How unified is the East, really?

[wturri78]

I've been interacting lately with some Eastern Orthodox on a different discussion forum, trying to learn how they managed to come to the conviction that theirs is the true, historical, apostolic church. I've received answers all over the map, but many come to the essential unity in worship and doctrine that they believe has characterized the east throughout the centuries (well, since Pentecost they'd say, of course). But they do raise some points that seem valid, although I know little of the history of Orthodoxy. A few things seem to stand out, although I could be entirely mistaken and quite ignorant of history:

1) The east doesn't seem to have changed a whole lot on doctrine since--well, ever. They seem to put all their confidence into the idea that they formally have only defined those things that were declared in the ecumenical councils. It seems individual theologies have varied widely within the broader context, but the major themes do seem to have a lot of continuity. (I would also say they've failed to build on the experience of the past, and seem to have this unshakable conviction that "older is truer.") Still, they never cooked up purgatory, limbo, papal infallibility, etc. Kudos to them.

2) They claim to still be using essentially the same liturgies (Chrysostom, Basil, a few others) that were in use 1600+ years ago, with only minor modifications. This doesn't prove anything other than consistency, but they don't seem to have been shredded by "worship wars."

3) They don't seem to have had internal schisms of the magnitude of the "Babylonian captivity," i.e. three popes and two councils all vying for control at the same time. I'd say their claim to unbroken succession sure sounds more believable than Rome's, though this still doesn't prove authenticity in doctrine.

4) They never had a reformation--for whatever reasons. But I do have to wonder if Luther would still have taken his stand in the absence of purgatory, indulgences, treasuries of merit, and the like. Would anyone have been martyered for translating Scripture into English, or for wanting to give the Mass in German?

5) They don't seem to have been nearly so affected by Enlightenment rationalism and materialism in their theologies, leading to...

6) They don't seem to have wild liberals overrunning their churches, leading to more and more denominations that try to hold to the original beliefs while the rest go on to ordain ministers who think God's existence is an open question.

All this, they would point out, despite the vast cultural differences between Greeks, Russians, Armenians, Syrians, etc. Even the self-ruled Orthodox church in America seems to have an essential continuity with the rest. From their perspective, with Catholics having a questionable heritage and Protestants in massive disarray, one could hardly blame them for dismissing Western religion entirely.

So my question to the historians here, especially those who have been Orthodox or who've interacted substantially with it, is this: is there really all this unity? Or are they as shredded by liberals, schisms, cultural conflicts, etc. as anyone else, yet nicely veiled behind the common storefront?

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Bill,
I'm not really seeking to answer or treat your bullets above, just point at things, and suggest directions for further study.

Have you read Robert Letham's assessment? Critical, but balanced and not without sympathy.
Amazon.com: Through Western Eyes: Eastern Orthodoxy A Reformed Perspective: Letham Robert: Books

You can find other reviews on various Christian websites.

I know EOs might dispute this fact, but the fact of the Ecc. Councils shows that the Easterns most certainly have been involved in the general church's controversies. And for them to say that they've just always been on the "right side" is only to say that they've been on the "winning" side.

We'd say: the only reason the Iconodules won the Iconoclastic controversy is because they overturned a previous Ecc. Council that first condemned this innovation. So... as long as one side has the "last word", they must be correct? How could the same general church have fought the Arians for so long? Simply drawing a line in the sand and saying, "we got it right here," doesn't mean that you get to claim authentic apostolicity. Not when each generation has at least some duty to investigate the claims of a previous generation.

We don't hold to the first 4 Ecc. Councils because they were historic councils, as such. But because we agree with those believers that those statements of faith, that they are essentially orthodox. And if the Arians had won, we'd still be outside, "against the world" with Athanasius. The latter EC statements are not fundamentally in accord with biblical doctrine.

Now, just because the EO decided that they would fix the limits of absolute doctrinal commitment on the basis of an historical index is no reason to accept that ad hoc declaration. No mare than we should be committed to Rome's papal pretensions on similar grounds.

Both of these positions involve accepting another measuring standard--something beside the Bible that the ECFs themselves used. The notion that mere historical weight, or geographic spread or size, or political heft, lends credibility to a particular stand is a recipe for fossilization. True, the EO seems never to have changed (much... and after the last EC, so only for the past 1300 years or so). But saying that is due to the reliability of their constitution begs the question. Is that the only possible explanation? What about mummification?

Valuing "tradition" has its positives; I don't know any thinking person who doubts this. But not for tradition's sake, which seems to me to be the EO position.

