Of Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy: Which is the true Church?

Both sides share the blame for the separation; and yet there is still only one Church, hence Pope John Paul II’s fervent wish that the Church breathe again with her two lungs…

I’m just sharing a short essay I wrote on Yahoo! Answers, where an inquirer named David recently asked whether Catholicism or Orthodoxy represented the “One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” founded by Christ. Briefly stating the differences, especially as to Papal authority and the filioque, he said: “I want to know what Catholics, Orthodox and I guess Protestants think about this. Who abandoned whom?”

My reply was as follows:

The answer is somewhat complicated, so this’ll be long…

It’s true that the early Church always believed in the existence of a single universal Church composed of a set of particular churches. According to Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 180 AD), the “credentials” of [the] Church [as Church] could be verified through a twofold test: (a) Apostolic succession through the bishops, of which the main illustration he used was the Roman succession from the Apostle Peter, which would then guarantee (b) the faithful transmission of Apostolic tradition (see also 2 Thess 2:15).

However, the traditionalism of the 2nd element did not mean mechanical repetition, but an organic development of the Faith as its understanding was deepened through the centuries (cf. the Commonitorium of Vincent of Lerins). By the time of the early Councils, this meant the use of both old & new philosophical terminology (e.g., homoousios, hypostasis) to define what Christians believed on the nature of God, Christ, and salvation; hence the progressively modified formulations of the ancient creeds (or “symbols”), as new questions and disputes arose.

Herein lies the 1st major Catholic-Orthodox difference, for by the mid-1st millenium, Western thinkers came to see a major, even fatal problem in the early theology of the Trinity: Given that the Divine Persons have one being and substance, so that they are distinguished only by their relations (the Father begets the Son, the Son is begotten by the Father, etc.), then how are the Son and the Spirit to be distinguished if both of them directly come from the Father alone? Also, if the Son is equal to the Father in Godhead, how can He not share the power to generate the Spirit?

When the western churches (and lastly, Rome) incorporated this insight… into the Creed of Constantinople, the eastern churches viewed this as a corruption of the Faith of the Eastern Councils. This was strange, in view of the frank innovations made in those same Councils (one thinks that the East stopped favoring development when the West started doing the developing), but understandable if we remember how lowly the half-barbarian West and its theology was viewed by the civilized East. In fact, even before this doctrinal controversy had erupted, the East had declared canonical war on the West when, in the Quinisext Council under the East Roman Emperor, it condemned Western customs of prayer that differed from the Eastern and [the Emperor] even sent an army to compel the Pope to submit.

This leads to the 2nd major Catholic-Orthodox difference: on the role of the Papacy. In the early Church, Rome was accorded a passive primacy (i.e., in “soft” power); hence Irenaeus’ dictum that the whole Church must agree with Rome–“which presides in charity”, according to Ignatius of Antioch. Active primacy (i.e., in “hard” power), however, was another matter; for while Eastern patriarchs like John Chrysostom, Athanasius, etc. would appeal to, and be championed by, Rome when beleaguered by secular and ecclesiastical politics, they would often resist Papal authority in other times. In practice, real control was held by the Emperor, who thus presided over the disagreeing bishops; and Rome, though given “primacy of honor”, was a spare tire when it came to “primacy of jurisdiction”.

The major break came when, in the Reform of the 11th century, the Church in the West attempted to break free of the State control that had characterized both East and West for centuries, which attempt meant, among others, a shift in central jurisdiction from Emperor to Pope. This was resisted in both East and West, for it amounted to revolution, and the established bishops didn’t take kindly to the confrontational tactics of Reformers like Hildebrand and Silva-Candida. The East-West estrangement was formalized as a result, and the attempted unions of succeeding centuries failed because of Eastern hostility and Western stupidity–though the West would still send an army to help the East against Muslim attack as late as 1396.

In short, both sides share the blame for the separation; and yet, based on the foregoing, I’m of the opinion that there is still only one Church, with its main body centered on the Roman See, but with its particular churches jurisdictionally divided into several pieces; for Roman doctrine is more consistent with the tradition-development and faith-reason pattern of the early Church, and with its recognition of Papal primacy, of which universal jurisdiction is an organic but historically-influenced development. Nonetheless, one cannot deny the value of the conservatism of the East, which helps anchor the Church in times of intellectual ferment; hence Pope John Paul II’s fervent wish that the Church breathe [again] with her two lungs.

Sorry for the length, but I do hope it helps. For further discussion, you could email me if you like, but in any case, God bless you.

C’est tout, and, if you were also asking about these or similar matters, Dear Reader, I hope this illuminates the subject somewhat. Deus vobiscum.

(N.B., This was republished with some revisions as The true Church: Catholicism or Orthodoxy?.)