Theological differences between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem - a centre of pilgrimage long shared and disputed between the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches.

This article discusses Catholic–Orthodox theological differences, based on the views of some Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church theologians on what they see as differences between their theologies. Along with ecclesiastical differences, a number of disagreements over matters of Christian theology developed slowly between the Western and Eastern wings of the Pre-Schism Church (the state church and earlier) centred upon the cities of Rome and New Rome/Constantinople (c.330-1453) respectively. The disputes were a major factor in the formal East-West Schism between Pope Leo IX and Patriarch Michael I in 1054.

The disputes, of greater and lesser importance, included both Ecclesiological issues of Church order and governance, such as Papal primacy versus the Pentarchy, clerical celibacy and divorce; and theological concerns such as the issues of original sin and the Filioque clause. Most of the issues are still unresolved between the churches today.

Several of the issues mentioned below have been in dispute between the Eastern and Western Church for centuries, as catalogued in The Byzantine Lists: Errors of the Latins, by Tia M. Kolbaba (University of Illinois Press, 2000). These include the Latin (Roman Catholic) discipline of clerical celibacy, the addition to the creed, differing practices for Lenten fasting, fasting on the Sabbath, azymes in the Eucharist, differences involving baptism, marriage within forbidden degrees, reverence to icons, bishops wearing rings, claims of insufficient reverence for the Virgin Mary, differences in the forms used in making the sign of the cross, and further liturgical differences.

Areas of agreement on doctrine

The issues in disagreement need to be set in context of the extent of broad areas of doctrinal agreement between the Catholic and Orthodox communions. These include joint acceptance of the decisions of the seven early ecumenical councils of the undivided Church; namely the Council of Nicea, the First Council of Constantinople, the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, the Second and Third Council of Constantinople and the Second Council of Nicaea. There is therefore agreement on such major doctrines as the divinity and nature of Jesus, on Apostolic Succession, the threefold ministry of Bishops, Priests and Deacons, the broad structure of the visible church, the sinless life of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the honour due to her as Theotokos, the invocation of the Saints, priestly confession, the use of images in worship, and the Real Presence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Neither Church community subscribes to the Protestant teachings of Faith Alone for Salvation, or of Sola Scriptura in its meaning that rejects doctrinal teachings passed down through the Church from the apostles in the form of Sacred Tradition.

Extant disputes as seen by Orthodox theologians

Theological issues "Actus Purus" and "Theoria"

Some Eastern Orthodox theologians point to a number of theological issues outstanding. These issues have a long history as can be seen in the 11th Century works of Orthodox theologian and saint Nikitas Stithatos.

Speculative theology – Philosophy and Scholasticism versus empirical theology – Theoria

Eastern theologians have contented that Christianity is the truth; that Christianity is in essence the one true way to know the true God who is the origin and originator of all things (seen and unseen, knowable and unknowable). Christianity is the apodictic truth, in contrast to the dialectic, dianoia or rationalised knowledge which is the arrived at truth of philosophical speculation.

All other attempts by mankind, though containing some degree of truth will ultimately fail in their reconciliation between mankind and his source of existence and or being (called the studies of ontology, metaphysics). One's religion must provide for the whole person (the soul), their spiritual needs most importantly. In the approach to God the East considers philosophy but one form or tool that can do much to bring one closer to God but falls short at completeness in this task.

Vladimir Lossky, a noted modern Eastern Orthodox theologian, argues the difference in East and West is due to the Roman Catholic Church's use of pagan metaphysical philosophy (and it's outgrowth, scholasticism) rather than the mystical, actual experience of God called theoria, to validate the theological dogmas of Roman Catholic Christianity. For this reason, Lossky argues that Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics have become "different men". Other Eastern Orthodox theologians such as John Romanides and Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos say the same. Vladimir Lossky expressed this as "Revelation sets an abyss between the truth which it declares and the truths which can be discovered by philosophical speculation.

This same sentiment was also expressed by the early Slavophile movements in the works of Ivan Kireevsky and Aleksey Khomyakov. The slavophile sought reconciliation (sobornost) with all various forms of Christianity as can be seen in the works of its most famous proponent Vladimir Solovyov. Theoria here is something more than simply a theological position. In Eastern Orthodoxy theoria was and is what established for the early church fathers the validation of Christianity and the ecclesiastical faith in God as a mystical (in the modern sense of the word) relationship between God and mankind that culminated into theosis. Against the position of allegorical, literal and now philosophical interpretations of the Christian understanding and knowledge of God (theology). Ancient church fathers like Gregory of Nyssa validated that theoria was the proper way to interpret Christian traditions such as the bible and liturgical services.

Roman Catholic teaching

In contrast the Catholic Church as a matter of Dogma states that mankind can not know of God intuitively (noetically) here in the present life. The West also teaches that God's energies and or activities are also God in essence and to teach otherwise is against Church dogma. This is against the teachings of the Eastern Fathers culminating into the works of Gregory Palamas who made this distinction during the Hesychasm controversy in East against Barlaam of Seminara (who later became a Roman Catholic priest). Palamas' distinction was made as a means to show the difference between the Christian understanding of God and the pagan philosophical Aristotelean, Platonic and Neoplatonic understanding of God as Pantheistic.

Hesychasm controversy and the acquisition of Theoria

See also: Tabor light and Nicholas Cabasilas

The great theological division of East and West, as is believed and taught by the Eastern Orthodox, can be seen to have culminated into a direct theological conflict internal to the Eastern Orthodox Church itself known as the Hesychasm controversy or the Palamite controversy. This controversy showing the sharp contrast between what is embraced by the Roman Catholic Church as proper (or orthodox) theological dogma and how theology is validated and what is considered valid theology by the Eastern Orthodox.

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, quoted by John Romanides, says that one cannot be a genuine or true theologian or teach knowledge of God without having experienced God, as is defined as the vision of God (theoria). Archimandrite (later, Archbishop) Chrysostomos said that Augustine of Hippo's understanding of God "was derived from a deeply Orthodox encounter with the Trinity—something which a passing interest in his Confessions would aver." At the heart of the issue is the teaching of the Essence-Energies distinctions by Gregory Palamas. The tradition and perspective distinction behind this understanding is that creation is an activity of God (the task of energy or energeia). If we deny the real distinction between God's essence and God's creation (activities or energies), we cannot, according to Vladimir Lossky, fix any very clear borderline between the procession of the existences of God (or realities of God) and the creation of the world: both the one and the other will be equally acts of the divine nature.

As in the East Activity is a task or property of something else and energy does not stand alone (there is no activity, energy per se). The being and the action(s) of God without the distinction then would appear identical, leading to the teaching of Pantheism. This removal of distinction meaning that the universe or material world and God are one and the same. God's action (creation) and God being one and the same in actus purus, but not the result of his creating activity. This leads to the denial of the transcendence and apophatic, incomprehensible character or essence of God. By stating that God's being and energies are the same thing one is stating that God in Trinity is the same as man (i.e. created or a creature). Most importantly that man as a finite being will be able to conceive the infinite. This would mean that mankind could be God in essence, as man is a creation of God, as an activity an act of God.

Pantheism rather potentially pagan or not, also implicitly teaches that Man is the creator God (as philosophical idealism in that God is in and of the mind nous, dyad, demiurge). Within Neoplatonism there is not only no distinction between the creator God the dyad (from the Monad) and the world (the Triad or World Soul) but that the world is made up of the monad or singular substance, essence that all things reduce to (the uncaused cause) by the demiurge or dyad. This tenet of the pagan soteriological teaching of henosis (as taught by Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus) rather than the teaching of Christian salvation (theosis). Hesychasm was one of the ways in which the various ascetics of the East attained the vision of God. To vilify Hesychasm is the vilify the process of theosis in that Heyschasm first purifies the human heart, then initiates theoria (illumination) and finally changes the person into being like God, Christ-like, Holy or Good (called Sainthood). This process has long been active in the East as it can also be seen in the works of ascetics like St John Climacus.

St John Climacus and his works are venerated in both the East and the West. However as the Roman Catholic theologian Adrian Fortescue has explicitly stated Hesychasm goes against the Roman Catholic method of validating it's theology by using the Pagan philosopher Aristotle's Metaphysical and scholastic arguments such as actus and potentia.

According to Roman Catholic theologian Adrian Fortescue, hesychasm arose from ideas of the pagan philosophies of Neoplatonism and Plato himself and that since Roman Catholic theology is too impregnated by Aristotle's actus and potential and scholasticism, Roman Catholic theology can not be reconciled with Hesychasm. Fortescue's early-20th-century statement that Hesychasm is the only great form of mysticism of the Eastern Christian community appears to run counter to how diverse Eastern Orthodox asceticism is. This can be seen for example in V Lossky's history of the movement before Gregory Palamas in Lossky's book the Vision of (Seeing) God. This can be seen as very dismissive to the ascetic history of Hesychasm as it is also outlined within the spiritual text of the Philokalia.

With the publication in 1782 of the Philokalia came a revival in hesychasm, accepted in particular by the Slav Orthodox churches; this and the importance attached to it in the 20th century by the Paris school of Orthodox theology "have led to hesychasm's becoming definitive for modern Orthodox theology as never before".

The Hesychast movement after the death of Gregory Palamas

After the death of Gregory Palamas the Byzantine Empire experienced a Civil War fought by pro Heyschast forces whom actually took the name the Hesychast party. On one side of the conflict was the anti- Heschast pro Latin forces of John V Palaiologos and on the opposing side the Pro Hesychast anti - Latin forces of John VI Kantakouzenos. In the end it was the Pro Hesychast forces that won the Civil War.

Roman Catholic attitude

In Constantinople, a succession of councils alternately approved and condemned doctrine concerning hesychasm. No such councils were held by the Western church to pronounce on this internal issue of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the word "hesychasm" does not appear in the Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum (Handbook of Creeds and Definitions), the collection of Roman Catholic teachings originally compiled by Heinrich Joseph Dominicus Denzinger.

