such things. Now suppose this person got engaged to an Eastern Catholic person. What roadblocks would there be to this person becoming Eastern Catholic? Are the papal issues the main roadblocks? What are the sticking points here? And would it be apostasy in your opinion for the EO to become EC?


EDIT--I kant spelll apostasy apparentlee

Hi. So as I read it, this hypothetical person isn't a free agent who is debating between joining Orthodoxy and joining Catholicism; but rather someone already in Orthodoxy and thinking about leaving it for Catholicism. In that case I think the most relevant text is Balamand: "Pastoral activity in the Catholic Church, Latin as well as Eastern, no longer aims at having the faithful of one Church pass over to the other; that is to say, it no longer aims at proselytizing among the Orthodox."

[Peter J]

I'm not sure what would happen at an average Latin Catholic parish....

...but in my experience with Greek Catholic parishes is that there literally is no obstacle.  You show up, attend, and as long as you assert your baptism/chrismation is "valid" to use the Latin scholastic term, you're OK (this goes for Orthodox, Latin Catholics, even new Eastern Catholics.  AFAIK, there's no requirement to prove any of these things).   Really, given that Orthodox may reiceive the eucharist (from our standpoint), what obstacle or additional requirement would there be?  (and would such an obstacle be ecclesiologically defensible?)

Certainly, but we wouldn't claim that such persons have converted to Catholicism.

[Justin Kissel]

The engagement mentioned in the OP was, I thought, an important part of the question. One assumes that after marriage children will come. Would both parents being in the same Church make for a better home life? prayer life? raising the kids? getting along? going to the same parish?

[Father H]

The Orthodox Church is more than an intellectual communion. It is a mystical body.

Joining any group that is not in communion with the one holy catholic and apostolic Church is problematic from an Orthodox perspective regardless of what intellectual sticking points are involved.

One can agree intellectually with 100% of Orthodox doctrine and still be out of communion with the Orthodox Church. That is the problem we have with groups like Jordan Bajis's Holy Trinity Orthodox Church; cf. also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Orthodox_Church

Basically every other post thusfar except for yours has an assumed "besides the fact that they would be leaving the Church, the following issues are at hand..."  However, yours states this expressly, which is much appreciated.  That being said, they are not simply intellectual sticking points.  They are the Orthodox Faith and affect life.   

[Peter J]

The engagement mentioned in the OP was, I thought, an important part of the question. One assumes that after marriage children will come. Would both parents being in the same Church make for a better home life? prayer life? raising the kids? getting along? going to the same parish?

True. I guess there's no getting around the fact that our two churches aren't so close as to make a mixed marriage easy. (In general, I mean. I believe there are some Eastern Catholics for whom a "mixed marriage" would actually be easier than an LC-EC marriage.)

[Nathanael]

FWIW my opinion is you should think about it carefully, pray about it A LOT and go where God and your conscience lead you.

Nope. Go where God and your heart lead you! My conscience tells me sometimes to go to RCC, but it's just a power in my mind, so I can ignore it totally.

[The young fogey]

Questions like this are interesting, which is why they're often bait on message boards. Good to see this conversation is civil.

Online Orthodox tend to be converts who read their way in through studying theology so of course in places like this you'll get a strong repetition of Orthodoxy's one-true-church claim. Catholicism claims to be the one true church too.

On paper, Orthodoxy's one-true-church claim is narrower than Catholicism's. The Catholic Church sees the Orthodox as an estranged part of itself. All Orthodox defined doctrine is true (to Catholicism, Orthodoxy's Catholicism written in 11th-century Greek terms); the Orthodox have real bishops and a real Mass. So sacramentally corporate union is possible (the clergy would be received as clergy, the way the Eastern Catholic churches were started), and as domNoah wrote, individual conversion is much easier than bringing in an ex-Protestant. I think all you have to do is make a profession of faith witnessed by the Catholic priest. Make your confession if you need to, make your Communion in the Catholic Church and, if you were a born Orthodox or an Orthodox convert who was not a born Latin Catholic, you're an Eastern Catholic, officially belonging to the Eastern Catholic church corresponding to the Orthodox one you came from (so Antiochian Orthodox would become Melkite, etc.).

The Orthodox on paper have no doctrine mirroring Rome's recognition of their orders and sacraments so you get a wide range of opinion. In practice they often do mirror Rome's recognition (so an ex-Eastern Catholic wouldn't be received by chrismation, ex-Catholic priests are received in their orders, etc.). But not always. There are strict jurisdictions that receive all converts, including Christians such as ex-Catholics, by baptism. Because the only Orthodox doctrine about this is 'Orthodox sacraments have grace'; the rest is a big unknown. So to such hardliners (monks on Mount Athos and many online converts, for example), an Eastern Catholic church is like a Protestant church such as the Episcopalians putting on an Eastern liturgy: no real priesthood, no guaranteed real presence of Christ. So they see an Orthodox becoming an Eastern Catholic as just like becoming a Protestant.