Later, widespread, western philosophic trends seem not to have impacted EO as much as the more dynamic West; however, measuring Gnosticism's and certain forms of Greek philosophy's influence on EO, it seems to me they've been influenced a great deal. Because they lie in another stream from Western philosophy's subsequent developments, we have a harder time seeing further development along their internal lines, apart from the analysis those like Letham provide.

Article about an EO patriarch during the days of the Reformation:
Patriarch Cyril of Constantinople - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(I don't recommend Wikipedia as a source, but it has a basic utility)
His assassination is blamed on secular politics; but like JFK and those rumors, there are always the theorists who think that due to his too-friendly rapprochement with the anti-papists in the west, for theological reasons and ecclesiastical politics he was murdered.

Anyway, these are lines of inquiry you might find interesting.

 

[wturri78]

Bill,
I'm not really seeking to answer or treat your bullets above, just point at things, and suggest directions for further study.

Have you read Robert Letham's assessment? Critical, but balanced and not without sympathy.
Amazon.com: Through Western Eyes: Eastern Orthodoxy A Reformed Perspective: Letham Robert: Books

You can find other reviews on various Christian websites.

No but it's been highly recommended to me by several people and it sounds like a very interesting read. Many Orthodox people have recommended a book by Timothy Ware. I guess it would be interesting to get both an internal and an external perspective on the system.

I know EOs might dispute this fact, but the fact of the Ecc. Councils shows that the Easterns most certainly have been involved in the general church's controversies. And for them to say that they've just always been on the "right side" is only to say that they've been on the "winning" side.

History is written by the winners, right? I think this statement as you've phrased it might be meaningless within their context--because they view the Church as having been guided by the Spirit in an infallible sense, the "right" side must be the "winning" side, because the alternative would be for Christ's church to fall into heresy and no longer be the body of Christ. It's tough to wrap my head around because the only concept of "infallible" tradition I've ever interacted with has been Rome's, and frankly Orthodoxy seems to do quite a handy job of dismantling Rome's view of tradition. So they're using the same words but in different contexts and with different shades of meaning.

We'd say: the only reason the Iconodules won the Iconoclastic controversy is because they overturned a previous Ecc. Council that first condemned this innovation. So... as long as one side has the "last word", they must be correct? How could the same general church have fought the Arians for so long? Simply drawing a line in the sand and saying, "we got it right here," doesn't mean that you get to claim authentic apostolicity. Not when each generation has at least some duty to investigate the claims of a previous generation.

We don't hold to the first 4 Ecc. Councils because they were historic councils, as such. But because we agree with those believers that those statements of faith, that they are essentially orthodox. And if the Arians had won, we'd still be outside, "against the world" with Athanasius. The latter EC statements are not fundamentally in accord with biblical doctrine.

There is a bit of a danger here and one that they would seize upon. You say we'd be on the outside, "against the world," had the Arians won. The possible danger is that the Arians said and still say exactly the same thing, believing that the Trinity is corrupted by Greek pagan ideas that have no place in the proper interpretation of Scripture, and that they are the ones standing with God against the organized church that's fallen into heresy. Both obviously appeal to the same Scriptures, and the EO would point out that the church put great stock in the succession of bishops who could guard not only the Scriptures but also the interpretive contexts--essentially they had the proper "key" and the Arians did not. Whether they are correct is a debatable point and Protestants would say they are not, but then they can just as quickly point out that the rules of hermeneutics used in Reformed exegesis lie heavily in the tradition and precedent set by the Reformers, and that those rules are not the same ones used by the church when it refuted the early heresies--so why is our interpretive grid any more valid than the Arians'? I believe these can be answered but they do raise a good challenge that is different from that raised by Rome.

Now, just because the EO decided that they would fix the limits of absolute doctrinal commitment on the basis of an historical index is no reason to accept that ad hoc declaration. No mare than we should be committed to Rome's papal pretensions on similar grounds.

Agreed. Fixing doctrine essentially at the 7th Council seems arbitrary to me, as though any further developments or clarifying theology must be off the table. I don't know that it's so much the timeline that's arbitrary--I think it's fixed there in time because it's the last time a full ecumenical council was agreed to by all patriarchs. If anything is arbitrary it may be their reliance upon the nature of the council.

Both of these positions involve accepting another measuring standard--something beside the Bible that the ECFs themselves used. The notion that mere historical weight, or geographic spread or size, or political heft, lends credibility to a particular stand is a recipe for fossilization. True, the EO seems never to have changed (much... and after the last EC, so only for the past 1300 years or so). But saying that is due to the reliability of their constitution begs the question. Is that the only possible explanation? What about mummification?