Palamite doctrine won almost no following in the West, and the distrustful attitude of Barlaam in its regard prevailed among Western theologians, surviving into the early 20th century, as shown in Adrian Fortescue's article on hesychasm in the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia. Fortescue translated the Greek word "hesychastes" as "quietist", and an electronic online edition of his article, prepared 70 years after Fortescue's death, links the latter word, without explicit justification in the article itself, to the article in the same encyclopedia on the Western heresy of quietism. In that article Edward Pace indicates that, while in the strictest sense quietism is a 17th-century doctrine proposed by Miguel de Molinos, the term is also used more broadly to cover both Indian religions and what he called "the vagaries of Hesychasm", thus betraying the same prejudices as Fortescue with regard to hesychasm.

While some Western theologians see the theology of Palamas, closely associated with the hesychast tradition of mystical prayer but not identical with it, as introducing an inadmissible division within God, others have incorporated his theology into their own thinking. These Western theologians such as Kallistos Ware, Andrew Louth for example being Orthodox themselves not representative of the Roman Catholicism or the Vatican.

For instance, Catholic philosopher and blogger Dr. Michael Liccione argues that the Essence-Energies Distinction, as expounded by St. Gregory Palamas, is true and is compatible with the Catholic dogma of absolute divine simplicity on his blog. According to the definition given at the Fourth Council of the Lateran and the First Vatican Council. Dr. Liccione says that Divine simplicity and the distinction between the Divine Essence and the Divine Energies would be contradictory if Divine Essence is taken "to mean God as what He eternally is" because "God is actus purus, and thus has no unrealized potentialities." However, if we define God's essence as what "He necessarily is apart from what He does," then God's "essence is incommunicable" and communication would necessitate Divine actions, or Energies. Thus there is a real distinction between God's Essence, what "He necessarily is apart from what He does," and His Energies, "God as what He eternally does."

This present-day treatment contrasts sharply with Adrian Fortescue's polemical assessment, in the early-20th-century Catholic Encyclopedia, and with that of Siméon Vailhé, who charged Palamas with heresy and "monstrous errors", characterizing Hesychasm as "no more than a crude form of auto-suggestion" and calling the theology of Palamas a "resurrection of polytheism." Vailhé and Fortescue's arguments echo those made by Barlaam, Nikephoros Gregoras, and John Kyparissiotes against the Hesychasts and Gregory of Palamas during the Hesychasm Controversy in the East.

Noetic or intuitive faculty and the "unseen warfare" of the human heart

See also: nous and Spiritual warfare

In Eastern Christianity consciousness as the center, heart or spirit of the person is often referred to as the Nous. Therefore Orthodox Christianity is healing or therapeutic and works in each individual to overcome their passions (i.e. evil thoughts, pasts, addictions). Nous or personal consciousness can also be loosely translated as the whole experience of conscious reality both internal (dianoia and intuitive) and external (sensory perception). Nous as the eye of the whole person (called soul). It is the nous that is both logical and intuitive understanding. Since in the East much spiritual work is done, as the Christian life inside the Church (liturgical services) and outside the church. This work is dedicated to reconciling the heart and mind by putting the mind in the heart and then contemplating through our intuition.

""Conquer yourself – this is the highest of all victories"

Consciousness or the human spirit (noetic) as energy of the soul, therefore the nous is called the "eye of the heart or soul". In Eastern Orthodoxy when dealing with the satisfaction of the spirit one must live according to the spirit. As the laws of God are written on the human heart. It is stated that if the Orthodox Church appeared now in the world, and new, it would appear as a hospital for the spirit, heart, soul or nous of mankind. Noesis (insight in English) means intuitive experiences of the spirit or heart, i.e. when one loves or grieves these are not things "learned" nor "rationalized" from external reality nor experienced as such. They are things essential and unlearned as intuitive or instinctual. These are energies or noesis as activities of the nous, consciousness. These internal experiences are intrinsic to the whole person in the East, the whole or complete person is called the soul.

Inner experience

See also: Nepsis

The term nous in the East is used to mean the vision of life, as consciousness. The soul (which is body and spirit together as one thing) vivifies or gives energy to the nous. Where as philosophical discourse (dialect) is very mechanical and attenuates reality into analytical concepts. Thereby reducing man and nature to cold mechanical concepts, interpretations and symbols of reality not reality in and of itself. Eastern Christianity seeks to restore mankind to his pre-separation from God or Paradise condition of full communion with the Creator and Trinity. Since in the East, it was man's nous that was damaged by Adam's sin and fall and it was this damaged consciousness that each human by birth now receives.

This in contrast, to say as in the West, man received from Adam total depravity or original sin. The subject of mankind's soul as it learns to struggle against the world of passions and corruptions (illusions) is called asceticism. Critical to Eastern Christianity, asceticism is the experience of the soul. In Eastern Christianity, Christianity becomes nothing more than a mechanical and empty ideology, if it is stripped of its ascetic practices. So an ascetic-less Christianity has no way to deal with or cope with the challenges of life if it is devoid of its completeness, found in its traditions including ascetic practice (Orthopraxis).

Liturgy in the East is considered one of the ascetic practises a Christian must engage in, for Christianity to be complete and functional. Ascetic traditions provide ways of overcoming the various kinds of conflicts, experiences and thoughts that trouble the spirit or heart of mankind. These events are called the Unseen Warfare of the human heart (the human nous is the arena of spiritual struggle). Some of the concepts critical to addressing the needs of man such as sober introspection called nepsis can be taught and learned as a means to overcome various spiritual sicknesses. Specific to this process is the watchfulness of the human heart. The proper way to address and resolve the conflicts of the human nous, heart or mind are also at conflict between East and West. Since noetic understanding can not be circumvented nor satisfied by rationalizing or discursive thought (i.e. systemization as one can not talk or think themselves out of love or addiction).

Eastern Christianity finds a sharp departure with the West over the philosophical cornerstone that reason is the highest faculty in man. The East considers faith a far more critical component (and one more important than reason) in working out ones salvation. Salvation in the East is reconciliation with God, and it is God that satisfies the human heart or soul through the synergia of theosis called the grace of God. So in Eastern Christianity for example the Dark Night of the Soul is not considered a normal or necessary phrase for the human heart to achieve a relationship with God, nor is it considered one that is good or healthy. Since the Catholic Church denies via its dogma that mankind can know God directly (intuitively, noeticially) in this life it is in conflict with Eastern theology. Catholic dogma also teaches that mankind can know God's being or essence which is to say one can be God or have the consciousness of the uncreated God. The Orthodox teach that this is impossible, in this life and or in the next.

Faith as intuitive truth

Faith (pistis) is sometimes used interchangeable with Noesis in Eastern Christianity. Noesis or insight (meaning activities of the nous) are how we perceive and interact with existence. The activities of the mind or consciousness as uncreated energies. These things as energies and as uncreated are not rational, as rational comes from studying the immanence and inter-relationship of sensuous things. Faith being a characteristic of the intuitive, noesis or noetic experience of the nous or spirit. Faith here being defined as intuitive truth, meaning as a gift from God, faith is one of God's uncreated energies (Grace too is another of God's uncreated energies). Since Gregory Palamas clarified that God's Energies are distinct from his Essence. God can be known by his energies (activities and then actualization) but not then limited to be any one of them.

Therefore God can be love, but then not strictly love because God then also can give us faith. Noesis as insight is the internal faculty, as faith, in which one faces the unknowable or randomness of the future. The God in Trinity is uncreated or incomprehensible in nature, being, substance or essence. Foresight implies in its innateness fore-knowledge (premonition), insight however operates without such knowledge, meaning one proceeds into the future by faith. Therefore in Eastern Christianity, unlike in Western Christianity (see Actus et potentia), God's essence or incomprehensibility is distinguished from his uncreated energies. This again, is clarified in the Essence-Energies distinction of Gregory Palamas. Faith here beyond simply a belief in something. Faith here as an activity or operation of God working in and through mankind. Faith being a critical aspect to the relationship between man and the God, this relationship or process is called Theosis. Faith as an operation in contemplating of an object for understanding.

Mankind's analysis of an object's properties: enables us to form concepts. But this analysis can in no case exhaust the content of the object of perception. There will always remain an "irrational residue" which escapes analysis and which can not be expressed in concepts: it is this unknowable depth of things, that which constitutes their true, indefinable essence that also reflects the origin of things in God. As God in Trinity, as the anomalies of God's essence or being. In Eastern Christianity it is by faith or intuitive truth that this component of an objects existence is grasp. Though God through his energies draws us to him, his essence remains inaccessible. The operation of faith being the means of free will by which mankind faces the future or unknown, these noetic operations contained in the concept of insight or noesis. This faith being a radical departure from the concepts in henosis of fate and destiny within pre-Christian pagan culture.

Original Sin vs Ancestral Sin

Another point of theological contention according to some Orthodox theologians is the Roman Catholic teachings on Original Sin. Orthodox theologians trace this position to having its roots in the works of Saint Augustine. Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism, which together make up Eastern Christianity, acknowledge that the introduction of ancestral sin into the human race affected the subsequent environment for mankind, but never accepted Augustine of Hippo's notions of original sin and hereditary guilt. The Roman Catholic Church did not accept all of Augustine's ideas, at least as these are commonly interpreted outside the Church, such as the idea that original sin deprives man of free will or that God predestines some people to hell, and also his teaching that infants who die without baptism are confined to hell. It holds that original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants.

For the Eastern Orthodox the act of Adam is not the responsibility of all humanity, but the consequences of that act changed the reality of this present age of the cosmos. The Greek Fathers emphasized the metaphysical dimension of the Fall of Man, whereby Adam's descendants are born into a fallen world, but at the same time held fast to belief that, in spite of that, man remains with free will. The Catholic Church teaches: "By our first parents' sin, the devil has acquired a certain domination over man, even though man remains free." Orthodox Churches accept the teaching of John Cassian, who, according to Orthodox theologian Augustine Casiday, "baldly asserts that God's grace, not human free will, is responsible for 'everything which pertains to salvation' - even faith."

