You’re making a bigger deal out of the “disagreement amongst Orthodox” about these issues than is warranted. The only so-called “Orthodox” groups who affirm the acceptability of things like contraceptives are modernists, who almost certainly disagree with Holy Tradition on other matters as well.

As an outsider, I observe the parallel here between the Orthodox tendency to call un-orthodox beliefs 'outside the Tradition' and the Catholic's tendency to do the same thing, even when it is ecumenical. A little ironically, it seems that what gives the Orthodox their name is just in the way they treat the unorthodox. Whereas the Orthodox are able to point at a group of more relative equals, which they think have become unequal, as if to say 'You don't have quorum', the Catholics are forced to look at the 'brain' of their organism and say, "Our brain is not thinking straight."

but why aren’t they doing the same thing about stuff like Liberation Theology, or rampant Modernism, or jewish subversion of traditionally White nations, human rights violation of actual Christians by the secular state of Israel?

This is a strong point. Peace, you are praising the ability of the Catholic Church to come to consensus on various issues, but it seems as if some of these 'modern' issues, say contraception, are fairly straightforward instances of traditional morals commuting across an unambiguous technological issue. Of course, there is value in that unity, but if the so-called modern issues which are being dealt with are small theological fish (so to speak) in a much larger pond of dangerous moral issues, about the latter of which the Church is silent, one might ask if these 'simpler' consensus omnia over condoms are not just clothes to give the appearance of unity.

I am getting the image of someone on the Titanic, after she had been struck, putting duck tape over a narrow fissure in the hull branching off from the main hole. Meanwhile he is just drinking the jet of incoming seawater. I've seen a couple of documentaries recently concerning the heterodoxy within the Catholic Church with respect to the tradition toward things like Satan and Hell, and that many modern Catholics accept that Hell is not a literal place, nor the devil a real being. That's in addition to confirmation of several modern scientistic 'myths'. So in one sense, there is a way in which the Catholic unification under singular leadership and teaching authority can be construed as a strength, but one way in which it can also be construed as a weakness. When others among the church lack the authority to initiate an organism-level response to a massive threat, it becomes like an immune system depending on one cell (the Pope). Of course, the Pope has access to others of high office, to their counsel and to the Church written tradition and magisterium itself. But what happens if a 'bad actor' or a series of them finds their way to that throne?

A concentration of power can also be a weakness. What I'm seeing suggested by King is that their Church might be better situated for an organism-level adaptation to adverse change. Of course, the tradeoff is that their Church as a whole is less stable (not having univocal leadership) to fragmentation. In some sense they can 'tolerate' a certain amount of heterodoxy (below some threshold level) and 'hold together'.

I see the tradeoffs of both. If I were to take a natural example as a model, I'd look at most of the higher animals and find they universally share in having developed central nervous systems, featuring something like brains in all cases. These bodies of trillions of cells are controlled in some respects by autonomous systems within the brain lacking consciousness (automatic functions), but the motion of the whole organism (its life history, if you will) comes from the conscious subjectivity which leads those bodies as the "I". This appears to be a feature of all higher life. We see processes I take as analogous to the Orthodox 'lack of Ecumene' as something characteristic of bacterial colonies which rely on quorum sensing (the diffusion of non-targeted messages by natural processes) to move together, as opposed to one brain.

I'm very inclined to look at God's creation for clues about what's best. The Logos can answer most questions, in my opinion.

This is why I am so naturally inclined toward Catholicism. I think the Ecumene is analogous to the brain. My dispute is with the attachment of a single belief to the office of Pope, which is that one equating him to Christ on earth. I would have no problem if the Church treated him as an elected supreme leader due to his holiness. I want to reject the divine trappings, for I believe what is divine in him is not what sets him apart, because that divine element is present equally in us all. So I say, set him apart for the relevant reasons and let him lead. The trouble comes from seeing this as a divine appointment and not just meritorious on the grounds of less high things - the 'divine right' concept and its cognates are precisely what make this form of authority so dangerous, whereas if he was looked at as 'the best and holiest man for the job', when things went bad it would not be nearly so controversial to boot them from their chair.

