Hundreds of millions of people agreeing about the Consensus of the Holy Fathers is a really big deal. Especially without some Supreme Pontiff to enforce it.
It's easy to agree on matters already settled, like the hypostatic union, Trinity, etc. Affirming the Creed, I admit, can be done without a Pope.
But we don't have a Pope for the past, but for the present.
It was the advent of plastic condoms and the birth control pill that presented the need for an authoritative ruling on the morality of contraception. Catholics have this much-needed ruling in Humanae Vitae. The Orthodox have disagreement, and no universal ruling. The same is true for any other number of contemporary moral issues. We can say that the "big questions" like the natures of Christ, were already answered in the early Church, and so that's all we need. But my answer to this is twofold: 1) these contemporary moral issues, while lesser in significance or profundity than matters of the divine nature, still pertain to mortal sin and thus to salvation; and 2) if the Church once had the ability to declare and define definitively on matters of faith or morals, how could she have lost this ability in the East?
The only response to this argument I think I've seen yet is from , who said he sees no reason why this could not still be accomplished via a Council, without a pope. So the claim is that the East does retain the potency for dogmatic declaration. But if this is so, why in the thousand years since the schism has this not been effectively done? Why have no universal declarations been made that actually managed to unify the East and resolve serious matters of dispute? This may be an opportunity for you to educate me on examples of that very thing - but I'm not aware of it. Whereas the Church has continued throughout time, without difficulty, to do as she has always done, the East seems to have become a "dead Church", drawing only on what was defined while the East was still in communion with Rome, but declaring nothing definitive on their own. If this potency is truly had, why is it not used more effectively, when its use is so gravely needed? In other words, the state of the East at present is not reducible to mere jurisdictional disagreement - there is moral disagreement as well, and that is a big deal.
And even if it can be shown that this potency is indeed had and can, or has been, effectively employed, would it not nonetheless be the case that it is obviously much more difficult to accomplish this without a Pope? And if this is so, why should we imagine that Christ would have established His Church with an inferior mode of operation? Why not rather suppose that the consensus of the early Church is true: that the teaching authority was ultimate in the successor of Peter; that this successor could be appealed to in times of dispute; and that councils could be confirmed as doctrinal, and thus effective and binding, no matter what individual bishops felt about them, under this successor's authority?
The Church is both living (contra the Orthodox) and visible (contra Chiro's fork), and this only describes the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church referred to by the Creed.
It was the advent of plastic condoms and the birth control pill that presented the need for an authoritative ruling on the morality of contraception. Catholics have this much-needed ruling in Humanae Vitae. The Orthodox have disagreement, and no universal ruling.
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. It is common knowledge amongst Traditional Orthodox that such things are entirely unacceptable. The reason it appears otherwise is because jewish media gives a very loud bullhorn to any “Orthodox” who is willing to speak out against the Holy Tradition. A right-believing Bishop will excommunicate people who insist on living in sexual immorality like this. There hasn’t really been a need to clarify this issue, among the Orthodox.
Besides, we’re not seeing anything better from the Latin Communion in these regards. Sure, the Papacy takes a hard stand against hot-button issues, 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? Why hasn’t the Pope excommunicated Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi? Etc etc. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great the Papacy affirms the Traditional stance where it does, and that should indeed be praised. 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”.
So the claim is that the East does retain the potency for dogmatic declaration. But if this is so, why in the thousand years since the schism has this not been effectively done? Why have no universal declarations been made that actually managed to unify the East and resolve serious matters of dispute?
The following is a list of post-schism Councils considered authoritative in the Orthodox Church:
Fourth Constantinople, 879 - the Photian Council (not technically post-schism, ratified by Rome for 200 years, then reneged post-schism)
Blachernae Council, 1285
Fifth Constantinople, 1341 (Palamite Councils)
Moldova Council, 1642 (Council of Jassy)
Jerusalem Council, 1672
pan-Orthodox Council in Constantinople, 1872 (the Phyletism Council).
The recent Pan-Orthodox Council in Crete (2016) has largely been rejected, but it shows every once in a while big groups from the traditionally Orthodox World still, to this day, hold shindigs.
So the claim the Orthodox haven’t been holding Councils doesn’t really stand. They aren’t “Ecumenical Councils”, because there’s no more Ecumene.
But I don’t even agree that the Life of a Church can be gauged in this manner.
