An Orthodox Perspective on Roman Catholicism

[Music] [Music] Swayne addition to your very good friend of mine and it's hard to sidetrack for the st. Andrew's Church in Riverside other private Josiah is the author very [Music] rock and sand and worth lakhs appraisal of the process of warmers and Rhodesians which is all this right here on address this topic during his history in Leicester University Hannity an overview of similarities and distinction and this is very important subject it's also when this really puts the father smart he's spent a lot of time researching so I'm really happy really really happy to be at

st. Barnabus and to be with father Wayne and father Michael and Kevin thank you for the invitation wherever you are you don't seem Barnabas is the son of encouragement and father Wayne is a Father of encouragement to me we've been colleagues for my whole priesthood which is less than his since 1993 and periodically but consistently just when I need it something comes to me from father Wayne an email a word of encouragement a message through another brother priest a joke whatever I need it comes and it has come consistently for which I'm deeply thankful I

also like coming to st. Barnabas because I like to know where my young people like to go to Church st. Andrew kids are constantly sneaking down to st. Barnabas to meet the other young people because the average age at your church is about 12 and a half there are so many young people here which presents a beautiful hope for the advance of Orthodox Christianity in Orange County I mean God grant that and I was in the altar to kiss it before I came out here just now and I saw a list of pregnant women seemingly

long they must be Obtaining special prayers from the clergy because they're lifted on the walls of the altar how wonderful what a big blessing the subject I'm addressing is Eastern and Western Christianity similarities and differences what I'm hoping to do under that subject which I hope is acceptable is to focus on Orthodoxy and Catholicism father Wayne introduced a book of mine called rock and sand which is specifically about an Orthodox appraisal Of the Protestant Reformation I'm hoping not to address that since the Protestant movement was a sysm in the West that took place centuries after

the Great Schism between the East and the West between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church so what I'm hoping to discuss is our relationship to Roman Catholicism and what the similarities and differences are between orthodoxy and Catholicism if you want to at the end I Hear we're going to have questions and answers if you want to ask me questions about Protestantism please feel free to do that and if you're particularly interested in that subject read the book read the book let me talk initially about the Great Schism and why the Great Schism is the greatest

sorrow the greatest sorrow in the history of the church 2,000 years now I'm not meaning in any way to play down the rise of Islam which is the greatest single Historical development in the history of Christianity that has affected us I'm not suggesting to replace that with the greats ISM the greats ISM was an internal affair a family affair a horrible frightful tear causing divorce the worst kind the rise of Islam was an external affair something that came upon us and which is still affecting us 14 centuries later nothing has affected the growth of the

Church of Christ and it's life in the world more than Islam and Nothing in the interior life of the church has hurt us as badly as the Great Schism that is the separation of the patriarch of Rome from the other patriarchs of the East and the functional separation at least for the late last 800 years between orthodoxy and Catholicism we often just for pedagogical purposes like to use that date 1054 as the date for the great system just so you know nobody believed that at the time in 1054 no one The West or in the

East thought that that marked the great system and that that was somehow you know the road that we shouldn't have crossed and that was the end if we really had to pin a date I think a much better date to solidify that the sense of the great system is the sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade it was at that time when the Latin Crusaders got misdirected and they came into Constantinople and killed our bishops And priests and raped our nuns on our altars that is when we said you know what I don't

think we're one that's when it really hit the people on the bottom and I don't mean to demonize the Crusaders alone we had done our fair share of slaughtering Latins just several decades before toefl for hostility had RIT had risen to a great fever so now while maintaining our Orthodox teaching about the church which is that despite the Great Schism the Integrity of the oneness of the church has been preserved our teaching is that you can leave the church but you cannot break the church up you cannot actually cause the church to no longer be

one the oneness of the church is an essential ecclesial characteristic we confess it in the Creed to this day so while maintaining the integrity of Orthodoxy that we after thus ISM continued to believe in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and that that church is Found in the Orthodox Church not in the Roman Catholic Church at the same time I want to speak about the sysm and the terrible diminution the terrible loss to the church to the one church that the Great Schism was and is that separation brought a practical in practical experience a separation

for Eastern Christians from a host of Western Saints hosts of Western Saints in our experience as Orthodox in America we often are bringing into the Consciousness of our Orthodox brethren who are not converts and our Orthodox bishops who are not converts we we who are converts are bringing into their consciousness the experience a new revived experience with Western Saints before the sysm many many times I have interacted with parishioners or visitors who are converts and they were catechized and baptized by priests who were not converts and did not recognize their names as authentic Christian saint