Good way to put it. If Scripture isn't the measuring standard, then something else must be, and however you mince the words, the church ends up becoming its own standard. Although, they would argue that Protestants use Scripture plus methods of interpretation, and that those methods of interpretation are part of what was entrusted to the church, and they're not entirely wrong. I still have much to learn (I hope Letham's book helps) but their elevation of the church does not seem to be quite so extreme as Rome's--it sounds more reasonable, at least on the surface, and doesn't seem to require as many "yeah, but..." qualifications.

Valuing "tradition" has its positives; I don't know any thinking person who doubts this. But not for tradition's sake, which seems to me to be the EO position.

Later, widespread, western philosophic trends seem not to have impacted EO as much as the more dynamic West; however, measuring Gnosticism's and certain forms of Greek philosophy's influence on EO, it seems to me they've been influenced a great deal. Because they lie in another stream from Western philosophy's subsequent developments, we have a harder time seeing further development along their internal lines, apart from the analysis those like Letham provide.

I think this hits it on the head for me. Their assumption isn't just that the early church had it right, but that the early Greek church had it right. The West has always had different philosophical underpinnings that it brought to everything, whether law, government, culture or Scripture. There's no doubt about the heavy influence of Eastern-style mysticism, etc. that influenced the East's interpretation of the Scriptures, and their unspoken assumption is that this must have been correct. The only thing they've pointed at for justifying this is "look at the fruits of Western thought...Scholasticism, which lead to extra dogma, which lead to a Reformation, which led (they say, not without some truth) to Enlightenment, which lead to everything from relativism to atheism and in between. In their view, we've fallen to shreds while the East just keeps on keepin' on. That's partly why I asked this original question--whether there's truly more unity there, or whether it's masked beneath the incense and candles.

Interesting that Communism by and large took root mainly in the Eastern part of the world, although Marx's ideas seem to have been shaped in line with Western philosophies. Could one point to the (relative) liberty and freedom of the West compared to the totalitarianism of the East, as fruits of their respective worldviews?

Article about an EO patriarch during the days of the Reformation:
Patriarch Cyril of Constantinople - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(I don't recommend Wikipedia as a source, but it has a basic utility)
His assassination is blamed on secular politics; but like JFK and those rumors, there are always the theorists who think that due to his too-friendly rapprochement with the anti-papists in the west, for theological reasons and ecclesiastical politics he was murdered.

Anyway, these are lines of inquiry you might find interesting.

Very interesting! Thanks for the recommendations.

 

[DTK]

In their view, we've fallen to shreds while the East just keeps on keepin' on. That's partly why I asked this original question--whether there's truly more unity there, or whether it's masked beneath the incense and candles.

Could I offer a slightly different way of approaching their claim of unity? For there is surely a unity in the kingdom of hell (cf. Luke 11:17-18), but there is just as surely no love loss between demons and Satan. That may be a unity of purpose, but it is surely no unity of love.

Now, no where was this exemplified more than the proceedings surrounding the 2nd and 3rd "ecumenical" councils of Constantinople (381 A.D.) and Ephesus (430 A.D.). I encourage you to read a good history of the events surrounding these two councils. Cyril of Alexandria, along with his uncle Theophilus (the bishop of Alexandria before Cyril), who together hated John Chrysostom with all their beings and plotted against him, eventually had him deposed from the position of bishop of Constantinople on "trumped up" charges in 403 A.D.

But getting back to the council of Constantinople in 381, there were three men who presided over that council. 1) Meletius of Antioch (Chrysostom's bishop) who died during its proceedings, then 2) Gregory of Nazianzus was elected to preside over this motley crew, who became so discouraged with the behavior of its participants that he resigned and declared a year later in a letter...

To tell you plainly, I am determined to fly every convention of bishops; for I never yet saw a council that ended happily. Instead of lessening, they invariably augment the mischief. The passion for victory and the lust of power (you will perhaps think my freedom intolerable) are not to be described in words. One present as judge will much more readily catch the infection from others than be able to restrain it in them. For this reason, I must conclude that the only security of one’s peace and virtue is in retirement. Epistle 130 - To Procopium. For translation, see John Harrison, Whose Are the Fathers? (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1867), p. 468. Epistola CXXX - ad Procopium, PG 37:225.