The growth of the Church, in Orthodox understanding, is in the Lives of the Saints. Is the Church still producing Saints? The answer is an emphatic “yes - abundantly”.
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.
one might ask if these 'simpler' consensus omnia over condoms are not just clothes to give the appearance of unity.
My response to this point is my argument about potency, made extensively in my recent comments. Yes, the Catholic Church is in just as dire need of clarity right now as the East is, but the Church in no way and by no argument lacks the potency to address them. What we needed at the time of Vatican II was a council that did what most of the other councils did, and provided anathematizations to things like modernism (which has been condemned magisterially by the Church, be not mistaken, as the synthesis of all heresies), which is to say, we needed a council that exercised the extraordinary Magisterium of the Church, but instead we got only a pastoral council, whose documents, while solid in themselves, were exploited by the same bad actors who wrote them, which exercised only the ordinary Magisterium of the Church. Yes, we need this too, but this could readily be accomplished, whereas, for the reasons I've provided, I don't think the same can be said of the East, certainly not as readily.
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?
This is a complex issue that even most Catholics don't understand. First of all, the kinds of statements about heaven and hell come from the same modernists that KOWA has admitted exist in the East, so this is not a uniquely Catholic issue and it does not derive from the papacy. Secondly, the Pope is not the Magisterium; his every word is no infallible. Only under very specific circumstances, outlined by Vatican I, does he exercise infallibility. Pope Francis has never done so; his many off-the-cuff remarks are entirely outside the Magisterium; and the magisterial documents he has written are not de facto dogma by virtue of his having written them. When it comes to that level of the pope's fallible teaching office, recourse to Tradition and later ratification are both required before the what is expected of the faithful rises from "pious acceptance of a charitable interpretation" to "religious assent", and then to "assent of faith". The Papacy does not exist in isolation.
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 still have the impression that your dispute arises from a lack of clarity on what the papacy is. Listening to too many heretic voices will inevitably lead to a "false catechesis", if you will, on what the papacy comprises.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "attaching a single belief to the office of Pope" - again, the papacy does not exist in isolation from the binding force of tradition. In fact, the kinds of things that the Popes have infallibly declared - ex cathedra statements and confirming Ecumenical Councils - have only been things that the universal Church has already accepted always and everywhere. The intimate relation between the Pope, as a final voice guided by the Holy Spirit in clearing up disputes and establishing doctrine, and the other bishops and the saints, cannot be under-emphasized.
As for equating the pope with Christ on earth, I have already tried to explain 1) the difference between what the Church officially teaches and the kind of phraseology found in non-magisterial texts, and 2) what these non-magisterial texts must be understood to mean in the context of the Tradition and Magisterium of the Church. No where in official Church teaching is the Pope equated to Christ on earth; this word "equation" suggests an essential equality, which is impossible for a creature to possess by essence. There may be analogical comparisons, where the Pope is called the Head (temporally) just as Christ is Head (eternally), but this is not a true equation (univocal speech). Never is the Pope univocally likened to Christ. It is as Aquinas says:
Accordingly schismatics properly so called are those who, wilfully and intentionally separate themselves from the unity of the Church; for this is the chief unity, and the particular unity of several individuals among themselves is subordinate to the unity of the Church, even as the mutual adaptation of each member of a natural body is subordinate to the unity of the whole body
When I look up "viceregent" (not that one really needs to; the definition is practically contained in the word), I get:
n. A person appointed by a ruler or head of state to act as an administrative deputy. Having or exercising delegated power; acting in the place of another, as by substitution or deputation.
n. An officer deputed by a superior or by proper authority to exercise the powers of the higher authority; one having a delegated power; a deputy; a vicar.
This is all the Pope is. He does not exist instead of Christ, but for Him.
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.
Obviously on the level of your interpretation of Matthew 16 and Luke 22, etc., that associates Peter with a metaphor or type of the Church itself, this kind of statement is true. But on the level where Christ, in giving the keys to Peter, established some temporal authority whereby that authority was to bind and loose, to feed His sheep, then this clearly cannot be said of all of us. Some of us are sheep, and some of us are shepherds. The episcopate is hierarchically distinct from the rest of us, even if this is not true at another level of interpretation. And this being so, we must acknowledged a hierarchical teaching authority within the Church, and this is either purely and entirely distributed equally among the bishops, or has its supreme form / representative in the successor of Peter. Most Orthodox shy away from the angle that this authority is perfectly and equally distributed, though some do not. Most affirm the primacy of Peter by try to separate it from teaching authority, from the feeding of sheep - which strikes me as affirming the primacy without affirming the Scriptures that establish it, for if the primacy means anything, its association with the feeding of sheep would seem to suggest is means primacy of teaching authority. And it is in this vein that in my recent comment I have tried to show how the East's lack of this primacy has caused them more than superficial difficulty in working for the salvation of people's souls, since so many of these important disputes are not clearly settled, thus leaving the faithful to rely on their own judgment or impressions of which church has the true teaching - and this is not acceptable.