Cassian endeavored in his thirteenth chapter of Conferences section eleven to demonstrate from Biblical examples that God frequently awaits the good impulses of the natural will, before coming to its assistance with His supernatural grace. While the grace often preceded the will, as in the case of Matthew and Peter, he said, on the other hand the will frequently preceded the grace, as in the case of Zacchæus and the Good Thief on the Cross. Cassian points out that people still have moral freedom and one has the option to choose to follow God. Colm Luibhéid says that, according to Cassian, there are cases where the soul makes the first little turn, while Augustine Casiday says that, in Cassian's view, any sparks of goodwill that may exist, not directly caused by God, are totally inadequate and only direct divine intervention ensures spiritual progress. and Lauren Pristas says that "for Cassian, salvation is, from beginning to end, the effect of God's grace."

In his Conference XIII, Cassian, who is not here speaking in his own name, recounts how the wise monk Chaeremon, of whom he is writing responded to puzzlement caused by his own statement that "man even though he strive with all his might for a good result, yet cannot become master of what is good unless he has acquired it simply by the gift of Divine bounty and not by the efforts of his own toil" (chapter 1).

In chapter 11, Cassian presents Chaeremon as speaking of the cases of Paul the persecutor and Matthew the publican as difficulties for those who say "the beginning of free will is in our own power", and the cases of Zaccheus and the good thief on the cross as difficulties for those who say "the beginning of our free will is always due to the inspiration of the grace of God", and as concluding: "These two then; viz., the grace of God and free will seem opposed to each other, but really are in harmony, and we gather from the system of goodness that we ought to have both alike, lest if we withdraw one of them from man, we may seem to have broken the rule of the Church's faith: for when God sees us inclined to will what is good, He meets, guides, and strengthens us: for 'At the voice of thy cry, as soon as He shall hear, He will answer thee'; and: 'Call upon Me', He says, 'in the day of tribulation and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me'. And again, if He finds that we are unwilling or have grown cold, He stirs our hearts with salutary exhortations, by which a good will is either renewed or formed in us."

Synergist and monergist

See also: monergist

Roman Catholic sources state that Semipelagianism, namely the teaching that the beginning of faith belongs to human beings by nature and not by a gift of divine grace, is condemned as a heresy in the Roman Catholic Church.

Roman Catholic writers and others have generally attributed to Cassian the teachings labeled Semipelagianism, but more recently the question has been raised: "Was John Cassian a Semi-Pelagian?" Scholars such as Orthodox Christian Augustine Casiday and Protestant Lauren Pristas maintain that Cassian was not a semi-Pelagian, and did not teach the semi-Pelagian doctrine that man can sometimes take the first steps to salvation without divine grace. Casiday states: "Although Cassian could not be considered an Augustinian, this does not make him semi-Pelagian ... for Cassian, contrary to Pelagius' teaching, sin is inevitable, although sparks of goodwill may exist (which are not directly caused by God). Humans are totally inadequate and only direct divine intervention can ensure our spiritual progress." And Pristas writes: "For Cassian, salvation is, from beginning to end, the effect of God's grace. It is fully divine."

Still other sources state that the position of synergy was actually condemned by the Western Church at the Council of Orange, in spite of the fact that the Catholic Church teaches, on the contrary, that for salvation "there is a kind of interplay, or synergy, between human freedom and divine grace".

The Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky commented that Cassian "was not able to make himself correctly understood" and that "his position … was interpreted, on the rational plane, as a semi-pelagianism, and was condemned in the West", while in the East he is considered "a witness to tradition". As the Eastern Orthodox position is "according to the holy Fathers, salvation is a matter of synergy, of cooperation—that of man with God, if man wills (actively chooses) the good, the right path, the virtuous life—then God will grant grace".

While Semipelagianism holds that the human will can at times take the first step toward salvation independently, with divine grace supervening only later, the Eastern Orthodox position is, according to Vladimir Lossky, that the synergy between divine grace and human freedom is necessarily simultaneous: "Eastern tradition has always asserted simultaneity in the synergy of divine grace and human freedom". He states: "The Eastern tradition never separates these two elements: grace and human freedom are manifested simultaneously and cannot be conceived apart from each other." Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky also says that the Eastern Orthodox Church "always understood that God initiates, accompanies, and completes everything in the process of salvation", in opposition to the semi-Pelagian idea that unaided human will can initiate something in the process of salvation.

Roman Catholic historian Luc Brésard also said that Cassian "did not have sufficient theological expertise to deal with such a difficult subject ... but his basic thought was true to the faith." Cassian is included, under 23 July, in the official list of saints venerated by the Church, but the Roman Martyology indicates that he is venerated only locally, a situation that one writer has described as denial of liturgical and devotional recognition as a saint. Like his contemporaries Augustine of Hippo and John Chrysostom, who are also reckoned as saints of the Roman Catholic Church, he was of course never canonized, since formal canonization did not come into use until centuries after their deaths: "the first historically attested canonization is that of Ulrich of Augsburg by Pope John XV in 993."

Augustine's standing in the East

"Augustine of Hippo is the fount of every distortion and alteration in the Church's truth in the West" Christos Yannaras

John Romanides writing on Augustine has stated that, though a saint, Augustine did not have theoria and many of his theological conclusions appear to be arrived at not from experiencing God and writing about his experience(s) of God. Augustine's conclusions appear to have him arrive at them, by means of philosophical or logical speculation and conjecture. Hence Romanides reveres Augustine as a saint, but says he does not qualify as a theologian in the Eastern Orthodox church. Some of Augustine's Trinitarian conclusions appear to him to immanentize characteristics of theology which would be improper treatment of those things divine. As the Roman Catholic and Augustinian teaching of Felix culpa is also rejected by the Eastern Orthodox.

In the view of Eastern theologians who in light of their experiences would articulate their expressions of those things differently. Augustine's treatment of the inner relationship of the realities of God in Trinity and how God has manifested himself to mankind throughout time are an overview of this attitude.;

While this is the view of Augustine presented especially by Yannaras and Romanides, it is not the only view that is upheld by Eastern Orthodox theologians. In his review of Hieromonk Seraphim Rose's book The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church Archimandite (later, Archbishop) Chrysostomos wrote: "In certain ultra-conservative Orthodox circles in the United States, there has developed an unfortunate bitter and harsh attitude toward one of the great Fathers of the Church, the blessed (Saint) Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D.). These circles, while clearly outside the mainstream of Orthodox thought and careful scholarship, have often been so vociferous and forceful in their statements that their views have touched and even affected more moderate and stable Orthodox believers and thinkers. Not a few writers and spiritual aspirants have been disturbed by this trend."

While Chrysostomos admits that, "in terms of classical Orthodox thought on the subject, Saint Augustine placed grace and human free will at odds, if only because his view of grace was too overstated and not balanced against the Patristic witness as regards the efficacy of human choice and spiritual labor. Likewise, as an outgrowth of his understanding of grace, Augustine developed a theory of predestination that further distorted the Orthodox understanding of free will. And finally, Augustine's theology proper, his understanding of God, in its mechanical, overly logical, and rationalistic tone, leads one, to some extent, away from the mystery of God-which is lost, indeed, in Saint Augustine's failure to capture fully the very mystery of man".

Chrysostomos welcomed Hieromonk Seraphim's book as showing that, "while Augustine’s ideas may have been used and distorted in the West to produce more modern theories (such as Calvinistic predestination, sola gratia, or even deism), the Saint himself was not guilty of the kind of innovative theologizing that his more extreme detractors would claim he championed. Indeed, Father Seraphim shows that Augustine never denied the free will of the individual; that his view of grace was one which, in later years, largely through the influence of his Western contemporaries, he felt compelled to revise; and that his understanding of God, despite his overly logical approach to theology, was derived from a deeply Orthodox encounter with the Trinity—something which a passing interest in his Confessions would aver."

In the Acts of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, held in Constantinople in 553, one document lists Augustine among the Fathers of the Church and makes a declaration of following his teaching on the true faith "in every way"; another speaks of him as "of most religious memory, who shone forth resplendent among the African bishops".

In the Dismissal Hymn sung on Augustine's 15 June feastday, the liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church calls him a "father" and "one who has received God": "O blessed Augustine, you have been proved to be a bright vessel of the divine Spirit and revealer of the city of God; you have also righteously served the Saviour as a wise hierarch who has received God. O righteous father, pray to Christ God that he may grant us great mercy."

Roman Catholic teaching

The Roman Catholic Church, while not upholding all of Augustine's teachings, such as the idea attributed to him that original sin deprives man of free will or that God predestines some people to hell, and also his teaching that infants who die without baptism are confined to hell, condemns Pelagianism. Pelagianism teaches in essence that mankind can choose by his own free will to live without sin (implying mankind can live sinlessly without the help or grace of God).

Western interpretations of Cassian

John Cassian, who is recognized as a saint not only by the Eastern Orthodox but also by the Roman Catholic Church, is generally depicted by Roman Catholic theologians to have held a position that is called Semipelagianism. Closely linking the ideas of sanctification and justification: salvation is achieved through the divinisation of man. That one acts out of faith in choosing to believe in God first. By God's grace man is given the gift of faith that enables his salvation.

Western scholars such as Owen Chadwick stated that Cassian held the view that man can come to God without the intervention of divine grace first.[112] Roman Catholic Professor of Theology Columbia Stewart [113] states that, before Prosper of Aquitaine wrote his attack on Cassian, Pope Celestine called for Cassians teachings to be silenced and Prosper of Aquitaine (a disciple of Augustine's) attacked the teachings of Cassian's Conference 13. Teachings that concur with the traditional eastern teaching that the stirring of Good remains possible even to fallen humankind, a teaching shared by the Roman Catholic Church (though Cassian is still condemned as Semipeligian by a large number of Roman Catholic theologians )

Roman Catholic teaching holds that "by free will (the human person) is capable of directing himself toward his true good" but not first without the will of God to do so. The Council of Orange condemned the Semipelagianism of the Massilians, whose teaching allowed for some initiative, however feeble, of the human will.