Names maybe their name was Chad the priest didn't know that there was a magnificent Orthodox Western saint named Chad and so he named him George in baptism and he ended up not getting to be able to keep his name this is a consequence a terrible terrible consequence of the sysm and that is that most Eastern Orthodox believers no longer had a practical experience a living connection with saints of the West the progress of Orthodoxy for the Last hundred or so years in the West that this is one of the great contributions that we bring and

many Orthodox churches now have Sonata cailli confirmed new calendars Russia the Church of Russia did this for instance about ten years ago they sonata cailli made a declaration about numerous Western Saints that weren't typically on Eastern liturgical calendars that and put Anna's Synod put them on this is a contribution they did this because they Have so many of their flock now in the West we've done some other things in Antioch and other churches we also lost many many talents and unique gifts that Westerners possessed and contributed to the East these talents and gifts particularly in

the area of missionary endeavors Western Orthodox Christians prior to the sysm were zealous and tenacious missionaries and I would say for the most part remain tenacious and zealous missionaries we Also lost great talents in organization and achievements in Western culture these things when the church fell into sysm were lost to us we also lost a wide diversity of liturgical rites one of the consequences of this ISM is that we went from being a pluralistic liturgical church that had numerous languages of liturgy but not just numerous language of languages of live numerous liturgies the West itself

had multiple liturgies not just the Roman mass but the Gallic Rite in Gaul in France what is France today we've had a fossilization a diminution of what we've considered to be the worship of the church so now it's very hard for contemporary Orthodox Christians to have a grasp of the fact that there might be other edifying fully Orthodox forms of the Divine Liturgy for us we pretty much know one that was not the case that was not the case prior to the Great Schism we also lost a large portion of our Armie a massive portion

of our army now at the time population centers wise it the the proportions were not what they are today today the Roman Catholic Church is at least three times the numeric size of the Orthodox Church at the time of the system that wasn't the case at all the vast majority of the population was still in the East but nevertheless when you have an army just take our army how many soldiers do we have in the United States how many Soldiers in active duty four hundred thousand can you imagine going from four hundred thousand to two

hundred thousand in a couple years that is a massive change and that's exactly what happened to us and the sysm from the from the from 1204 the the tension between the East and the West between the Orthodox and the Catholic even our language have to change prior to the Great Schism we were Orthodox and we were Catholic and the two words were virtually synonymous We use the words that way posts ISM by saying we're Orthodox we're also saying we're not Catholic and when a Catholic says I'm Catholic he's saying I'm not Orthodox and for about

seven hundred years at least from the time of the fourth crusade until the early part of the 20th century the West took a very very hard line against us I know this is shocking this is one of the realities of the post-season Roman Catholic Church is that despite its grandiose structure of Authority and its projection of being the church that doesn't change that church changes so fast you can hardly keep up with it it is altering its positions and dogmas constantly constantly one of the things I'm gonna do now is read to you a collection

of what what are called the Byzantine lists Byzantine lists are compilations from different Church Fathers and bishops and scholars of the errors of the Latins that led to the Great system and follow the great system it's a whole genre the Byzantine lists but after I mentioned what's on them I'll have to make this qualification those Byzantine lifts are dealing with what's happening in the Latin Church until about the 13th century there have been so many more changes and forgive me heresies that have been foisted upon the world by the Roman Catholic Church since the 13th

century that we have to greatly expand the Byzantine lists we have to Make 21st century Byzantine lists no saying all of that things did change in the beginning of the 20th century instead of the typical Latin line for seven centuries that is found for instance in Thomas Aquinas book that he wrote against the Greeks which means against the Orthodox just like we would say against the Latins in which he said any Christian any person not in communion with the Bishop of Rome is damned that would be us that position Was radically altered by the by