In 20+ years of knowing Eastern Christians I've only met one born Orthodox who switched, for probably the reason most of the few who switch either way do: he married an Eastern Catholic.

In the churches' ethnic bases in America you now see almost no movement back and forth. The ethnic born Eastern Catholics don't identify with the Orthodox at all. It's basically Latin Catholicism with a modified Eastern liturgy. I'm thinking mostly of Slavs: Ukrainians (the biggest Eastern Catholic church) and Ruthenians.

Then there are the Melkites here and in their homelands, Syria and Lebanon. In practice, never mind the one-true-church claims. There the Melkite and Antiochian Orthodox laity are functionally one church: they intermarry (the wife always joins her husband's church, no questions asked), intercommune and are baptized and chrismated at each other's churches. The only division is the clergy don't concelebrate. So many Arab immigrant Melkites are technically born Orthodox and vice versa.

So enough about theory and high-flying theology. Practically for you it probably wouldn't be a big deal, depending on your background. Again to Arab Christians, no big deal. Greeks, Russians and convert Antiochians? A big deal.

One can agree intellectually with 100% of Orthodox doctrine and still be out of communion with the Orthodox Church.

Right. You have 'outliers' in the Orthodox communion such as the Old Calendarist churches (in which I understand one of our hosts is a priest) and the Russian Old Believers, technically not in the Orthodox communion but 'still in the family'. In practice they're almost always recognized (received into the official church in their orders, etc.). You have occasional phenomena like the Evangelical Orthodox Church, the faction that didn't join Antioch, essentially Protestants who are self-ordained and believe in everything Orthodox yet stay out for some reason.

Likewise among Eastern Catholics you have the extremely rare phenomenon of 'Orthodox in communion with Rome', almost always converts/born Roman Riters who switched. Not to be confused with the converts who try to do exactly what Rome tells Eastern Catholics: be just like the Orthodox liturgically. The OicwRs follow Rome on that but side with Orthodox opinion against post-schism Roman defined doctrine, which doesn't make sense. Usually they end up just passing through; they get fed up and become Orthodox.

My parish priest does not teach the immaculate conception, He says theosis is a process last lasts eternally after bodily death and as far as I know has never said anything about purgatory, the Filioque has been eliminated from the creed.

There are Eastern Catholics who do what Rome tells them — express Catholicism in Orthodox terms, which this might be. (For example: Mary is all-holy/sinless but if you're using Byzantine theology to describe original sin, you don't need the Latin description of the Immaculate Conception. Not really denying the IC.) Then there are the OicwRs.

So as I read it, this hypothetical person isn't a free agent who is debating between joining Orthodoxy and joining Catholicism; but rather someone already in Orthodoxy and thinking about leaving it for Catholicism. In that case I think the most relevant text is Balamand: "Pastoral activity in the Catholic Church, Latin as well as Eastern, no longer aims at having the faithful of one Church pass over to the other; that is to say, it no longer aims at proselytizing among the Orthodox."

This needs explaining. Catholicism's big goal isn't individual conversions but to bring in the Orthodox intact. But, because, like the Orthodox, Catholicism claims to be the true church, of course it still accepts individual conversions; it just doesn't solicit never-Catholic Orthodox to individually switch. (The Eastern Catholic churches are mostly attempts to convert the Orthodox that largely failed for various reasons, including Russian expansion and persecution.) It accepts them, but quietly.

According to its doctrine, the Catholic Church doesn't tell you to hate the Orthodox tradition, which is why in part the Eastern Catholic churches exist. They often fall far short of the goal, but they're supposed to show that regard for that tradition: how those churches should work under Rome.

[Peter J]

So sacramentally corporate union is possible (the clergy would be received as clergy, the way the Eastern Catholic churches were started),

But we Catholics are very clear on our stance that a future corporate union will be different from the Union of Brest etc (even if we don't have an agreed-upon stance on how exactly it will be different).

[The young fogey]

So sacramentally corporate union is possible (the clergy would be received as clergy, the way the Eastern Catholic churches were started),

But we Catholics are very clear on our stance that a future corporate union will be different from the Union of Brest etc. (even if we don't have an agreed-upon stance on how exactly it will be different).