Protestant Philip Schaff called Cassian the leader of Semipelagianism, which received a formal condemnation at the second Council of Orange. [114] Matthew Brunson [115] OSV's Catholic Encyclopedia states that Cassian was a leading exponent of Semipelaianism and is considered its founder. Protestant James Bethune-Baker names Cassian a framer of Semipelagianism. In William Dool Killen's The Old Catholic Church: or, The History, Doctrine, Worship, and Polity of the Christians he states Cassian was the chief Champion of Semipelagainism. [116] Other Western sources speak of Cassian as semipelagian and label his teachings Semipelagian which were condemned by the council of Orange.

On the other hand, Lauren Pristas writes: "For Cassian, salvation is, from beginning to end, the effect of God's grace. It is fully divine. Salvation, however, is salvation of a rational creature who has sinned through free choice. Therefore, salvation necessarily includes both free human consent in grace and the gradual rehabilitation in grace of the faculty of free choice. Thus Cassian insists salvation is also fully human. His thought, however, is not Semi-Pelagian, nor do readers who submit to the whole corpus emerge Semi-Pelagians." And Augustine Casiday states that "for Cassian ... although sparks of goodwill may exist (which are not directly caused by God), they are totally inadequate and only direct divine intervention can ensure our spiritual progress".

Eastern interpretations of Cassian

Augustine Casiday states that Cassian "baldly asserts that God's grace, not human free will, is responsible for 'everything which pertains to salvation' - even faith." Some other Orthodox, who do not apply the term "Semi-Pelagian" to their theology, criticize the Roman Catholics for allegedly rejecting Cassian, whom they accept as fully orthodox, and for holding, as, in Casiday's interpretation, Cassian did, that everything which pertains to salvation comes from God's grace, and so that even the human consent to God's justifying action is itself an effect of grace, This position of the Roman Catholic Church and of Cassian as interpreted by Casiday is attributed by Eastern Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky also to the Eastern Orthodox Church, which, he says, "always understood that God initiates, accompanies, and completes everything in the process of salvation", rejecting instead the Calvinist idea of irresistible grace. Neither Cassian nor any of his teachings have ever been directly or indirectly called into question or condemned by Eastern Orthodox, as they are considered a witness to the Orthodox position. A witness to the Eastern Orthodox tradition instead of rather Cassian be right or wrong in contrast to the teachings of Augustine.

Free will or metaphysical libertarianism

See also: Free will in theology § In Eastern Christianity, and Sola fide

Various Roman Catholic theologians identify Cassian as a teacher of the Semi-Pelagian heresy which was condemned by the Council of Orange. While the Orthodox do not apply the term Semi-Pelagian to their theology, they criticize the Catholics for rejecting Cassian whom they accept as fully orthodox, and for holding that human consent to God's justifying action is itself an effect of grace, a position shared by Eastern Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky, who says that the Eastern Orthodox Church "always understood that God initiates, accompanies, and completes everything in the process of salvation", rejecting instead the Calvinist idea of irresistible grace.

Recently, some Catholic theologians have argued that Cassian's writings should not be considered Semi-Pelagian. And scholars of other denominations too have concluded that Cassian's thought "is not Semi-Pelagian", and that he instead taught that "salvation is, from beginning to end, the effect of God's grace" and held that "God's grace, not human free will, is responsible for 'everything which pertains to salvation' - even faith."

The Orthodox Church holds to the teaching of synergy (συνεργός, meaning working together), which says that man has the freedom to, and must if he wants to be saved, choose to accept and work with the grace of God. Once baptised the experience of his salvation and relationship with God is called theosis. Mankind has free will to accept or reject the grace of God. Rejection of the gifts of God is called blasphemy of the Holy Spirit (gifts of grace, faith, life). The first who defined this teaching was John Cassian, 4th-century Church Father, and a pupil of John Chrysostom, and all Eastern Fathers accept it. He taught that "Divine grace is necessary to enable a sinner to return unto God and live, yet man must first, of himself, desire and attempt to choose and obey God", and that "Divine grace is indispensable for salvation, but it does not necessarily need to precede a free human choice, because, despite the weakness of human volition, the will can take the initiative toward God.".

Some Orthodox use the parable of a drowning man to plainly illustrate the teaching of synergy: God from the ship throws a rope to a drowning man, pulls him up, saving him, and the man. If he wants to be saved, man must hold on tightly to the rope. Explaining both that salvation is a gift from God and man cannot save himself. That man must co-work (syn-ergo) with God in the process of salvation. As God does not predestine persons to eternal life, rather because he is God, he can see who will ultimately choose or not choose to follow him.

Roman Catholic teaching

Illustrating as it does that the human part in salvation (represented by holding on to the rope) must be preceded and accompanied by grace (represented by the casting and drawing of the rope), the image of the drowning man holding on to the rope cast and drawn by his rescuer corresponds closely to Catholic teaching, which holds that God, who "destined us in love to be his sons" and "to be conformed to the image of his Son", includes in his eternal plan of "predestination" each person's free response to his grace.

The Catholic Church holds to the teaching that "by free will, (the human person) is capable of directing himself toward his true good … man is endowed with freedom, an outstanding manifestation of the divine image'." Man has free will either to accept or reject the grace of God, so that for salvation "there is a kind of interplay, or synergy, between human freedom and divine grace". "Justification establishes cooperation between God's grace and man's freedom. On man's part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent: 'When God touches man's heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he could reject it; and yet, without God's grace, he cannot by his own free will move himself toward justice in God's sight' (Council of Trent)." God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. the fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man's free acting through his collaboration. For Catholics, therefore, human cooperation with grace is essential. When God establishes his eternal plan of 'predestination', he includes in it each person's free response to his grace, whether it is positive or negative: "In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place" (Acts 4:27–28).

The initiative comes from God, but it demands a free response from man: "God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. the fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man's free acting through his collaboration". "Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life."; Orthodox criticism of Catholic doctrine

Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky has stated that the teaching of John Cassian, who in the East is considered a witness to tradition, but who "was unable to make himself correctly understood", "was interpreted, on the rational plane, as a semi-pelagianism, and was condemned in the West". Where as the Catholic Church defends the concept of faith and free will these are questioned in the East by the conclusions of the Second Council of Orange. This council is not accepted by the Eastern churches and the Catholic Church's use of describing their position and St Cassian as Semi-Pelagian is also rejected.

Orthodox Christians have usually understood Roman Catholicism as professing St. Augustine's teaching that everyone bears not only the consequence, but also the guilt, of Adam's sin. This teaching, which is contrary to that of the Roman Catholic Church, appears to have been confirmed by multiple councils, the first of them being the Council of Orange in 529.

Immaculate Conception

This difference between the two Churches in their understanding of the original sin was one of the doctrinal reasons underlying the Catholic Church's declaration of its dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the 19th century, a dogma that is rejected by the Orthodox Church. However, contemporary Roman Catholic teaching is best explicated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which includes this sentence: ""original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted" (§405).

Roman Catholic Church also accused of being "semipelagian"

The charge of Semipelagianism is also laid against the Roman Catholic Church because of its teaching that "there is a kind of interplay, or synergy, between human freedom and divine grace". For Catholics human cooperation with grace is essential. As a result, Roman Catholic teaching is accused of being a form of Semipelagianism,

Accusations of Modalism in the Western Trinitarian theology

Christian Modalistic monarchianism has its origin by means of influence in Greek pagan philosophy, including pagan philosophers like Euclid and Aristotle. Who based their logic on Monism and Aristotle's arguments around his concept energeia (i.e. energy) called metaphysics. As the concept that ontology (also generally referred to as metaphysics) can be reduced to either a single detectable substance (called substance theory) and or a single being (the concept of the Absolute). Aristotelian logic is the way ontologically or via metaphysics that Hellenic pagan philosopher Aristotle reasoned (Aquinas analytically, Zeno, Plato and Socrates dialectically, Aristotle syllogistically) to deconstructed human consciousness and existence and being. In order to represent their view of the monad or single-ness (unity of all things). As unity or oneness in the "idea" of God and God's ousia as the essence or universal category above finite being.

Modalistic in the idea of God as of a single substance or being called in Greek (ousia). This ousia represented as oneness, that then emanates sequentially various infinite and or uncreated realities (hypostasis). It was Sabellius as one of the first Christian theologians (see also Noetus, Callistus, Epigonus, Paul of Samosata and Cleomens) whom applied these Pagan metaphysical arguments (i.e. Aristotelian logic) to the Judeo-Christian God. Sabellius as a modalist along with other monarchianist attempted to reduce each of the hypostasis of God to be modes of the essence of God. The modalists reduced the hypostases of God into a single essence or ousia. Therefore removing the distinction between the existence(s) of God and the essence of God.

Later these realities where represented by pagan philosophers after the appearance of Christianity. As Neoplatonism depicted them as amalgamating from and into one another. For Plotinus the Monad or One is (the dynamus, dunamis, potential, potentia) and the Dyad (creator, energeia, actus) both emanate the Triad, Trinity (Spirit or World Soul). Plotinus then reconciling Aristotle to Plato in his works the Enneads. Plotinus teaching that energy or actus has to have force or potential in order to emanate (dunamis or potential defined as indeterminate vitality according to A. H. Armstrong). These realities coalesce into the material world (cosmos) or Universe. Here Thomas Aquinas in his Five Proofs of the Existence of God starts from the pagan philosophers rational proofs of the existence of the Pagan creator God. Hellenistic paganism's God which is modalist God of idealism. These hypostases appear as a descending hierarchy reciprocally reflecting each other.