the Latins first tenuously at the beginning of the 20th century it came into full force in the middle of the 20th century I have a call I have a book which is a collection of papal documents of the 20th century about the Eastern Church and one after another they grow progressively more positive to us until they really reached a climax in pope john paul ii or in Tal a lumen which is a papal encyclical he issued which means The light of the East he this polish remember who john paul ii was this eastern man whose

mother was orthodox too of whom two of the three bishops who made him a bishop were from orthodox families and were serving in the eastern rightist catholic bishops he had a great interest in orthodoxy and he was serving a Catholic Church which is even worse today than when he was serving it in which the bishops did not obey him at all he had virtually all of South America as communists in in clerical robes in promoting Liberation Theology which is just communism with the Bible kind of draped around it and he recognized that he needed a

solid backbone and one of the wait places he found that was by nourishing once again an interest in us and he made explicit affirmations about the legitimacy of Orthodoxy not that we cared that much but it was a nice recalibration of Catholic thinking about Us in which he affirmed the integrity of the Orthodox Church suggesting that even though we didn't really know it we were Catholic by the way Vatican 2 also made that suggesting which is rather insulting about Protestants that their baptism is really a catholic baptist and they just don't know it so all

the products are really catholics very interesting theology some certainly not something they ever believed before that benedict xvi continued john paul ii view Of the orthodox east with some slight changes one of the first things that benedict xvi did when he became Pope was to slim down the titles for the Pope and he removed immediately one title and it made us sad because it was the one title we actually liked which is called the patriarch of the West he removed that didn't doesn't fit well with papal infallibility it sounds too collegial one of the patriarchs

we weren't I wasn't suggesting that he was a Contemporary patriarch the West he's not or was not but that was a if we if we were gonna make an approach and reproach them all with with the Catholic Church that would be the title we would want the new pope who wants to be Orthodox to emphasize and downplay the rest and then of course we have Pope Francis today forgive me who knows what that man believes I have absolutely no idea absolutely no idea a tremendous sad period I think for the Catholic Church Right now now

giving you that as an orientation I like I'd like to say that as I'm as I emphasize now the similarities and differences between orthodoxy and Catholicism I want to say right up right up front that it's very painful it's very painful to today not just back then it's still painful to have separation from our Catholic brethren especially because in our world or we're foot to tiny minority and we're when so many Orthodox are so Pathetic and are so over assimilated to American culture that we aren't holding forth our orthodoxy at all we're the wealthiest and

the most educated of all Christian denominations in America and we do the least for this country we're an absolute pathetic shame in this area and particularly in that context we we see that those who are really invested in holding up the Christian banner often are our Catholic brothers and sisters look in the field Of education look in the field of medical care how many hospitals look in the pro-life movement look those who are who are defending traditional marriage look those who are on the front line of defending religious liberty now of course there are 71

million Catholics in America and there's about a million active Orthodox so I mean we're 70 times that but if you took the number of hospitals that the Catholics have and you divided them by seventy we're still Not meeting that number you take the number of colleges that the Catholics having divided by seventy we're still we Orthodox are still not near that number we have a lot to learn and therefore I have personally as I'm sure you do many many friends that I consider mentors teachers and leaders in different aspects of my own ministry especially in

the areas that I've just mentioned that are Catholic and that I would really like to see become Orthodox Christians I would really like that and I know that they would be so delighted one of my very close neighbors lives two blocks from me it's a dear friend I've known for 20 years and he's a traditional Catholic and so therefore even though he's in the diocese the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino and Riverside which has over 1.1 million people over 1.1 million in a County Riverside County's 2.7 million the largest Catholic Diocese in America is

just to Your west Diocese of Los Angeles has four out of the 11 million people in LA County four million are registered with that diocese and because of immigration that's that number is increasing all the time but my neighbor friend and have to drive past hundreds of Catholic churches to go to church in a decent in a decent place where they're not celebrating homosexuality whether or not having banjo bands in the mass and where there are serious priests who are practicing Traditional Catholic life you know the priest to parishioner ratio in the Catholic Diocese of