- 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.
Who would do the booting? Even if he was merely a leader, as you suggest you would prefer he were, leadership constitutes jurisdiction, and it is jurisdiction that would enable one to "boot" a reigning pontiff.The difficulties that would result - and have resulted for the Church in the absence of a single temporal head, by way of lack of sufficient potency to resolve disputes and therefore provide a clear and universal definitive doctrine to all the faithful, is far worse than the difficulties that admittedly exist with the papal office. Given that our Lord is establishing a temporal system for His Divinely instituted Church, it is not reasonable to expect that a model could be provided wherein no difficulties were possible. The very nature of creation and time and matter, on which we have said so much to say, precludes this very possibility. But our Lord would establish a system that would enable, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the fewest difficulties necessary, and I truly think the papal model is just that system.
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.
Excellent analogy with the quorum-sense. I’d argue though the Orthodox still have central “brain structures”, since they’re built around Bishops who have and delegate magisterial authority within their own diocese. But certainly, on the level of Local Churches (meaning, not the Church-next-door, but rather one of the fifteen-or-so Autocephalus Archdioceses), the quorum-sense between their respective liaisons, and even individual members going about their daily lives.
I might not have been clear what I mean that there’s no Ecumene - I’m referring to the intact, functioning Christian Empire. What characterized the Early Medieval Period was the fact that the Christian Empire was basically ruling the world. While I can’t prove it yet, I suspect many of the foundational correspondences relied upon by Papal claims to establish Supremacy, are documents that were written under the assumption of the fully-functional Empire. I suspect this has an effect on the way they perceived their relationship with Rome, and the Church in Rome, and her Bishop. I suspect there was a heavy, implied sense of suzerainty and loyalty which had to be maintained in all correspondences, or else it would come across as potentially seditious. I’m not sure what the name is for this phenomenon.
But it’s a real phenomenon. As a parallel in contemporary American writings, Republicans often make sure to affirm the Holocaust Narrative, and talk about how evil Hitler was, in order to deflect any doubt about their loyalty to the regime. They really don’t want to be accused of being “racist”, so they bring these things up all the time like a pinch of incense to Caesar.
Anyway, I suspect a lot of Papal Claims are based on documents written under the assumption of a very real, very powerful Empire, and people really didn’t want to come across as disloyal. There’d be strong incentive to make it look like the thought of rebelling hadn’t even entered their mind.
That’s what I’m talking about when I bring up the Ecumene. As it began to disintegrate, you started hearing more and more “seditious” literature. By the time of the Schism, that threat had long since been replaced by other, far more pressing matters.
EDIT: just to clarify, I’m not accusing them of insincerity. I’m merely pointing out an essential and unavoidable reality about governance. It may have come across as overly cynical.
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.
Fourth Constantinople, 879 - the Photian Council (not technically post-schism, ratified by Rome for 200 years, then reneged post-schism)
I already commented on this one, but I will add that this council's belief that it could excommunicate a pope does already reveal the pre-schism lack of unity in understanding of what the papacy actually constituted, and I will reiterate that saying Rome's ratification was "reneged" assumes it was ever fully given in the first place, for which the evidence is simply too controversial. The confusion is magnified by the fact that there was another "Fourth Council of Constantinople" ten years previous, with contradictory actions to the council in 879. Which, then, and to what extent did the respective popes lend their support, is obviously a matter of debate. As we have already seen when discussing the Council of Chalcedon, there is certainly precedent for a pope confirming a council generally but rejecting specific acts or canons:
"After the passage of the Canon 28, Rome filed a protest against the reduction of honor given to Antioch and Alexandria. However, fearing that withholding Rome's approval would be interpreted as a rejection of the entire council, in 453 the pope confirmed the council's canons while declaring the 28th null and void."