The Orthodox teach that God is not of a substance that is comprehensible since God the Father has no origin and is eternal and infinite. That it is improper to speak of things as physical and metaphysical but rather it is Christian to speak of things as created and uncreated. God the Father is the origin, source of the Trinity not God in substance or essence. Therefore the consciousness of God is not obtainable to created beings not in this life or the next (see apophatism). Though through co-operation with God (called theosis) Mankind can become good (God like) and from such a perspective reconcile himself to the Knowledge of Good and the Knowledge of Evil he consumed in the Garden of Eden (see the Fall of Man). Thus returning himself to the proper relationship with his creator and source of being.

Pagan philosophical modalism, idealism and metaphysics

See also: Ebionite and Patripassianism

Monism is a form of an epistemological idealism. Which from a Hellenic perspective leads to the concept that all is in and of the human mind or consciousness (nous). Therefore in some forms of Hellenic philosophical idealism, God is in the mind, of the mind (intrinsic) and not a real objective being. This is called a form of subjective or modal interpretation of God like the modal formations contained in Aristotle's De Interpretatione. Aristotle opposed monism and idealism with his own concept of reducing everything to a single concept (called metaphysics). Aristotle's singular concept that all things can be reduced to is his concept of energeia or energy. The process of uniting (unity) all to a single 'thing' (hen) as a form of salvation is called henosis. Henosis teaches that man is God (in that mankind has the concept of God intrinsic to consciousness and God can be grasp by thought or rational contemplation).

Neoplatonic pagan philosophy teaches Henology (via Plotinus) that the first hypostasis or the monad by which all things can reduce their essence, substance or being to is called dunamis (potentia in Latin) or force which emanated the second hypostasis an energy (actus) or demiurge (mind or nous as the creator) then the creator hypostasis emanated the soul or spirit. This reverses Aristotle's mode from Energy (act or action) first and Dunamis, force or motion second, making his Unmoved Mover energy or (actus in Latin) static and the second reality potential or motion. Each teaching a sequential modalistic manifestation of the material world via a philosophical "concept" called God (theos). Supernatural in the East is that which is uncreated.

Energies are uncreated and therefore it is critical to make a distinction between God and his Energies unlike in Pagan Philosophy. Since in Pagan Philosophy "energies" are Gods (Love, Wisdom, Intuitivism and Memory). Gregory Palamas in his defense of Hesychasm accused Barlaam of treating God conceptually this way putting pagan philosophers over the saints and prophets who through revelation and not logical thought came to know God. The knowledge of God by the Eastern Orthodox church is not arrived at by a form of rational theology but rather by illumination (theoria) as a stage of development in the process of theosis. Which again goes against the Roman Catholic theologians validation of theology using the Pagan philosopher Aristotle's Metaphysical and scholastic arguments such as actus and potentia to rationalize God. The West does this through what the East calls an incompleteness as a form of theology called kataphatic theology. The East does not use kataphatic statements about God to validate God since to use positive statements about God goes against God's very being (ontology) which is apophatic and therefore incomprehensible and not rational.

Metaphysics and the scholastic method

See also: De divisione naturae

In the West the metaphysical methods of validating the existence or ontology of things was carried from being strictly a secular tradition (as it was established and taught in the East like at the University of Constantinople by Photios I of Constantinople) to being the very means of validation of data and truth in the West. Aristotle's metaphysics is the epistemological (scientific) validation of ontology or being. Metaphysics as stated above is concerned with the primary substance or monad of the Universe and how all ontology can be reduced to and derives from this essence or singularity.

"The first philosophy (Metaphysics) is universal and is exclusively concerned with primary substance. ... And here we will have the science to study that which is, both in its essence and in the properties which, just as a thing that is, it has." (Aristotle, Metaphysics book one 340BC)

As Pagan philosophy became secularized in the East, in the West it was picked up and used as the defacto tool of not just scientific truths (as in the East) but also theological truths as well. This can be seen in the traditions of Johannes Scotus Eriugena and Thomas Aquinas. Therefore in the West you have the Judeo-Christian God being validated by pagan metaphysical arguments. These sets of proofs developed from Aristotle and embraced by the West are covered under the system of scholastics and the scholastic method developed from Aristotle. The East has repeatedly argued that in order for the these arguments to work the Judeo-Christian God must be compromised into becoming a different God.

Via moderna

See also: Thomism and William of Ockham

With the move in the West from the validation of Christian spiritual truths via theoria or experience obtained through ascetic labor (like Hesychasm) to the philosophical rationalism or logical arguments of speculative Pagan philosophy. The Eastern cultural understanding of Christianity (in the West) was diminished according to Eastern theologians. With the Western use of philosophical speculation as a means to establish theology the purpose of theology changed as it became academically institutionalized. Where as in the East Christianity remained ascetic, with its focus on theosis. Western Christianity appears to have started embracing philosophical goals at the determinant of Christian ones, like the total happiness (Summum bonum) of Aristotle for example. One major change due to theology being now directed by philosophical aims was the renewed debate between Nominalism and philosophical realism (see the Problem of universals).

This debate rather than being strictly a philosophical one now became a Christian religious one. Where in the tenets of Nominalism abstract concepts (immaterial things) are considered not real but rather constructs of the mind. These abstract concepts include things like God, souls and spirits. This leads to a rejection of the hypostases of God as psychic or social constructs. Pagan philosophical objectives and their directed goals ultimately are incompatible with Christianity. The underlying principle here being that Greek pagan philosophy sought to reconcile being, existence with the rational faculty of man giving mankind purpose by achieving this rationalization of life or being (ontology or more commonly called Metaphysics). Whereas Western Christianity seeks the salvation of Mankind and creation through reconciliation with God, Orthodoxy seeks after this goal via world rejection called asceticism. To be in the world but not of the world is not a Stoic rejection of existence, but rather an act of faith that shows submission to God.

Trinity

Icon of the Holy Trinity, by St. Andrei Rublev.

"The static conception of God as actus purus having no potentiality and completely self-sufficient is a philosophical, Aristotlelian, and not a Biblical conception." Nikolai Berdyaev

Orthodox theologians hold that there is a marked difference in the teaching and understanding of the Trinitarian doctrine both East and West. As pagan metaphysics holds that what is common between variation in a specific category is as a commonness the highest form or truth of that categorization. This is understood as the discernment between "physical and metaphysical", which is rejected by the Eastern Orthodox whom instead rather distinguish between "the created and the uncreated". As the goal of the metaphysical does not end in any form of sentience but rather ends in what any given subject or object can be reduced into as a common substance. The key to the understanding of primary substance as something gained through methods or inquiry is called "philosophy". Philosophy seeks to reduce to reason or rationalisation all things to an uncaused or uncreated essence. It was Aristotle's goal to once at this level begin to understand what is discerned as uncaused or uncreatedness through the study of the noetic also understood as noesis or intuitively.

In the West the essence or substance of God is held to be higher as is in metaphysics where the ontology or primary substance (ousia) is the basis of highest categorization. Rather than as in the Eastern Orthodox whom hold that the Father person (hypostasis) of the Trinity is primary. In the Eastern Orthodox one God in Father is taught in order to clarify that the infinite or eternal is of person or personal like nature rather than a non sentient substance (uncreatedness in perseity). This commonness of substance like what is used by Aristotle in the Classical Scientific method and then adopted by the Western scholastics movement and superimposed onto the Judeo-Christian God. The East teaches that what is God is uncreated or uncaused.

These teachings are different in that the uncreatedness of each Hypostasis of God derives its uncreatedness from the Father hypostasis, and to instead attribute what is correctly understood as the characteristics of the Father hypostasis (all originates from the Father), to the essence of God in uncreatedness is to undue what is understood as uncreated as defined by the Ecumenical Councils of the early church. As in the Eastern Orthodox the Father is God whom is known through his uncreated person Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit that process from him as uncreated and infinite. As also the Father is known through his activities in the created world. These activities like their source are uncreated and need not be reconciled to concepts that lend to rationalizing them. As those activities as actualization (love, freedom, beauty) are uncreated and only what is created lends itself to reason or logic or rationalization. In the Eastern Orthodox what is God in essence (ousia) is not manifest in the created but rather is superior, beyond, above it.

The essence of the word God is to mean incomprehensible as created things or creatures (things whose consciousness has a beginning) can not grasp what it means to have being without a beginning. As the end result of theosis is that though man is a creature and was made conscious at a specific moment in time from ex-nihilo that mankind will if reconciled to God be like God in nature so as to have no death or end. Infinite but with a beginning, like God in nature but not like God in essence.

Eucharist

See also: Metousiosis and Transubstantiation

This tendency toward metaphysics by the West to rationalize the mysteries of God, and sacraments, through metaphysical arguments is argued by the East in how the West presents for example the changing of the Bread and Wine during liturgy or mass. As the East rejects this tendency in the articulation of this mystery by the West in the Western teaching of the Transubstantiation and or the term constantiation which is to express how this event occurs as if the mystery of communion can be explained in an atomistic chemistry way.

The Eastern Orthodox Church has sometimes used the word "transubstantiation", and the Eastern Patriarchs insisted on it in their correspondence with the 17th-century Non-Juror Anglican bishops, who denied transubstantiation. In the same period, the Synod of Jerusalem used both the word "transubstantiation" and the scholastic terms "substance" and "accidents" (while also stating that the manner of the change cannot be explained). Kallistos Ware explains: "Faced by the Calvinism of Lukaris, Dositheus used the weapons which lay nearest to hand. Latin weapons (under the circumstances it was perhaps the only thing that he could do); but the faith which he defended with these Latin weapons was not Roman, but Orthodox." In more recent times the term "transubstantiation" is little used in the East: the Eastern Orthodox Church does not reject it, but excludes from it the materialistic meaning attributed to the Latins.