Please explain as I don't know enough about the Union of Brest to understand this yet. I thought the ground rules were more or less the same as now: don't latinize; just come under Rome. They joined in order to stop being oppressed by their then-ruler Poland (then a big European power), which didn't work. The new church was big at first: much of Russian Orthodoxy then. The metropolitan of Kiev and the church north into Byelorussia. But over the centuries the Ukraine diminished and Moscow/Russia expanded, persecuting the Ukrainian Catholics as it moved west, leaving the Ukrainian Catholics really only in Polish Galicia (Russia absorbed the rest of the Ukraine in the 1600s) until Stalin stole that in WWII. (The first Eastern Slavs I knew were WWII refugees from there; they said they weren't Russian and were majority Ukrainian Catholic, which was all true of their home area.) And over those centuries the Ukrainian Catholics mostly disobeyed Rome by latinizing themselves, adding the filioque for example.

Also, interestingly, I think for much of Eastern Catholic history there wasn't intercommunion with Roman Riters; union was only at the top. I think the disciplinary rule was you normally could receive Communion only in your own rite. But then there's the matter of ignorant, etc., Roman Rite priests uncanonically stealing Eastern Catholics; it probably goes on now and I imagine it did back in the day, in America where the Roman and Byzantine rites met and clashed (so some Slavs a few generations ago became Orthodox, often Russian Orthodox). Maybe with no malice now: as the old rule is probably gone, I think a lot of younger Eastern Catholics just go Roman Rite when they move somewhere, marry Roman Riters, etc. Their children could be technically Eastern and not even know it (until one wants to be a priest for example).

Ukrainian Catholic practice: a few Russianisms (Cyrillic alphabet, onion domes, icons and married priests) to show you're not Polish; a lot of Polishisms (clean-shaven priests, the Rosary and the Sacred Heart) to show you're not Russian. They used to use Slavonic in church, like the Russians but with a Ukrainian accent, but now use modern Ukrainian. Their survival story under the Soviets is heroic: banned so they kept going, underground. Galicia is the home base of Ukrainianism.

[theistgal]

I thought the ground rules were more or less the same as now: don't latinize; just come under Rome.

The problem is that seems to be a contradiction in terms. 

[augustin717]

Sometimes bishops that started the union with Rome were re-ordained by RC clergy. It happened to bishop Atanasie Anghel who, although ordained as an orthodox bishop in Bucuresti or Targoviste, was re-ordained in the Roman rite by the abp of Esztergom for the Romanians in Transylvania (Greek rite).

[The young fogey]

Indeed, theistgal. Like I said: falling short of the goal.

Sometimes bishops that started the union with Rome were re-ordained by RC clergy. It happened to bishop Atanasie Anghel who, although ordained as an orthodox bishop in Bucuresti or Targoviste, was re-ordained in the Roman rite by the abp of Esztergom for the Romanians in Transylvania (Greek rite).

Never heard of that. If true, it must have been extraordinary circumstances or simply a mistake. The bishops who came into the Ukrainian Catholic and Melkite churches weren't; nor was the Russian bishop of Bryansk, Paul, who in a rare case in the 1900s became Catholic.

The tiny Russian Greek Catholic Church started with a few 1890s Russian intelligentsia reading their way into Catholicism; Pope St Pius X, realizing what a hash the self-latinized Ukrainian Catholics had become, making them impossible for the task of trying to convert the Russian Orthodox, 'chartered' the small church, again with the order of being exactly like the Russian Orthodox liturgically. Always tiny and the Soviets squashed it in Russia. Another attempt to convert the Orthodox that failed. They haven't had a bishop officially running them for many decades; I think Bishop Paul was a sacramental bishop for them but not their diocesan bishop. (He died in the '50s or '60s.) Today they're a few tiny parishes in America made up of non-Russian ex-Roman Riters who love Russia and Orthodoxy but believe in the Pope too. (Source: I've been to St Michael's, New York, several times.) They have a saying: 'We have bishops, only right now they happen not to be Catholic', meaning of course the Russian Church, the OCA, etc.

Bigger than that are the few Russian Roman Riters, Soviet-raised formerly unchurched Russians who joined. Low-profile with a non-Russian archbishop; they don't push for a revival of the Russian Greek Catholic Church, which has a couple of parishes in Russia (again, ex-Orthodox are welcomed aboard quietly); they know they're a guest barely tolerated in an Orthodox country and are working for the long-term goal of corporate union, per Rome's orders.

[augustin717]

Where the RC had the upper hand politically, in former centuries,  and the Orthodox were just a amprphous group of illiterate peasants with no upper classes of their own, as it was the case in Transylvania with the Romanians, things like these happened. Atanasie Anghel was reordained by Cardinal Kolonici in March 1701.

[The young fogey]

Where the RC had the upper hand politically, in former centuries,  and the Orthodox were just a amprphous group of illiterate peasants with no upper classes of their own, as it was the case in Transylvania with the Romanians, things like these happened. Atanasie Anghel was reordained by Cardinal Kolonici in March 1701.

It was a mistake. They were going against Catholic doctrine by doing that.

