Response to "True Orthodox"

Site:

True Orthodox Christianity : Polemics : Roman Catholics
https://www.trueorthodoxy.org/polemics/heretics_roman_catholics.shtml

Citation:

The term ‘Roman Catholic’ refers to the heresy formed around the person of the Pope of Rome (who broke away from the Orthodox Church in 1054 A.D.), which strives to subject the world to the incontrovertible doctrinal and decretal authority of this man, declared to be the “substitute [vicari] of the Son of God”, “Christ on earth”, etc. This is the fundamental and only truly unchanging doctrinal aspect of this sect and its essence; all other characteristics may be changed or ‘developed’ in new directions, of which history already records many examples.

In addition to the dogma of the Pope, the Roman Catholic heresy currently holds the heresies of the Dual Causation of the Holy Spirit, God as a Tripartite Energy (with Created Grace being a further heretical consequence), Purgatory and the Papal Treasury of Merits, Development of Dogma, the Divine Inspiration and Salvific Nature of all Religions (a heresy stemming from the 20th-century Freemasonic takeover of the Vatican), the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, the Sacramentalogy of Opere Operato, etc., as well as the canonical violations of claiming jurisdiction for the Pope in all dioceses, adding to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, Rejection of Married Priests, Mutation or Mutilation of the Mysteries of Holy Baptism, Chrismation, Confession, and Lord’s Divine Liturgy and Eucharist (unleavened wafers, removal of the invocation of the Holy Spirit, etc.), and the papal decrees ordering or sanctioning the robbery, torture, murder, enslavement, and other forms of inhuman maltreatment of insubordinate or non-Roman Catholic persons.

In consequence of all this, Roman Catholicism finds a leading place in the list of heresies on this website.

My detailed comment,
by Hans Georg Lundahl
in Paris
on St. Peter's Chair in Rome, 18.I.2023
follows here:

I

Schism in 1054

citing

The term ‘Roman Catholic’ refers to the heresy formed around the person of the Pope of Rome (who broke away from the Orthodox Church in 1054 A.D.),

responding

In these years, Caerularius had been preaching against unleavened bread with the misleading argument that Christ would not have been celebrating the Seder, and that he would therefore still have had leavened bread.

Herein he innovated, and contradicted the Gospel. He also allowed masses reacting to this preaching by committing sacrilege to do no penance, as if they had committed no sacrilege.

This is what Humbert excommunicated him over.

II

Papacy and Ecclesiology I

citing

which strives to subject the world to the incontrovertible doctrinal and decretal authority of this man, declared to be the “substitute [vicari] of the Son of God”, “Christ on earth”, etc.

responding

That the Pope is Vicar of God is apparent when:

• God is the Good Shepherd and calls Peter to be Shepherd
• God is Rock and calls Simon Rock
• God promises to give Peter personally the keys to His Kingdom
• God promises that whatever he binds and loses shall be bound and losened in Heaven

III

Variations outside papacy

citing

This is the fundamental and only truly unchanging doctrinal aspect of this sect and its essence; all other characteristics may be changed or ‘developed’ in new directions, of which history already records many examples.

responding

Apart from exaggerating the extent of two items of Modernism among Catholics, apart from calling what they reject "variations" when usually older than the schism, it misses the huge constants we have in common with them, like Resurrection of Christ, like Trinity, like Mass being a Sacrifice, like Baptism regenerating, like Confession allowing salvation to be regained by those losing it by sin after Baptism, like prayers to be said for the departed. those praying for Constantine II were not saying he was in Purgatory, or might be in Purgatory, or that he needed or might need their prayers to get sooner to Heaven - but they still claim, as much as we Purgatory believers, he could profit from such prayers. This has not varied.

IV

Holy Spirit

citing

Dual Causation of the Holy Spirit,

responding

I am not sure this is a good description of the dogma, but it is taught prior to the schism and apart from St. Augustine and many admirers of his by:

• St. Athanasius, not just in the Quicumque, but also in the letters
• the FIRST Council of Toledo. AD 400. Yes, I said first, not third.

Patrem autem non esse ipsum Filium, sed habere Filium qui Pater non sit. Filium non esse Patrem sed Filium Dei de Patris esse natura. Spiritum quoque Paraclitum esse, qui nec Pater sit ipse nec Filius, sed a Patre Filioque procedens.

The Father is not the Son, but hath a Son who is not the Father. The Son is not the Father but the Son of God of the nature of the Father. There is also the Holy Ghost, who himself* is neither Father nor Son, but proceeding from the Father and the Son.