Orthodox theologian John Meyendorff wrote of the Confessions of Dositheus that the documents use of Latin or Roman Catholic terms reflected a lack of adequate theological training. A. N. Mouravieff in his History of the Church of Russia wrote that "the text is only of value in defining the things in common between the Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Eastern Catholic churches against Calvinism." And "that they are of no sort of authority to establish any new decision in the name of the Church, but may as easily be omitted or corrected as mere errors of grammar or typography, as soon as ever they are perceived to contain any thing contrary to the traditionary standard of Orthodoxy."

Filioque

See also: Essence–Energies distinction

Eastern Orthodox charge that the Eastern and Western churches have different approaches and understanding of the Trinity. St Augustine's theology and, by extension, that of Thomas Aquinas (as in the western Mediterranean on the Trinity) are not generally accepted in the Orthodox Church. Various Eastern Orthodox theologians argue that the Filioque clause is symptomatic of this difference. The Eastern church believes by the Western church inserting the filioque unilaterally (without consulting or holding council with the East) into the Creed that the Western church broke communion with the East.

While the Eastern Orthodox Church has never formally declared the "Filioque" phrase to be heretical, some of its saints have qualified it as such, including Photios I of Constantinople, Mark of Ephesus, and Gregory Palamas, who have been called the Three Pillars of Orthodoxy. As is also the case with Photius I, Gregory Palamas and Symeon the New Theologian's biographer and Eastern Orthodox Saint Nikitas Stithatos much of this condemnation happened before the Sacking of Constantiople 1204 AD. The Sack of Constantiople marks the solidifying of the division between East and West. Which started earlier and is referred to as the East-West schism of 1054 AD. The description of the filioque as a heresy was iterated most clearly and definitively by the great Father and Pillar of the Church, St. Photius the Great, in his On the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit. He describes it as a heresy of Triadology, striking at the very heart of what the Church believes about God.

The Eastern Orthodox view the Filioque as not proper to the actual Nicene Creed. This is because according to Orthodox theologians, the Nicene Creed establishes the doctrine of the Trinity (3 persons or hypostases of God). The Nicene Creed establishes the dogma of the persons called the Trinity. Of the individual unique qualities of each hypostasis of the God in Trinity. The Nicene Creed was not establishing the church dogma about the other realities of God (ousia, hypostasis, energies of God). Especially the Creed was not defining the uncreated essence of God and the economy or interrelationships of the hypostases or persons of God.

Eastern theologians view the heart of the conflict to be the presence of modalism, in specific the Sabellian heresy of modalism, first by the Latin West using the word persona (in English person or mask) in its translation of the Greek word hypostasis. Hypostasis is sometimes translated as existence or reality. Along with the Latin West inserting the Filioque which changes the teaching of the origin or source of the Holy Spirit.

Divine essence and procession of the Holy Spirit

Eastern theologians state for the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Father and the Son in the Creed, there would have to be two sources in the deity (double procession). Whereas in the one God there can only be one source of divinity, which is the Father hypostasis of the Trinity. One God in Father which is in contrast to treating God modalistically which reconciles the double procession by using God's essence as the true singular origin of the Holy Spirit.

In summation by Vladimir Lossky, the acceptance of the Latin West translating the word hypostasis (which is sometimes translated as existence or reality) into the Latin word persona (in English person or mask) by the Latin fathers was called into question (by St Basil as one) and then made into open conflict when the Latin church, later added to the translation difference, the addition to the Nicene-Constaninople Creed, of the filioque, which both appear to the Greek fathers as the teaching of modalism. Which is a teaching of philosophical speculation rather than a teaching from experience (theoria).

West acceptance of the Filioque

The doctrine expressed by the Filioque is accepted by the Catholic Church, by Anglicanism and by Protestant churches in general. Christians of these groups generally include it when reciting the Nicene Creed. Nonetheless, these groups recognize that Filioque is not part of the original text established at the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and they do not demand that others too should use it when saying the Creed. Indeed, even in the liturgy for Latin Rite Catholics. the Roman Catholic Church does not add the phrase corresponding to Filioque (καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ) to the Greek text of the Creed, where it would be associated with the verb ἐκπορεύεσθαι, but adds it in Latin, where it is associated with the verb procedere, a word of broader meaning than ἐκπορεύεσθαι, and in languages, such as English, in which the verb with which it is associated also has a broader meaning than ἐκπορεύεσθαι. Pope John Paul II has recited the Nicene Creed several times with patriarchs of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Greek according to the original text.

The Roman Catholic Church's practice has been to include the Filioque clause when reciting the Creed in Latin, but to omit it when reciting the Creed in Greek, Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have recited the Nicene Creed jointly with Patriarchs Demetrius I and Bartholomew I in Greek without the Filioque clause. However no move has been made to use the original creed in Greek by the Latin church as the basis of translation of creed into other languages in which the verb "proceeds" has a broader meaning than the verb used in Greek.

The Latin version of the creed is the basis for the official translations used in the Roman Rite. The term "and the Son" is included in the English translations of the Nicene Creed from Latin (as in the English speaking Roman Catholic communities for example). Where as if the Creed was translated from its original Greek, rather than Latin, the Creed would not contain the passage "from the Son" which in Latin is "filioque". Using Latin as the language of origin to translate to the Creed, was pointed out as a practice that was not acceptable to the Eastern Orthodox at the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation.

The action of these patriarchs in reciting the Creed together with the Pope has been strongly criticized by some elements of Eastern Orthodoxy, such as the Metropolitan of Kalavryta, Greece.

Hell – the concept of eternal punishment

Depiction of hell on an icon in Gelati Monastery, Georgia

See also: Hell in Christian beliefs and The problem of evil

Orthodox opinion that views hell as being in the presence of God

The general view of Eastern Orthodox theologians see a distinction between East and West in the teaching of Hell. As Orthodox theological anthropology teachings that mankind in his fallen state in the world (not the afterlife) is "separated from God". This is why "theosis' is not the same teaching between East and West. As in the East mankind is to seek union with God because mankind has in this life become separated from God. Mankind is separated from God by the "Sarx" or the "sarcophagus" in this life. While the Orthodox Church understands hell as "a place of eternal torment for those who willfully reject the grace of God", they affirm that, in the East, salvation is not salvation from the wrath of God and that people are not sent down to Hell by an angry God. Hell or eternal damnation and heaven exist and are the same place, which is being with God. "God loves equally both those who are going to hell and those who are going to heaven. God loves even the Devil as much as He loves the saint. 'God is the savior of all humans, indeed of the faithful' (1 Tim. 4:10). In other words hell is a form of salvation although the lowest form of it. God loves the Devil and his collaborators but destroys their work."

Hell in contemporary Orthodox literature

The concept of Hell and the meaning of evil in Orthodox belief as mystical discourse was also addressed by Dostoevsky in his novel the Brothers Karamazov. The teaching of Hell and Hell fire covered in Dostoevsky's novel was the teachings of Dostoevsky spiritual advisory and also famous Orthodox Saint Ambrose of Optina.

Orthodox opinion that views separation of man from God as hell

On page 85 of Michel Quenot's book The Resurrection and the Icon, under the heading Light, Freedom, Joy: Fullness of Life, hell is described as "none other than the state of separation from God". Quenot states on page 86 of the same book that "By His death, Christ did away with the chasm that separated man from God, while the torn curtain of the Temple proclaimed the end of any separation".

Other Orthodox theologians too present hell as separation from God, not physically, since hell is not a place, but as man's attitude of exclusion of God and self-separation from him. Paul Evdokimov a committed ecumenist within the Orthodox church writes: "Hell is nothing else but separation of man from God, his autonomy excluding him from the place where God is present." Only of a human heart that excludes God can it be said that, in a sense, God is not there, and so Eastern Orthodox Bishop Kallistos Ware wrote that Hell is "the place where God is not" (emphasis in the original). In his review of Bishop Kallistos Ware's book, Hieromonk Patapios criticized this expression as unorthodox.

In his account of the life of Saint Silouan the Athonite, Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) speaks of "the dead suffering in the hell of separation from God".

The Longer Catechism of The Orthodox, Catholic, Eastern Church speaks of hell in the theological sense as separation by sin from the sight of God's countenance: it answers the question, "What is hades or hell?", by stating: "Hades is a Greek word, and means a place void of light. In divinity, by this name is understood a spiritual prison, that is, the state of those spirits which are separated by sin from the sight of God's countenance, and from the light and blessedness which it confers. Non-Orthodox Ted Campbell writes that, for "Orthodox Teachings on Religious Authority", "the Confession of Dositheus (1672) and the Russian Catechism of Philaret ... cannot always be utilized, because at some points they illustrate a tendency of Orthodox teachers in their periods to utilize characteristically Western terminology (such as "transubstantiation" or " purgatory"), which have not been subsequently held as binding on Orthodox expressions of the faith". He does not make the same reservation when dealing with "Orthodox Teachings on Human Nature and Salvation".

The Reverend Dr Theodore Stylianopoulos, pastor of St George Greek Orthodox Church, Keene, New Hampshire, United States, provides yet another indication of the diversity of Eastern Orthodox belief with regard to the nature of hell. "Many Orthodox saints and writers", Father Stylianopoulos says, "assume the general view of hell as a place of punishment, even by means of material instruments such as fire, whether of the soul after death or both soul and body after the resurrection". He adds that one Orthodox interpretation of hell, "based on certain Orthodox luminaries such as St. Isaac the Syrian, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Gregory the Theologian", asserts that "hell is a spiritual state of separation from God and inability to experience the love of God, while being conscious of the ultimate deprivation of it as punishment".

