Wednesday, December 02, 2009

The Orthodox Uroborus

Perry Robinson has done a post on the criteria for an ecumenical council. I’ll quote what I take to be the highlights, then make some comments:

When I was first seriously considering becoming Orthodox, how the Orthodox understood church authority was an important area to map out. In discussing the matter with Catholics that I knew, they often objected that Orthodox ecclesiology falls prey to the same problems as Protestantism. There was no locus of authority in the offices of the church, but the source of normativity was ultimately to reside in the judgment of the people.

The second line of evidence that is proffered is that for the Orthodox an ecumenical council is either known to be such or becomes such when it has been accepted by the “whole church.” There is no shortage of Catholic apologetic materials that go down this path. (I suspect they do because they rely on pop-Orthodox works or some distinctly Russian theological works.)

The position usually isn’t stated very clearly. Usually it begins with a claim regarding what the sufficient conditions are for a council to be ecumenical, which is a metaphysical claim and then slides into a claim regarding how one can know that a council is ecumenical. This is apparent for example in the above cited source. I take the metaphysical claim to be the more significant. So the idea is that a council can only be ecumenical if the “whole church” assents to it. This is obviously problematic since no council could ever meet such conditions where every professing Christian agreed. There is no council that I know of, even the Apostolic council in Acts 15 that didn’t result in some measure of dissent. I think Catholics are right to object to this idea as untenable. But I don’t think it is Orthodox teaching as such either.

Now one might object that the Orthodox are not in a position to know which of these two groups is correctly and normatively representing Orthodox teaching since the Orthodox have no way of putting forth official teaching.

Now what I have not done is spell out in detail what conditions are necessary and sufficient for a council to be ecumenical and normative. That I am largely leaving for another post. But the answers to that question are not in the main that hard to discover and sort out. Take Henry Chadwick’s description of the judgments of 2nd Nicea in 787 for instance.

”The question of what constitutes a council as ecumenical rather than merely regional or local had been debated at the sixth session of the second Council of Nicea in 787, where it was urgent to rebut the claims made on behalf of the iconoclast Council of Hiereia in 754 at which the emperor himself had presided. In 787 the answer given was in terms of representation and assent by all the patriarchs of the pentarchy, each giving ratification on behalf of all churches under his jurisdiction.” East and West: The Making of a Rift in the Church, Oxford (2003), p. 143.

So an ecumenical council accepted by East and West teaches that what constitutes the ecumenical nature of the council is pentarchial ratification, rather than papal ratification.

http://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/against-khomiakov/

1.Perry begins by framing the issue in terms of authority. And, indeed, that seems to be the primary reason that some Evangelicals convert to Catholicism or Orthodoxy.

As Perry states the issue: “they often objected that Orthodox ecclesiology falls prey to the same problems as Protestantism. There was no locus of authority in the offices of the church, but the source of normativity was ultimately to reside in the judgment of the people.”

2.Apropos (1), Orthodoxy must be able to solve the problem that Perry found problematic in Protestantism. If it can’t solve the problem it posed for itself, then it fails to measure up to its own yardstick.

3.Perry also admits that this goes to the question of who speaks for Orthodoxy:

“Now one might object that the Orthodox are not in a position to know which of these two groups is correctly and normatively representing Orthodox teaching since the Orthodox have no way of putting forth official teaching.”

4.Finally, he answers his own question by lodging the following appeal:

“So an ecumenical council accepted by East and West teaches that what constitutes the ecumenical nature of the council is pentarchial ratification, rather than papal ratification.”

Having set the stage, what do we make of his answer?

It suffers from two basic problems:

1.He mentioned the council of Jerusalem in Acts 15. In my experience, the Orthodox treat this council as the prototype and archetype of ecumenical councils.

However, it wasn’t ratified by “all the patriarchs of the pentarchy.”

Therefore, the Orthodox paradigm of ecumenical counciliarity fails to meet the sufficient conditions of an ecumenical council!

2.If that weren’t bad enough, Perry’s criterion is vicious circular. He says an ecumenical council (2nd Nicea) laid down the sufficient conditions for an ecumenical council.

Problem:

To know, on the one hand, that 2nd Nicea is ecumenical, you’d need to know that it satisfies the ecumenical criteria.

But to know, on the other hand, that your criteria are reliable, they’d need to be promulgated by an ecumenical council.

It takes a council to ratify the criteria while it takes the criteria to ratify a council.

I do want take this opportunity to thank Perry for exposing the vacuity of his authority-source. At the end of the day, Orthodox authority resembles a snake consuming itself, tail-first.

1 comment:

  1. The 2nd Nicene Council in 787 AD was originally itself anything but a truly "ecumenical" council: most Western Christians rejected its image-worshipping position strongly and consciously - just see the Council of Frankfurt held in 794 under Charlemagne himself:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Frankfurt

    Protestants should definitely learn more about this issue - they would discover that how many Christians originally rejected the cult of icons with indignation, until their resistance was overwhelmed by dark ages ignorance and papal machinations.


    J.N. Darby writes about this subject (btw, I am not otherwise recommending Darby's theology):

    "In the Western empire, under Charlemagne, the Council of Nice was rejected. First of all this great founder of the new Western empire assembled his bishops, and put forth a book in his own name, in which he condemned the Council of Constantinople, which suppressed all pictures and images, and equally the Council of Nice, which allowed them to be reverenced and worshipped. He went through scripture and the Fathers, and proved that this worship and reverence was all wrong. But the Emperor's and bishops' book goes farther. Pope Adrian had sent them the decisions of the Council of Nicaea (or Nice), to which they had never been called, and they say, "We receive the Six General Councils, but we reject with contempt novelties, as also the Council held in Bithynia (that is, the so-called Seventh General Council of Nice), to authorize the worship of images, the Acts of which, destitute of style and sense, have come to us"; and then they refute seriously all that the pope had said to the Eastern Emperor. They declare that the Council of Nice is not a general one, because it was not gathered from all parts of the church, and appeal to Gregory the Great's letter to Serenus. But this work of the bishops of France and Germany, then one empire, issued in Charlemagne's name, was not all. In 794 he had a council at Frankfort-on-the-Main, at which were the pope's legates and 300 prelates of Germany, France, and Spain. This council refers to the Council of Nice as the council of the Greeks, and rejects entirely, unanimously, and with contempt its doctrine and decision. All this was sent to the pope. He replies in a long letter on the doctrines, and adds, "We have received the Council of Nice because conformed to the doctrine of St. Gregory [Gregory the Great, which it was not], fearing the Greeks might return to their error. However, we have yet given no answer to the Emperor as to the council."

    So here we have an alleged general council received by the pope, disowned publicly by all the West, except Italy, and its doctrine condemned. All the assembled bishops of the West, with the pope's legates, declare that the Council of Nice is not a general council, and reject with contempt unanimously (these are their words) its doctrines and authority; and accordingly it was not for a great length of time received in the Western empire as a general council, and this the Council of Frankfort was. The pope's legates were at both. The pope received and defended Nice, but said he had not written to the Emperor, so he only half agreed to Nice either, but urged Charlemagne to come and help him to get back his territory, which the Eastern Emperor had seized on. Gradually superstition advanced, and Nice was in credit, and Frankfort went down."

    http://www.stempublishing.com/authors/darby/DOCTRINE/22002E_B.html

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