San Bernardino five thousand to one five thousand to one and many of those priests I think more than half our imports from the Philippines from Southeast Asia because they have such a leadership crisis which has therefore not inspired young men I mean why would you want to become a priest these days if the Catholic seminaries are bastions of homosexuality which Pope Benedict the 16th chief archbishop for overseeing American seminaries announced during his pontificate that they were the result is that nope you know decent men don't want to become Catholic priests today and if they do

want to go into traditional orders which have which means that they can only serve very few churches and therefore just to get a decent mass to have a normal life work for instance you hear can we can make your confession right Catholics used to Very in very recent memory you've to confess every Saturday I have lots of older Catholic friends who that was their life growing up their parents took them on Saturday mornings and they've got in line for four to make their confession that's how it was today most of the large Catholic churches in

the diocese where I live have posted one hour of confession per week that's how much time to preach the overburden priest who's always in the hospitals Right and can't do anything and even then it's not full because Catholics just don't confess anymore they just don't do it there they're not able there they're so thoroughly Protestant eyes they have voluntarily done to themselves what the Protestant reformers tried to make and the bishops have brought it in themselves so what I'm suggesting to you what I'm going to go over with you now to describe the similarities and

differences between Catholicism and Orthodoxy I'm doing this also with a deep sense of of appreciation for Catholics who are struggling to be faithful Catholics in our culture and are leading the way and taking us Orthodox by the hands often very graciously and helping us go down good paths really good paths and the more that we can collaborate with them and learn the lessons that we should already know but that they're doing with regards to good social work good deeds in Society the quicker I was very happy to see that last year was the first year

ever in the history of Orthodoxy in America that on roe v wade day on sanctity of life Sunday the Assembly of Orthodox Bishop issued a collaborative pro-life statement with the head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the head of their pro-life Committee so our Archbishop Demetrios the chair of the Assembly of Orthodox bishops in America co-signed with Cardinal Kurtz and our head of our church and society committee which oversees the pro-life Ministry of the church signed together with cardinal Dolan of New York City who who oversees the Catholic pro-life calls this kind

of cooperation to save the life of the unborn this is something that we only can benefit from his Orthodox we can only benefit by learning - from our Catholic brethren these kinds of things so remember when I When I read you these lists remember that I'm saying all of this positive - about our Catholic brethren and how I think we should relate to them I should tell you that this this tension this change of the Catholic mind towards us that has taken place in the 20th century and that offsets seven centuries of rather aggressive aggressive

Catholic proselytization of the East I mean it was very in very recent memory many of our own people many of our Antiochian People were so precised by Catholics that the Pope would come and build a school in an Orthodox village in the Middle East with absolutely no Catholic population and he would open it and he would say tuition is free to all the Orthodox children as long as you commemorate me ie as long as you become Catholic and many did we in many of our towns and villages in Lebanon in Syria today on one side

of the street there's the Orthodox Church and literally across The street is the Melkite Church which looks like our church does the same liturgy in the same language as our church what's the difference at that one point in the liturgy where the priest says among the first be mindful O Lord of our metropolitan so and so they say of Pope who so and so which makes them functionally no matter what they look like smell like and act like if you are in communion with the Pope you are a Catholic this happened all over the Middle

East and not just in the Middle East this approach this aggressive proselytization but now we see this this new attitude developing especially in the last 50 years and I'll tell you next year it's going to be a very interesting year on this subject because next year will be the 100th anniversary of the so-called Fatima revelations the Fatima revelations took place in 1917 when three sisters apparently saw the Virgin Mary and she gave to these sisters Detailed casis one of the prophecies was that Russia which was just beginning its crucifixion at the hands of the Communists

doesn't think this is revolution year 1917 she prophesied that in the future after great martyrdom and desolation that the Russians would be converted in mass now Catholics have traditionally interpreted that Fatima prophecy as Russia becoming Catholic three more three months but Anyway that's how they've understood it that's how that's what they've thought about it and I I remember as a young priest I was interacting with some really well-formed educated older Catholic men very much in the know and they were absolutely great fatima devotees and they basically told me look you guys are all gonna be