Views of certain Orthodox theologians on Roman Catholic teaching on Hell

Peter Chopelas presents the Western concept of hell as that of a location where the wicked are punished by being cut off by God from himself as Heaven is up in the sky and Hell as in the earth (i.e. as part of what is called creation or is a place created). Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos says that, while the West accepts paradise as uncreated, it sees hell as created." And John S. Romanides states that, in the West, the eternal fires of hell and the outer darkness become creatures also whereas, they are in Orthodoxy the uncreated glory of God as seen by those who refuse to love. Thus, one ends up with the three-story universe problem in the Western depiction of the afterlife, with God in a place, etc., necessitating a demythologizing of the Bible in order to salvage whatever one can of a quaint Christian tradition for modern man. However as Romanides states, it is not the Bible itself which need demythologizing, but the Augustinian Franco-Latin tradition and the caricature which it passed off in the West as Greek Patristic theology."

Peter Chopelas wrote:

The western ideas had its roots in Augustinian theology (who was influenced by the Greek pagan philosophers). Unfortunately Augustine could not read Greek and had to devise his own theology from imperfect Latin translations. Late in his life he recanted much of his earlier writings, an act which was ignored in the West. Both Luther and Calvin developed their own theologies from Augustine's erroneous writings, and ignoring Augustine's later retraction.
This is how the pagan notion of a God that both punishes and rewards made its way into western Christian theologies. Another major influence was the 13th century fantasy novelist Dante, who's political satire known as the Inferno borrowed heavily from pagan mythology and bears little resemblance to Biblical eschatology.

It is, however, to be noted that Dante was merely a poet, not a theologian, making his work of exclusively literary significance. According to Romanides, "Augustinian Christians, both Vaticanians and Protestants, are literally unbalanced humans, and had been indeed very dangerous up to the French Revolution and are potentially still quite dangerous."

Chopelas also says: "While Heaven and Hell are decidedly real, they are experiential conditions rather than physical places, and both exist in the presence of God. In fact, nothing exists outside the presence of God."

Peter Chopelas, Alexandre Kalomiros, Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos and John Romanides denies that Hell is a location where the condemned are separated from the presence of God, and attributes these ideas to Western Christianity, both Roman Catholic and Protestant.

George Metallinos states:

The experience of paradise or hell is beyond words or the senses. It is an uncreated reality, and not a created one. The Latins invented the myth that paradise and hell are both created realities. It is a myth that the damned will not be able to look upon God; just as the "absence of God" is equally a myth. The Latins had also perceived the fires of hell as something created. Orthodox Tradition has remained faithful to the Scriptural claim that the damned shall see God (like the rich man of the parable), but will perceive Him only as "an all-consuming fire". The Latin scholastics accepted hell as punishment and the deprivation of a tangible vision of the divine essence. Biblically and patristically however, "hell" is understood as man's failure to cooperate (synergy) with Divine Grace, in order to reach the illuminating vision of God (which is paradise) and unselfish love (following 1Cor.13:8): "love….. does not demand any reciprocation"). Consequently, there is no such thing as "God's absence," only His presence. That is why His Second Coming is dire ("O, what an hour it will be then", we chant in the Praises of Matins). It is an irrefutable reality, toward which Orthodoxy is permanently oriented ("I anticipate the resurrection of the dead…")

[117]

Chopelas says:

It's also useful to consider the ancient Greco-Roman pagan understanding of the heavens and Hades. Though it was not fundamental to Hebrew theology, the Greek view was still sometimes referenced or borrowed, because these ideas were familiar and prevalent in the culture. The ancient pagan Greek view, later adopted by the Romans, was that heaven was a physical place up in the sky. The word for heaven is used interchangeably with the location of the objects of the sky, as in "heavenly bodies", and for the dwelling place of the gods. That is why the Greek word for heaven and sky is the same; there was no distinction made between them in the earliest writings, but eventually they were also understood to be more as a metaphor for the spiritual heaven.

and that:

If one examines what the early Church Fathers wrote about "hell" and the afterlife, it will be seen that they too understood that there is no place called hell, and that both paradise and torment came from being in God's presence in the afterlife. When you examine what the Roman Catholic Church teaches and what most Protestants believe about the afterlife, and compare that with the scriptures and early Church beliefs, you find large disparities. You will also find their innovative doctrines were not drawn from the Bible or historic Church doctrine, but rather from the mythology of the Middle Ages, juridical concepts, and enlightenment rationalizations, all alien to early Christian thought.

The concept of heaven as a place is found in one of the Eastern Orthodox Church's prayers for the dead: "…a place of light, a place of green pasture, a place of repose, whence all sickness, sorrow and sighing are fled away." And an Eastern Orthodox catechism states that "the Orthodox Church understands hell as a place of eternal torment for those who willfully reject the grace of God."

Roman Catholic teaching

What is given above as the Eastern Orthodox picture of Roman Catholic views of heaven as "up in the sky" and of hell as "in the earth, i.e. as part of what is called creation or is a place created" contradicts the explicit Roman Catholic teaching that "the 'heaven' or 'happiness' in which we will find ourselves is neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds, but a living, personal relationship with the Holy Trinity. It is our meeting with the Father which takes place in the risen Christ through the communion of the Holy Spirit"; and hell is not a place but a person's condition, "the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy": "(the) state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called 'hell'." The Roman Catholic Church thus explicitly denies that heaven is "up in the sky" and hell is "in the earth ... is a place created". If the Eastern Orthodox Church also denies that heaven is "up in the sky" and hell "in the earth ... a place created", this is a matter on which there is no theological difference between the two.

About a century before these authoritative statements of the Popes were made, Joseph Hontheim argued in the article he wrote for the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia that hell is a place, but stated that "the Church has decided nothing on this subject".

In agreement with those who hold that hell is separation from God, the Roman Catholic Church declares that, while Scripture uses the image of place in relation to eternal damnation, what is really involved is a state of self-exclusion from God. The Roman Catholic Church too teaches that God does not cut anyone off from himself, and that the non-physical separation from God of those in hell is only a self-exclusion on their own part. God's love is for all human beings, including sinners.In the West Hell is described as self-exclusion from communion with that universal love, as cutting oneself off from love. In Western belief, therefore, hell is not "a place"; and whatever torments are suffered, "they are not imposed by a vindictive judge" Saint Augustine of Hippo said that the suffering of hell is compounded because God continues to love the sinner who is not able to return the love.

Purgatory

Catechism of the Catholic Church against the Eastern Orthodox confirms the teaching of a purifying fire which is explicitly rejected by the Eastern Orthodox.

Anthropological Theology

Sarx as the "garments of skin" and consequences of the "fall"

See also: Origen and emanationism

Another theological difference between Roman Catholic and Orthodox theology is the teaching on mankind's existence under the subject of Theological anthropology. The word sarx as a Greek root is the basis for the word sarcophagus. Since the Orthodox teaching that man's ancestral sin changed the nature of mankind's' existence internally and externally. As it was mankind's choice to deny union with God, that corrupted the cosmos. As in Eastern Orthodoxy God did not create the cosmos corrupt, nor incorruptible. As Eastern Orthodox teachings that the will to worldly power is not proper to the church. The Church is freedom, the Church is love, but the Church is not power. As the corruption of the cosmos was a by product of mankind choice which manifest in mankind's fallen nature. It was also a change to mankind's perception and interaction with each person's environment (as what we all inherit from Adam and Eve as the children of Adam and Eve).

"It is not the body which is the source of evil, it is free choice". Gregory of Nyssa De hominis opificio; PG 44:237B

Since the cosmos was effected in this way by God allowing mankind to exist or have an existence apart from or without God or separated from God. By choosing to follow the Devil's suggestion to become "like gods" or "like God" (Gen 3:5)- that is, to become gods apart from God, self sufficient within a limited means or by choosing to separate themselves from the Good, Adam and Eve, deprived themselves of grace, and from that time on they lost the qualities, that such a thing would have bestowed on them, in some manner a supernatural condition, i.e. eternal life via a direct relationship with God.

The anthropology of mankind in the Eastern Orthodox church is based on the teaching of the difference between the "being" and the "likeness or image" of God. The Orthodox teach that mankind was given a material body after he sinned against God in the Garden of Eden. The Orthodox also teach that this sarx (σάρξ, Greek for "flesh") or "garment of skin", "coat of skin" or another named used to refer to it as the "tunics of skin" were fashioned for man by God after mankind's fall, is not the way that humans will experience the resurrection. The liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church expresses the conviction that by his resurrection Christ "has given incorruption to our flesh" (sarx). Its faith in the resurrection has been compared to that of Job, who exclaimed, in Job 19:26, exclaims: "From my flesh I shall see God".

The Eastern Orthodox classified as heretics the Bogomils, who denied the resurrection of the dead on the basis of 1 Corinthians 15:50, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God". As the Bogomils kept with the pre-Judaeo Christian, Mystery religion teaching that divination was in this life and that unity or union with God called henosis, had each individual person return to the one or source and lose their person or consciousness (nous) at that return (similar to Tabula rasa). The return of the soul to the source as taught by the gnostics did not allot a resurrection of each person as they are in this life. It rather taught that each person is reduced past the memories or activities (energies) to a (dunamis) potential and then returned to the source of all.

After this each person has that potential to be recycled back into creation as a component of something else. This did not reconcile itself with the Eastern Orthodox belief in the resurrection of the flesh (sarx), as perfected and eternal, each person unending and everlasting without need from sustenance from anything but God. This perpetuation, infinite as this union with God makes mankind like God in the sense that mankind will not end and will be eternal or everlasting. Not that mankind will then be like God in being as this would mean mankind would be able to not only create (to construct from pre-existing material or potential) in a convention sense but also originate (to manifest out of nothing).

Russian Orthodox have a deep-seated belief "in the resurrection of the dead in the flesh of their original bodies". This flesh (sarx) is, rather than the body (soma) what separates mankind from God, in the view of some theologians, who also hold that it is the body (soma), not the flesh (sarx) that will be resurrected. It is this "flesh" that is the basis of "desires" and "worldliness" in mankind as a creature. In the New Testament, the word σάρξ (flesh) appears about 150 times, with a number of related senses both literal and metaphorical, of which that of "sinful human nature" is only one.

Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos has stressed the similarity between the condition of the bodies of the resurrected, of the body of Christ himself after his resurrection and of the body that Adam and Eve had before the Fall. Saint Maximus the Confessor , speaking about "the constitution of the human body before the fall … an entirely different constitution, one in harmony with his body", said: "The first man was naked, not in the sense that he possessed neither flesh nor body, but in that he was free of that more material constitution that renders the flesh mortal and hard" (emphases added).

Saint Gregory of Nyssa held that the "material condition" or "condition of the flesh" of fallen man is a condition of the soul rather than a property of the body, and the original condition of the human being remains part of human nature, which will eventually return to that condition; in saying this, he differed from Origen, who excluded matter and the body from the original and the final states of humanity. That man had a body even before the Fall is the teaching also of the Orthodox Catechism of Philaret, which explains "the tree of life" as "A tree, by feeding on whose fruit man would have been, even in the body, free from disease and death" (emphasis added).

Eastern Orthodox rejection of theodicy and the problem of evil

See also: Maximus the Confessor

The Eastern Orthodox church rejects the Western European philosophical problems that derive from Western Christianity's theological teachings about the Judeo-Christian Trinity. These concepts theodicy and the problem of evil from an Eastern Orthodox perspective stems from misconception about the anthropology of man (i.e. free will, divine omnipotence). In the earliest years of the Christian community a group of syncretic sectarians (whom sought to reconcile the gnosis of their religo-philosophical metaphysical systems of the ancient Mystery Religions with Judeo-Christian belief) labeled gnostics (by Church Fathers such as St Irenaeus) attacked the Jewish God and the story of cosmic creation contained in the Torah. Much of these gnostics sects attacked the Jewish creator Yahweh as inferior due to the Judeo-Christian God allowing his creation to be imperfect or allowing the occurrence of negative events. The clearest example of this "flawed" or imperfect God is in modern terms expressed in the philosophical concept termed "the problem of evil." Western Roman Catholic philosophers (such as Augustine, Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas following Augustinian theodicy) have attempted to make apologies for the Judeo-Christian God due to this characteristic of the material world, under the term theodicy.

The early church fathers addressed this form of fatalism (a more modern secular term for these teachings would either necessitarianism or determinism) as it taught that mankind had no free will, Judeo-Christianity taught mankind has free will (a philosophical position called libertarianism). Judeo-Christianity taught (against the gnostics) that the cosmos is fallen but not due to God creating it that way (1st creation) but rather because mankind misused his free will to choose to be separate from God i.e. to be like God, is to be self sufficient (with no need for God). When mankind made this choice it is taught in Eastern Patristics that reality or mankind's environment was corrupted (fallen).

Causing randomness (a necessary thing for there to be free will in an existence separated from God) to be infused into mankind's existence. In order for the randomness (sumbebekos) to be real, good and bad befall all people rather they be good or bad of character. The first condition of this change was the Eastern understanding of creation which greatly parted from the fatalist approach to sin as taught by the gnostic sectarians. In that God created sarx as a means to give men a way to remedy their fallen state by using their time on earth to seek God and reconciliation with God even while being separated from God by their flesh or sarx.

For Eastern Orthodox views on theodicy see, apart from Pavel Florensky's The Pillar and Ground of the Truth: An Essay in Orthodox Theodicy in Twelve Letters, Archbishop Stylianos, Theodicy and Eschatology: A Fundamental Orthodox Viewpoint in Theodicy and Eschatology (Australian Theological Forum Press 2005 ISBN 1-920691-48-0); Tsunami and Theodicy by David B. Hart, an Eastern Orthodox theologian and author of The Beauty of the Infinite; "The Lady and the Wench": A Practical Theodicy in Russian Literature by Paul Valliere; and with regard to one of the Fathers of the Church Irenaeus' Theodicy.

Asceticism as the war against the sarx or flesh

See also: Gregory Thaumaturgus and Mortification of the flesh

"Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things". Philippians 3:19

Eastern Christianity maintains that Christianity is ascetic in nature and that this asceticism is a war against the sarx or flesh. As the flesh here is not the body (which in Greek is called soma). The sarx is rather the in between of mankind and his existence in a fallen cosmos. As cosmos no longer reconciled and living with and from God but instead has a fallen nature that for survival feeds on itself. It is by the flesh that mankind falls prey to the temptations of evil. It is by the ascetic practices of the East (called Hesychasm) that any and all whom are members of the church can learn to control themselves. This is why in the Eastern Orthodox church Easter and the period of Lent are considered the highest religious season (in contrast to Christmas).

What in English is called Easter, most European languages call by names derived, through Greek and Latin, from Aramaic פסחא (Pasḥā), corresponding to Hebrew פסח (Pesach), meaning the festival of Passover. Exceptions other than English (see the article on the subject) are German and most Slavic languages, such as Macedonian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Belarusian, which call the feast respectively Велигден (Veligden), Великдень (Velykden), Великден (Velikden), and Вялікдзень (Vyalikdzyen), names that mean "The Great Day".

Speaking of the flesh as what the ascetic must struggle against and mortify is, following the language used by Saint Paul, a common practice also in other Christian traditions.

Bodies of the resurrected

Orthodox theologians such as Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev teach that according to many church Fathers, the new body will be immaterial and incorruptible, like the body of Christ after His resurrection.

Other Eastern Orthodox theologians teaching that the resurrected body is material.

Bishop Kallistos Ware states that, the resurrected body of Jesus "has become a spiritual body - spiritual, yet still material", with "the same material body as he had when he suffered on the Cross", and has "flesh and bones" (cf. Luke 24:39). He says that likewise "our «spiritual body» at the Final Resurrection will not be a non-material or metaphorical body, but a body that, while still remaining physical, is totally interpenetrated by the glory of God".;

Eastern Orthodox tradition insists on the involvement of the "flesh" in the resurrection of Jesus and of Christians. Saint Justin Martyr was appealed to by Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos as defending belief in the resurrection of the flesh: "Saint Justin the martyr and philosopher says that, if Christ during his first coming on earth healed the sicknesses of the flesh and made the human body whole, restoring the missing members, 'much more will he do this in the resurrection, so that the flesh shall rise perfect and entire'."

The metropolitan's quotation comes from the work on the resurrection attributed to Justin. Reference to the resurrection of the flesh appears also in the Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, 39 of Saint Irenaeus, who in chapter VII of his Against the Heresies teaches that, "inasmuch as Christ did rise in our flesh, it follows that we shall be also raised in the same". Saint Cyril of Alexandria says that the reason why, after his resurrection, Jesus showed his hands and his side to his disciples was to make them see that he had risen "with his own flesh" and in order that "they should believe in the future resurrection of the flesh". In the liturgy of St Thomas Sunday, the Eastern Orthodox Church characterizes St Thomas' unbelief as "good", because it led to a greater manifestation of the reality of Christ's resurrection in the flesh.

Roman Catholic teaching

In the Apostles' Creed the Roman Catholic Church likewise professes its faith in the resurrection of the flesh (carnis resurrectio). It teaches that, in the resurrection of the dead, all will rise again with their own bodies which they now bear, but Christ will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, a spiritual body, imperishable and immortal.

Extant disputes as seen by Roman Catholic theologians

Catholic view of differences

In contrast to the picture of irreconcilable differences presented by the above-mentioned Eastern theologians, the Roman Catholic Church considers that the differences between Eastern and Western theology are complementary rather than contradictory.

In the Decree Unitatis redintegratio of the Second Vatican Council, it declared:

In the study of revelation East and West have followed different methods, and have developed differently their understanding and confession of God's truth. It is hardly surprising, then, if from time to time one tradition has come nearer to a full appreciation of some aspects of a mystery of revelation than the other, or has expressed it to better advantage. In such cases, these various theological expressions are to be considered often as mutually complementary rather than conflicting. Where the authentic theological traditions of the Eastern Church are concerned, we must recognize the admirable way in which they have their roots in Holy Scripture, and how they are nurtured and given expression in the life of the liturgy. They derive their strength too from the living tradition of the apostles and from the works of the Fathers and spiritual writers of the Eastern Churches. Thus they promote the right ordering of Christian life and, indeed, pave the way to a full vision of Christian truth.

The Catholic attitude on differences in formulations of doctrine employed by the ancient Churches of West and East (including both Eastern Orthodox tradition and that of Oriental Orthodoxy) was expressed in an agreement between Roman Catholic and Oriental Orthodox theologians as follows: "We recognize the limits of every philosophical and theological attempt to grasp the mystery in concept or express it in words. If the formulas coined by the fathers and doctors of the Churches have enabled us to obtain an authentic glimpse of the divine truth, we recognize that every formula that we can devise needs further interpretation. We saw that what appears to be the right formulation can be wrongly understood, and also how even behind an apparently wrong formulation there can be a right understanding."

The Roman Catholic Church's attitude was also expressed by Pope John Paul II in the image of the Church "breathing with her two lungs". He meant that there should be a combination of the more rational, juridical, organization-minded "Latin" temperament with the intuitive, mystical and contemplative spirit found in the east.

See also

• Eastern Christianity
• Eastern Orthodox Christian theology
• Western Christianity
• Western Rite Orthodoxy
• Council of Florence

Bibliography

• Joseph P. Farrell God, History, & Dialectic: The Theological Foundations of the Two Europes and Their Cultural Consequences. Bound edition 1997. Electronic edition 2008.
• Aidan Nichols. Rome and the Eastern Churches: a Study in Schism. 1992
• Tomáš Špidlík, The Spirituality of the Christian East: A systematic handbook, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1986. ISBN 0-87907-879-0

External links

• Joint Catholic-Orthodox Declaration of Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I, 7 December 1965
• BBC Radio 4 round table: In Our Time: Schism (16 October 2003) (audio)
• Orthodox response to allegations of being Platonistic and or NeoPlatonism
• Dialogue with the Eastern Orthodox Churches on the Vatican website.
• NeoThomism by N. Berdyaev
• Trinity theology Stanford