V

Trinity and Grace

citing

God as a Tripartite Energy (with Created Grace being a further heretical consequence),

responding

I do not know any statement of the Trinity by Roman Catholics that speaks of "tripartite energy" but I do know that the first council of Toledo condemns the idea of uncreated energies other than the Trinity.

Hanc Trinitatem personis distinctam, substantiam unitam virtute et potestate et maiestate indivisibilem, indeferentem. Praeter hanc nullam credimus divinam esse naturam, vel angeli vel spiritus, vel virtutis alicuius quae Deus esse credatur.

This Trinity is of distinct persons, united in substance, indivisible, indifferenta in virtue and power and majesty. Beyond this we believe no nature to be divine, whether angels whether spirits, whether of some virtue*** that would be believed to be God.

As to "created grace" this does not mean grace is a created substance, as such people calumniate, but refers to a definition like:

Sanctifying grace is a created participation in the life of God.

In what do we participate? In God, therefore grace is substantially uncreated.
Who participates and how? We, in a way showing us creatures. Therefore the participation we have in God is created : it is freely decreed by God, it can begin (in baptism), it can end (in sin), it can grow (to full glory of the saints already in heaven), which are not attributes of God, but of createdness.

It is only as participation that grace is created, as for what it is, it is God, therefore uncreated.

VI

Indulgences

citing

Purgatory and the Papal Treasury of Merits,

responding

Orthodox carry out prayers for the dead and acts of indulgence like inviting to the Kollyva for poor men to pray for the deceased.

VII

Newman

citing

Development of Dogma,

responding

Development of Dogma is not a Catholic dogma. It was the conclusion that John Henry Newman came to as an Anglican, from whence he converted, he came to it as a heretic.

It was published in 1845, when he converted. Same year he also published Retractions of statements against the Catholic faith. This work is very much less read, and probably revokes the very idea of development.

VIII

Nostra Aetate

citing

the Divine Inspiration and Salvific Nature of all Religions (a heresy stemming from the 20th-century Freemasonic takeover of the Vatican),

responding

While Vatican II can be described in many ways as a Freemasonic takeover, Nostra Aetate does not say all religions are as wholes divinely inspired and salvific, only that they have traces of divine inspiration and salvific truth. I have studied it in this essay:

Is Nostra Aetate Saying Buddhists Can Actually Achieve Complete Liberation?

It contains the sentences:

Ecclesia catholica nihil eorum, quae in his religionibus vera et sancta sunt, reicit. ...
The Catholic Church rejects nothing of the things which in these religions are true and holy. ...

Sincera cum observantia considerat illos modos agendi et vivendi, illa praecepta et doctrinas,
With sincere observation She considers the modes of acting and living, those precepts and doctrines,

quae, quamvis ab iis quae ipsa tenet et proponit in multis discrepent,
which, while in much they are in discord with the ones which She Herself is holding and proposing,

haud raro referunt* tamen radium illius Veritatis, quae illuminat omnes homines.
nevertheless not seldom transmit* a beam of that Truth which enlightens all men.

So : a) pagan religions contain doctrines and practises discording from that of the Church, b) but also beams of the Truth that enlightens all men.

There is a difference between standing in the light and standing in a mostly dark room where just one or two beams of light shine in.

To deny that paganisms contain any truth at all, one would have to:

• presume that identic statements are non-identic when stated by different religions
• conclude that the ones in false religions have a complete excuse, since no truth already in their way is able to lead them on to the recognition of full truth, should they meet a missionary.

Note, I haven't read what it says on Jews, I think what it says on Muslims is ill formulated, but it is not saying that all religions as they stand in their entireties are divinely inspired or salvific, but that they have parts that are so and other parts that are not. The latter part could be stated much clearer, but it is not directly denied.

IX

Avvakum

citing

the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary,

responding

You are accepting an innovation by Nikon, the Skirzhal of 1666, which was inspired by a Greek from Venice who had studied in Wittenberg(!) under the heretic Luther's disciples.

Apart from Avvakum, the heroic rejector of the Skirzhal, who was inhumanely treated and burned on the stake for holding among other things to the Immaculate Conception, you are also contrdicting the Greek text of Sub tuum praesidium and the opinion of Palamas.

Trento : Philaret : Mone hagne, mone eulogemene / Moni agni, moni evloyimeni
https://trentophilaret.blogspot.com/p/mone-hagne-mone-eulogemene-moni-agni.html

X

Sacramental theology I

citing

the Sacramentalogy of Opere Operato,

responding

Means two things.

• If we have done the sacrament as we should, we can be sure it is received, even if the giver was sinful and in some cases (Baptism but not Confession) if the receiver was so.
• The validity of a sacrament is not affected by its being conferred outside the Church, except those that require jurisdiction for validity (like Confession, but not Baptism).