catholic soon fatima Our Lady of Fatima told us this Russia's gonna lead the way I had a very interesting thing happen on this subject Two years ago I made the acquaintance and have since had a number of occasions to be with this person more to make the acquaintance of the titular King of Portugal who is named Dom Duarte Pio who is a devout Catholic and is involved in the pro family international pro-family movement and he and his lovely wife I've been able to have three or four dinners with over the last couple years and he

wanted to host the large international World Congress of families in Portugal Next year 2017 especially because of the number of pilgrims that were going to be in Portugal because of Fatima because they would be making pilgrimage there for the 100th anniversary and I said speaking of that speaking of that this was after a glass of wine and a long dinner I decided I was going to go for it and I said look I said this Fatima revelation Russia is gonna be converted i said forgive me you really think that's what The Virgin Mary if the

Virgin Mary did this came and appeared to these these girls do you really think that's what she meant I said cuz we Orthodox think that's utter total nonsense and he said to me he said oh he is a very high voice he said Oh father I know something about this he goes I am personally acquainted with the youngest of the daughters and I have corresponded with her on many occasions I think she just died within this last year he said I wrote her that Very question I said I said tell me what you said he

said I wrote her a letter and I said did the Virgin Mary in your understanding mean that Russia would become a Roman Catholic or that Russia would return to her Orthodox Christianity and the daughter according to Dom Pio wrote back and said it's my understanding that the Virgin Mary meant that Russia would return to its Orthodox Christianity very interesting I asked him if he was going To publish the letter be very nice if he would it'd be very very nice if he would and I am NOT going to forget that I heard that story at

all so things are changing things are changing our unity has been lost but our interactions and especially on the Latin side there have been lots of alterations in their opinion of us what are the issues that stand between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church what are these Byzantine lists that were Drawn up as the East and the West progressively became more estranged culturally and linguistically initially this is as early as the seventh century in the eighth century really hitting a climax during the pontificate of Pope Nicholas and the ecumenical patriarch will reign of

Saint photius the great and from that period from the mid 9th century up until the early 11th century around 1900 art ceased commemorating the Pope in the Divine Liturgy which is a Very clear liturgical expression that he thought he wasn't Orthodox dogmatically and then of course we have the terrible events of 1054 and then 1204 and then centuries of division what are the issues if you had these lists before you that were made by some by Saints but mostly by church hierarchs and theologians and canonists what would you find on this list I want to

read you some of the things you'd see first you would find that the greatest or what st. Photius called the crown of all evils is the heresy in the nicene creed that was inserted by the Catholics called the Filioque this erroneous teaching about the Holy Spirit that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the father Filioque and from the son does tremendous violence to our teaching about God and the consequences of that heresy are immense or immense it wasn't the simple fact that the Pope showed extreme arrogance in altering the One ecumenical Creed of the church that

the fathers who articulated it said could not be changed even in a syllable fili oh quit that's four syllables it wasn't just that that was an issue and that's a secondary issue in fact today if you were using the typical 19th and 20th century Lit priestly liturgical books what we would call in English the book of needs the Apollo Guillen where the priests would read the prayers for receiving converts from different faith Traditions if you open the page to how to receive converts from Roman Catholicism the renunciations that are made focus on two things the

Filioque and papal infallibility those are the two things that the priest is going to make sure in front of the whole community converts from Roman Catholicism are very clear about and they publicly renounce Filioque as st. photius said was the crown of evils it might have been raised as early as seven Six seven certainly in the Frankish Kingdom of Charlemagne and following the Filioque was posited by the time of Saint photius councils were held in Constantinople condemning it as a heresy even though so many Orthodox bishops and priests today do not have the courage or

the conviction to maintain that Filioque is a heresy this is so consistent 11th centuries it's been in our Sonova cone in our text that we read on the sunday of orthodoxy when we anathematized Heretics and the bishops that promoted these heresies whom st. photius called bishops of dark yes photius said any bishop who teaches the Filioque is a bishop of darkness and the Filioque is a crown of evil Filioque chief on the list and by the way just as a sidelight if you're interested to know what's so serious about the Filioque why make such a