Blachernae Council, 1285
It appears this council was mainly called to condemn the Roman Catholic Council of Lyons eleven years prior, in 1274, specifically the part where the Catholic Church tried to re-unify east and west. Admittedly this attempt consisted mainly in appeals to Latin "despots" in the east to "curb their ambitions", and other than that it seems doctrinally no compromise was made (rightly so), and so I do understand why the East would unite to reject the attempts of Lyons, even though by this time (1274 being the year of Aquinas' death) a rigorous proof of the truth of the filioque had already been provided by Aquinas himself (which I went through once before with ). This also includes part of Thomas' writings from the Summa Contra Gentiles that I referenced wanting to quote the other day.
Fifth Constantinople, 1341 (Palamite Councils)
It looks like this council was addressing Hesychasm, and in line with my original suspicion, one of the main actors the council sought to condemn, Gregory Palamas, just didn't accept the result:
"Gregoras refused to submit to the dictates of the synod and was effectively imprisoned in a monastery until the Palaeologi triumphed in 1354 and deposed Cantacuzenus."
Seems like it was force, not the binding authority of the council, that resolved this one. And recall, my argument here is just that the East lacks the potency it claims to actually resolve important disputes in a conciliar manner, lacking a temporal viceregent with authority above all others to aid with such dispute-resolutions.
Moldova Council, 1642 (Council of Jassy)
This one seems to have basically been the East's "counter-reformation" council, so an analog to the Catholic Church's Council of Trent. It sounds like some Catholic points were addressed in this council also. Interestingly, the Wiki article lists the major contribution as being:
the reinforced sense of unity in the Orthodox Church through the promulgation of an authoritative statement agreed upon by all the major sees.
Of course, if the council is called to defend the Orthodox against claims that contradict the Orthodox, it is not surprising that agreement on a non-controversial matter can be attained. It is with respect to issues on which the Orthodox disagree that this potency I am discussing becomes crucial.
Jerusalem Council, 1672
Looks like this one addressed Calvinism, and also reasserted the Orthodox rejection of the filioque. My comments match that of the previous council.
pan-Orthodox Council in Constantinople, 1872 (the Phyletism Council).
This council better accents the concerns I've expressed. This was an internal conflict, and right off the bat we have lack of attendance from a number of churches. The Bulgarian Church is question does not recant and enters into a schism. I will summarize my thoughts on this in the reflection on the final council on this list, since they are somewhat similar.
The recent Pan-Orthodox Council in Crete (2016) has largely been rejected, but it shows every once in a while big groups from the traditionally Orthodox World still, to this day, hold shindigs.
This council perfectly exemplifies the point I am trying to make. See Ybarra's (2 minutes) to it from the debate I referenced the other day. Some of the Eastern churches accept this council, others don't. So, is it authoritative or not? That is an important issue that shouldn't be unclear to the faithful. Without an ecclesiastical head capable of ratifying, and in so doing working with the other bishops, the teachings of a council, it ultimately has no binding authority - as the Orthodox churches themselves demonstrate.
Also noteworthy is the point about even calling a council in the first place. The Orthodox often point to secular leaders (like emperors) as prime candidates for calling councils and thereby compelling all the various bishops to actually attend in the first place. This is fine when Christendom actually has an emperor...but when it doesn't? Why should the Church of God depend on anything worldly like a secular leader to even be able to reliably go about its essential business? The Roman Catholic Church does not have this problem, since even as history moved beyond the era of Christian emperors, there is still the Pope with the authority to call all the bishops together and hold a council. And, as Ybarra notes, more than just being a better model, it also is contained within the Apostolic Tradition.
I will conclude by raising this point: it seems to me that the very existence of a schism itself suggests something like a temporal Head is necessary; for both the East and the West are looking to the same Tradition, and yet coming to different conclusions. Therefore, lest schism be an unavoidable thing when various bishops come to view the same Tradition in a different light, it seems fitting that Christ would ensure a temporal Head (viceregent) be ever appointed such that these kinds of disputes can be clarified once and for all. This does not deny the rights and authority of local bishops over their dioceses; indeed, "all are equal during times of peace". But when disputes arise, when we are not in a time of peace or "universal concord", there must be a Head, in time to judge on such matters, lest schism be unavoidable. And it is my belief that Christ did not fail to provide for this contingency when He said to Peter that he is the rock on which the Church will be built, and he is the one to whom is given the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
(post is archived)