Then 3) a third president was elected, the senator Nectarius was chosen to succeed Gregory of Nazianzus as bishop of Constantinople and to be the presiding member over the Council of Constantinople before he was even baptized. See Archbishop Peter L’Huillier, The Church of the Ancient Councils: the Disciplinary Work of the First Four Ecumenical Councils (Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996), pp. 109-110; R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), pp. 322, 807, 811; G. L. Prestige, Fathers and Heretics: Six Studies in Dogmatic Faith with Prologue and Epilogue (London: SPCK, 1958), pp. 121-122; and J. N. D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom - Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), p. 104.

Some years later, at the council of Ephesus, Cyril of Alexandria manipulated the events and managed to have the council decide on points of controversy before John of Antioch and his contingent of Syrian bishops ever even arrived! It was for all intents and purposes a "stacked" council.

Now, I've only given you bits and pieces so that you can research these two councils for yourself, but they are not the pictures of pristine unity that the Eastern Orthodox pretend them to be. The fact is that the members of the Eastern Church, particularly the Alexandrians and the Antiochians, fought like cats and dogs, and generally used competing hermeneutical approaches to Scripture. During the Arian controversy, which lasted for some 50 years, virtually every church in the east was to some degree "Arian" in its sentiments. Ask them why their sense of "Orthodox unity" drove Athanasius into exile five times???

Below, is one example of "infighting" that continues among the Orthodox today...

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TIME International

April 29, 1996 Volume 147, No. 18
Return to Contents page
A MILLENNIAL RENDING
In the Russian church's fight to retain power in Estonia, Orthodox Christendom risks splitting up

JAMES WALSH

For most Christians in the former Soviet Union, the centerpiece of their Easter celebrations last week was a golden dome in Moscow. Though still unfinished, Christ the Savior Cathedral, the new jewel in the crown of the Russian Orthodox Church, opened its doors for Holy Mass on Easter morning for the first time. This $250 million replica of a cathedral blown up by Stalin in 1931 has risen at a breakneck pace during just 15 months, and a three-ton golden cross atop the central dome now co-reigns over Moscow's skyline with the Kremlin's spires. Yet the symbolism of a church ascendant happened to be misleading. Worshippers in the know could not help wondering whether their 1,000-year-old institution of faith would fall apart before Christmas.

The epicenter of a dispute that has "rocked the Orthodox world like an earthquake," in one priest's description, is not in Moscow or even in Russia. It is Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, whose onion domes dominate a hilltop in the old quarter of Tallinn, capital of Estonia. In a recent ruling bitterly condemned by the Russian church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople recognized a breakaway church that seeks to gain supervision of the cathedral and most other Orthodox parishes in the Baltic republic. Now some Orthodox prelates in far more populous Ukraine are considering the same path to self-rule, which could lead to one of the biggest Christian schisms since the Protestant Reformation.

At stake in the quarrel are not just issues of church allegiance within the former Russian empire. Although religion could have heavy political repercussions in this case, the feud also threatens to shatter all semblance of unity within Orthodox Christendom as a whole. The Russian church is by far the largest, most important branch of the confession, and a historic rift would occur should Moscow break altogether from the mother church in Istanbul, which for ecclesiastical purposes still goes by its old Byzantine Greek name, Constantinople. Father Christopher, a Russian Orthodox priest with his own parish in Moscow, remarks in dismay, "Now, just when we are emerging from the prison of communism, we start fighting among ourselves."

Exactly how divisive that fight is growing became clear in late February when Alexei II, the Patriarch of Moscow, did not once speak the name of Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, during a liturgy. According to church experts, it was one of the most notable snubs of the mother church in the 1,008 years since Prince Vladimir of Kiev marched his subjects to the Dnieper River for mass baptism into Byzantine Christianity. In a rebuke to the Eastern church's rough counterpart of the Vatican, Moscow's hierarchy said Constantinople had "shattered ages-long Orthodox unity, which has become a tragedy for millions of Orthodox believers." The Ecumenical Patriarchate shot back that Moscow had refused to "comprehend the truly peacemaking intentions of the Most Holy Mother Church," choosing instead to "hurl uncharacteristic threats at it and us."