But by the same logic I could claim the lack of any stance by Rome against these issues is evidence they’re a “dead church”.

I think you may have missed my point. I am not requiring that the Church act on all issues and with immediacy; I am trying to argue that, thanks to practice, we can be sure that the Catholic Church has the potency to act on these matters, while it is far less clear the East has this same potency, however conceivable it may be that they should. You say there is no disagreement, that only modernists who probably reject other parts of tradition affirm the morality of contraception - but from this it sounds like you are saying that the only way to trust in the authority of the East's position on such contemporary matters is to see what they say on other matters that are settled within the tradition, and basically infer from that that what they say on contemporary matters is wrong. But this is far beneath the level of clarity the faithful ought to have and for which the Church was instituted to provide, and so my point is that the Church ought to have, at least in potency, the ability to readily and clearly settle any such matters, but I just don't see that in the East.

Furthermore, I doubt any in the Orthodox community who support such false contemporary moral positions are so ubiquitous in their denial of tradition. Maybe a point here or there, but not the majority, and certainly not the whole thing. So to have to judge the truth of a moral pronouncement, which has not been formally addressed in the East that I know of, and does not seem to be readily addressable, given history, based on whether or not those pronouncing one way or another disagree or attempt to corrupt some points of the Tradition - this is just not an acceptable level of clarity befitting the Church's teaching authority. It must, in potency at least, be better than this. And if the East no longer acknowledge Rome as a recourse to settling disputes or discarding canons from councils once called, then I don't see that the argument that the East clearly possesses this potency actually stands, especially given that in a thousand years since the schism they have not, to my knowledge, effectively done so.

The following is a list of post-schism Councils considered authoritative in the Orthodox Church:

Thank you, this is the kind of list I was looking before. But note that I have just been asking about a list of councils that have been called - my question is to what extent have they succeeded at solving problems. Disputes almost inevitably arise in such councils, and my fear is that, absent a Pope with the highest temporal authority necessary to settle disputes, my suspicion is that councils would really just serve as a means to causing further schism in the East, the kind of schisms we still see today. Maybe I'm wrong about this hunch, but I intend to look into what is said of these councils and get back to you. Maybe schisms did not result - but were any disputed points universally accepted, or accepted by some here, rejected by others there? It is these kinds of issues that would lead me to suggest that the East does not actually possess the potency it claims.

One final point: you dodged my argument by claiming that only modernists who "probably reject" earlier tradition would take off-stances (let us say, unorthodox positions) on contemporary moral matters. I've provided my response to this already, but fine, let's take this as it is. There is still the matter about the teachings of the faith (since Church teaching authority is required to rule on matters of faith and morals) being disputed within the East. I already cited a former Orthodox, Timothy Flanders, on this point, who cites the wide range of views held within the East on matters pertaining to the dispersement of baptism. This does pertain to the faith and could readily affect one's salvation if mistaken. So which of the Orthodox churches is right about the sacraments? Could a council event solve this in theory / potency? If Russia has been teaching something for however-so-many years, and a Council were called today, to which Russia was invited, and basically decided that Russia is totally wrong about how they have approached this issue- then is Russia just going to walk away from that believing the outcome? Or is it going to dispute it? And will not this dispute lead to the very schism between Russia and Constantinople that exists today, and exists today for this very unsettled reason (among others)?

This is my point. It's messy when you look at contemporary morals, it's even messier when you look at the faith and the sacraments, and even if the East arguably has the potency to call councils, in theory and practice it seems that this potency is merely one to call, not one also to definitively resolve.

I will see what consequences and ckarity, or lack thereof, seem to have fallen out of the councils you cited.

Oh! But I wanted to mention first, w.r.t. the Fourth Council of Constantinople, that it is highly disputed the nature of the alleged papal ratification of that council - whether the Pope received accurate information, or even confirmed the entire council, versus certain points, etc.