It is true that one Church Father said that heretics confer false sacraments, but that was about Arians, who for instance did not believe the Trinity, which falsifies Baptisms.

XI

Papacy and Ecclesiology II

citing

as well as the canonical violations of claiming jurisdiction for the Pope in all dioceses,

responding

In the second epistle by St. Clement of Rome, he is acting as if having jurisdiction over Corinth.

XII

Creed

citing

adding to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed,

responding

There is no act of deciding to add. There is no original Greek manuscript available for Constantinople I, it could be a Basileus ordered Chalcedon to retract from the creed instead, even if that was not the opinion of Pope St. Leo III.

In the Third Council of Toledo, we find filioque already included in the Creed, as if it was a matter of tradition, immemorial, and in the first Council, we find it in an explanatory creed or credal statement against the Priscillianists.

XIII

Celibacy

citing

Rejection of Married Priests,

responding

Pope St. Gregory VII indeed forbade married men from becoming priests in the Gregorian Reform, this has not been required of clergy from Eastern Rites, so the Uniates have marrie Deacons and Priests, and Pope Michael restored married priests also for the Latin rite.

The reason was married clergy was often worldly and influenced by worldly rulers, and the upkeep of priestly families is more costly on the faithful or especially on the Church, where the non-cleric sons of clergy inherit goods from the Church.

Nevertheless, the requirement was abolished by Pope Michael, as said.

XIV

Sacramental Theology II

citing

Mutation or Mutilation of the Mysteries of Holy Baptism, Chrismation, Confession,

responding

For Chrismation, I am not sure what is meant. For Confession, I am not sure what is meant.

For Baptism we are concerned with accepting baptism by partial immersion, if it includes the head, and also by pouring down of water.

This seems to have been an accepted practise in the old Church, not for normal baptisms, but for those conducted secretly in prisons for martyrs. Where there was no baptisterium. It was extended to baptism of children for colder countries, since the early Church did not get to inland Germany or Poland or Scandinavia, where in winter the climate is very cold.

If what is meant for Chrismation is that only the forehead is anointed, this could also be from secret conferring of the sacrement to prisoners about to be martyred, in the old Church.

XV

Sacramental Theology III

citing

and Lord’s Divine Liturgy and Eucharist (unleavened wafers, removal of the invocation of the Holy Spirit, etc.),

responding

The unleavened bread has already been answered.

For those who hold that the invocation of the Holy Spirit is what is needed for Christ to be present in the Sacrament, I would agree with Nicolas Cabasilas that this invocation was never removed.

There is a text technically known as epiclesis in which the Father is invoked to send the Holy Spirit onto the bread and wine so that they might for us become body and blood of Christ, after which words there is no Amen or no full stop, since the prayer continues into the next part, the anamnesis "qui pridie quam pateretur" which text also does not end in itself but only with the citation of the words of Christ, after which finally Amen is added. So, the words that we consider are instrumental for transsubstantiation are the ones which end the epiclesis. The reason why we have no epiclesis after them is that they themselves end the epiclesis.

XVI

Misleading views on Crusades, Inquisition

citing

and the papal decrees ordering or sanctioning the robbery, torture, murder, enslavement, and other forms of inhuman maltreatment of insubordinate or non-Roman Catholic persons.

responding

This mischaracterises the Crusades, and most decrees.

No decree allowing enslavement was made, except for Black Africans presumed to be involved in the Islamic states, and therefore in the Islamic slave trades. This was a decree to Portugal, not to the entire Church, and was arguably meant for the countries in Africa that Portugal was then controlling. It was a retaliation for Islamic slave hunt, and not a decree that all and any non-Catholics can be enslaved.

By contrast, decrees were made that slaves taken from "Turks" should be liberated, and also decrees forbidding the enslaving of American First Nations. Encomiendas were at least technically not slave farms, the encomiendero was not in theory allowed to make a private profit on the back of exploiting Indios, the labour was mainly meant for their own sustenance.

In the case of heretics, we do not deal with simple discord from the dogma either with Albigensians or Protestants, but with the one with violent anarchy and the others violent revolution, not very different from the Communist ones more recently.

Avvakum did no comparable evil, he held to the traditions of his fathers, and was involved in no more violent things than boxing, and you Nikonians burned him on the stake.

XVII

Rejection of St. Augustine

Commenting

This is disingenious, since Palamas, apart from accepting the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, also accepted the Augustinian view of Original sin for all men conceived from Adam and Eve other than the Blessed Virgin and Jesus.