"What Is the Orthodox Faith? 9 Facts about the Orthodox Church"

SineNomine
SineNomine Member Posts: 7,043
edited November 20 in Resources Forum

The Logos Blog has a new post about the Orthodox. Please read it: https://blog.logos.com/2019/06/what-is-the-orthodox-faith-9-facts-about-the-orthodox-church/ 

It's nice to see a post about Orthodoxy on the blog, and I hope it drives sales.

The blog post is, alas, erroneous with regard to certain important historical matters.

1. It is not true that there were no divisions in "the Church" before 1054 other than tensions between East and West. In fact, there were plenty of divisions, principally within the East, centuries prior to this time, including divisions that remain to this very day.

2. Not all of the Eastern Churches used a Greek liturgy in 1054. Recall, for example, the earlier mission work of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, which had the approbation of both the Bishop of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople.

3. The filioque was not denounced at "the Council of Constantinople." In fact, there are two Councils known by that name (occurring in 381 and 787) and neither denounced it.

4. Cardinal Humbert and the other papal legates did indeed promulgate a Decree of Excommunication of Patriarch Michael I Cerularius and his associates, but this Bull had no actual canonical effect (even from a Roman perspective), for the legates had no canonical authority at the time of its promulgation... because the pope who had sent them was already dead. (Incidentally, neither East nor West, at the time, treated the mutual excommunications as a schism dividing East and West.)

5. The Eastern Orthodox churches do not, strictly speaking, employ the Nicene Creed. They in fact employ the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. The Latin Church employs the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed with the addition of "filioque".

6. Among the Orthodox (and beyond), Sts. John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, and Gregory of Nazianzus have not become known as "the three holy hierarchies," but as the three holy hierarchs.

“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara

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