In many ways, critics argue, the Russian church has only itself to blame. The 67-year-old Alexei II rose to primacy in 1990 under the shadow of collaboration with the Kremlin. In fact, an Izvestiya profile in 1991 openly alluded to secret state documents characterizing him as one of the kgb's most compliant pet clerics; Alexei did not deny the charge. Although the Russian church has strongly re-exerted its influence since communism's demise, Russian politicians of varied stripes are just as strongly trying to identify church with state once again, as in czarist times. President Boris Yeltsin, who received a jeweled egg from Alexei at the Easter Mass in Moscow's cathedral, earlier this month asked the Patriarch to bless a new treaty with Belarus, reviving a czarist custom. Ominously, this trend is serving to make the church a symbol of nationalist ambitions. Politicians pay tribute to the faith as an oblique expression of solidarity with ethnic Russians in neighboring former Soviet lands, including Estonia, which some in Moscow would love to rule again.

For now the dispute's focus is Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, tellingly named for the medieval Russian prince who repelled an invasion of Teutonic Knights. For centuries tiny Estonia was whipsawed between powers to the east and the west. With a Scandinavian outlook and an important German merchant class, Estonia for the most part converted to Lutheranism. From the early 18th century, however, Russian Czars pursued a heavy-handed policy of cultural Russification in every corner of their empire. Estonia's interregnum of independence after the Bolshevik Revolution came to a crashing end in 1940, when Russians rumbled back in with Stalin's tanks. Since 1991, when the Baltic states seceded from the Soviet Union, the Patriarchate of Moscow has continued to minister to Orthodox Christians in the independent republic.

Standing in the shadow of Nevsky Cathedral in Tallinn before Easter, Ludmilla Remizova was clear about what she seeks from her church. The stylish young expatriate declared, "We're Russians, and we want to be. We want to give confession in Russian to Russian priests." So far, she has had no trouble on that score: spoken or printed, the Estonian language is conspicuous by its nearly total absence in the Baltic state's Russian church. The 30,000 Russians in the local branch believe that is only fitting, since they predominate over some 15,000 ethnic Estonian parishioners. For the republic's officials, though, the slight dramatizes residual imperialism. In a country whose 1.6 million citizens are largely Lutheran--if they belong to any faith--a 1993 reference book terms Nevsky Cathedral a landmark that still "proudly offends the skyline of Tallinn."

By such lights, Constantinople helped balance accounts in February when it affirmed the legitimacy of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church, a nationalist ministry set up in 1919 but forced into exile in Sweden after Stalin swallowed Estonia. Constantinople thus reinforced Tallinn court rulings reassigning most of Estonia's 160 Orthodox church buildings and 3,000 hectares of land away from the Moscow Patriarchate's authority.

How did Moscow lose out? The Russian church simply failed to reregister with the Estonian government in 1993 after all churches had been asked to. In the view of Father Alexander, an Apostolic Church priest, "When you are the biggest and most powerful, you do not think about having to follow all the rules." Archbishop Kornelius, the Russian church's Metropolitan in Estonia, has another explanation. He fumes, "Government intervention is a fixture of this dispute. It is a case of back-door deals and collusion." Lawrence Uzzell of the Oxford-based Keston Institute, which follows religious affairs in the former Soviet Union, does not entirely disagree. While critical of the Russian church's behavior in Estonia, Uzzell says, "There was virtually no sense of detachment on the state's part."

An ironic twist to the drama is the position of Alexei II. Born a Baltic German named Ridiger, he grew up in Estonia and served as Metropolitan of Tallinn from 1960 to 1981--an era when the man who is now Patriarch of Moscow was, like all Soviet clergy, under the Kremlin's thumb. According to Uzzell, of the 34 churches that Alexei closed in his time as Metropolitan, 31 were ethnic Estonian congregations. A Russian expert on religion reports that Alexei once received a special kgb citation.

At the moment the showdown is academic. The Russian church is resisting Constantinople, whose decisions lack Vatican-like authority. Moscow is negotiating to avert a schism but is unlikely to blink first, given how much property and Russian power are tied up in this trial case. Says Uzzell: "For people who take a universal view of Christianity, dividing along ethnic lines is a troubling development." The pagans baptized in Kiev 1,000 years ago could not have foreseen such a Byzantine outcome. --Reported by Sally B. Donnelly/Tallinn and Constance Richards/ Moscow
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I apologize for any typos, or other mistakes, I wrote this hurriedly because I'm pretty busy with other matters at the moment.

Blessings,
DTK

 

[Contra_Mundum]

DTK,
What you write in haste does more good than what most of us write in ponderous prose.

Thanks again for all the quotes, articles, and links we get from you. At no cost to us.

Thank you.

 

[DTK]

Bruce,

Thanks for your kind words. Just trying to underscore the importance of the details of church history, which so often get missed in over-generalizations by non-Protestants groups.

Blessings,
DTK