Re: [Leica] feuds

[Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>]

At 08:49 AM 5/15/2001 -0700, Brian Reid wrote:
>What was the fight about? Almost nothing, seen through the lens of
>history. The Roman church wanted the Nicene Creed to say "the Holy
>Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, proceeds from the Father and the
>Son", while the Eastern Church (centered in Constantinople) didn't like
>the words "and the Son" at the end. That phrase is called "the
>filioque" "feel e OH kay", and arguing about it has lasted a thousand
>years, a dozen crusades, sacking, burning, pillaging, and so forth.

Brian

The above simply isn't true.  The dispute was about control and
organization of the Church -- the Latinate Church felt that Christ's
comment about Peter, the first Bishop of Rome -- "you are Peter, the rock
on which I build my church" -- provided the Bishop of Rome with the
authority to be summus ecclesiastorum and adopted a hierarchical structure
which claimed itself free of temporal authority, while the Eastern Churches
opted for a broader source of authority, with several Metropolitans of
equal authority, resolving differences in conciliam, and subjecting itself
to temporal authority.  The filioque clause had little bearing on the
division;  the underlying argument over Church authority did.

In fine, the Orthodox argued that the Papacy was claiming a supremacy over
their churches which they did not feel justified, as they viewed the Bishop
of Rome as only the primus inter pares and, therefore, capable of presiding
at councils, but with no real authority beyond this, while the Papists
contended that the Orthodox were denying the clear word of Christ by
refusing to acknowledge the absolute authority of the Pope.

It is a fascinating period of history, but the argument between these two
divisions of Christianity is not one subject to easy condensation, nor is
the reasoning behind the Orthodox objections to the visit of John Paul II
to Greece, which is, ad verissime rem ipsam, logical and rational to the
adherents of Orthodoxy.

It really isn't fair to reduce these matters into simplistic terms nor, for
that matter, to use theologic matters in an effort to make a point of
logic, as all religion, ultimately, is a matter of faith.

Marc

msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!