[xariskai]

The Orthodox Church is more than an intellectual communion. It is a mystical body.

Joining any group that is not in communion with the one holy catholic and apostolic Church is problematic from an Orthodox perspective regardless of what intellectual sticking points are involved.

One can agree intellectually with 100% of Orthodox doctrine and still be out of communion with the Orthodox Church. That is the problem we have with groups like Jordan Bajis's Holy Trinity Orthodox Church; cf. also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Orthodox_Church

Basically every other post thusfar except for yours has an assumed "besides the fact that they would be leaving the Church, the following issues are at hand..."  However, yours states this expressly, which is much appreciated.  That being said, they are not simply intellectual sticking points.  They are the Orthodox Faith and affect life.   

+1 

[Peter J]

So sacramentally corporate union is possible (the clergy would be received as clergy, the way the Eastern Catholic churches were started),

But we Catholics are very clear on our stance that a future corporate union will be different from the Union of Brest etc. (even if we don't have an agreed-upon stance on how exactly it will be different).

Please explain

To be honest, one of the ongoing frustrations of my life is that we Catholics can't seem to be clear and consistent regard how the future union will be different.

One possible interpretation (the cynical interpretation, I would call it) is that the only real difference is that the next union will be a mega union. (Or perhaps I should say a mega mega union, since Brest could be considered a mega union.)

[augustin717]

It's interesting that in Transylvania, Banat and Partium where the Romanians/Vlachs formed the vast majority of the Orthodox population (with some Serbs and Ruthenians too) although  the Vlachs had no aristocracy of their own recognized as such ( "natio", unlike the Hungarians or the Germans) and great pressure all throughout the 18th century (Maria Theresa especially) was put on them by the imperial govt to embrace the Unia, Greek-Catholicism never became the dominant church (numerically). It was in some districts and counties, but overall it stayed somewhere around 30-40%. There was a strong  class element to this resistance to which peasant  folklore bears witness. Catholicism and Protestantism too were seen by the Romanian serfs as the masters' religions. So staying Orthodox was often an act of quite desperate defiance . in their petitions to Maria Theresa or Joseph II they often said you took us our land, the landlords take our crops etc but the faith of our ancestors we won't trade with you. And although I don't really give a hoot about the 4 dogmatic Florentine points I kinda like this attitude. Given the circumstances.

[The young fogey]

It's interesting that in Transylvania, Banat and Partium where the Romanians/Vlachs formed the vast majority of the Orthodox population (with some Serbs and Ruthenians too) although  the Vlachs had no aristocracy of their own recognized as such ( "natio", unlike the Hungarians or the Germans) and great pressure all throughout the 18th century (Maria Theresa especially) was put on them by the imperial govt to embrace the Unia, Greek-Catholicism never became the dominant church (numerically). It was in some districts and counties, but overall it stayed somewhere around 30-40%. ...

I'd read that on another board years ago: before WWII it was that percentage of the country, a big minority; proportionally the biggest in an Eastern European nation? (The Ukrainian Catholics had more numbers; the huge majority in Galicia etc. but small in Poland overall.) You don't hear much about them; Western indifference or maybe the Communists much diminished them (so their descendents are unchurched?). I understand it was the same story as with other Eastern European Greek Catholics: all the bishops, most of the priests and many of the laity refused the Communist order to break with Rome. The Romanian of Greek Catholic heritage I've met: his family switched to the Roman Rite instead of going along.

[ialmisry]

Where the RC had the upper hand politically, in former centuries,  and the Orthodox were just a amprphous group of illiterate peasants with no upper classes of their own, as it was the case in Transylvania with the Romanians, things like these happened. Atanasie Anghel was reordained by Cardinal Kolonici in March 1701.

Which is odd, seeing as they had insisted on the apostate Atanasie to feign Orthodoxy and go to Bucharest for consecration, and then had him as metropolitan petition for "union."

[augustin717]

http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fi%C8%99ier:Romania_1930_ortodocsi_si_greco-catolici.png
Inter-war Romania (1930)
In  yellow  are the counties where the GC formed the majority but with important Orthodox  minority.
In green the counties where the Orthodox formed the majority but with an important GC minority.
In blue the counties where the Orthodox formed an absolute majority with no GC.

[augustin717]

Where the RC had the upper hand politically, in former centuries,  and the Orthodox were just a amprphous group of illiterate peasants with no upper classes of their own, as it was the case in Transylvania with the Romanians, things like these happened. Atanasie Anghel was reordained by Cardinal Kolonici in March 1701.

Which is odd, seeing as they had insisted on the apostate Atanasie to feign Orthodoxy and go to Bucharest for consecration, and then had him as metropolitan petition for "union."

He was consecrated metropolitan by metr. Theodosius of Ungrovlachia and Dositheos Nottaras of Jerusalem.

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