big deal about one latin word in the creed i would refer you to about a 20-page section in my book rock And sand it's in there because sadly though the Protestants were overthrowing many of the papal innovations the the worst of all they completely accept the Protestant reformers almost universally the Mennonites there was one minute night read that rejected the Filioque the rest crossing confessions accepted the Filioque tragically but if you look at my book under that's the section of Protestant heresies in the back which I would mention comes after a chapter on The Protestant

virtues let's be fair let's be fair that section covers the Filioque and why it's such a big deal and how it affects our practice and our whole experience of Christian life fill the oak waste in the top of the list following that as the concept of universal primacy the thought that has developed in the West especially in Rome that the Bishop of Rome is not just Peters successor but Peters personal presence on the earth it couldn't have Helped that when Pope Leo the first the great Saint had his tome read at the fourth council and

kalsa Don all of those who were listening said Peter has spoken through Leo forgive me but I think that went to the Pope's heads because that became fundamental Catholic doctrine that the Pope no longer was just the successor of Peter but his personal presence maintaining his authority and therefore over the second half of the first millennium there grew Ideas in the papacy that the Pope didn't have just jurisdiction over his area but that he also could meddle in the affairs of the eastern patriarchs in Antioch in Constantinople Alexandria Jerusalem and elsewhere not just as a

last Court of Appeal which is traditional not just maintaining a primacy of Honor but asserting a universal jurisdiction which has grown to such a height that today in the Catholic Church no bishop in any part of The Catholic world becomes a bishop except by the Pope's choice that that centrality of authority is something totally foreign to the Orthodox world the idea that one bishop would determine all the bishops in all the rest of the world if just forgive me absolutely foul absolutely felt to the Orthodox mind so this universal primacy is next that climaxed of

course in the alteration of the creed right because now he has primacy not just over the Pastoral affairs of the church but he has primacy over the dogma of the church and can change it even if previous popes said you can and in fact two centuries before the Creed was changed one of the Pope's definitively said that Creed can never be changed and had the Greek and the Latin both the original Greek of the Nicene Creed and the Latin translation of the Nicene Creed without the Filioque put on the doors of st. Peter and by

the way they're no longer on the front doors But they're preserved to this day in the Vatican if you go to the Vatican you can actually see these copies of the Nicene Creed without the Filioque that were put there by a pope who said no pope could ever possibly change the creed well he was proven wrong very quickly and besides this universal primacy climaxing in a in a concept not just a universal pastoral authority but universal dogmatic authority at a climax of course in 1870 at Vatican 1 with the Affirmation that the Pope when he

speaks ex cathedra from his Episcopal chair is in is infallible so now you have the universal consciousness of the church being channeled to one Bishop and this is the sad reality of course is that with this whole invented structure of universal primacy and infallibility with the College of Cardinals where bishops are not equal you have some bishops who are Cardinals who have a lot of Authority and other bishops who only have some despite all of that you have simply chaos dogmatic chaos of the highest sort in the Roman Catholic Church and it's not just in

a few universities in Europe as I mentioned it permeates Latin America where liberation theology is king it permeates this country the most influential Cardinal for many decades in this country was Cardinal Mahony prior to his forced retirement and Cardinal Mahony if he was Not an explicit heretic I'm speaking from a cafe person perspective he at least liked to hang out with them because numerous conferences that he held over the course of almost 30 years in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles entertained theologians who explicitly denied the resurrection of Jesus Christ Oh explicitly I have

a letter one of my real heroes pro-life heroes who died on maybe 10 years ago was a Catholic priest Who started human life international hli one of the great pro-life arms of the Catholic Church in America his name is father Paul marks an incredible priest just an incredible priest came from the Midwest and let the press let the pro-life cause I have a copy of a personal letter he was banned from the Los Angeles archdiocese he had no permission to serve Mass anywhere in that in the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and I was inquiring

with one of my friends who was close friends with father Paul about why this was the case and he gave me a copy a 50 page personal letter between father Paul and Cardinal Mahony in which father Paul acknowledged being banned and then told him look you better watch out because you're gonna go to hell my friend you are a heretic and then he lists in fifty pages all the conference's and which abortion was permitted promoted feminism lesbianism Cardinal Mahony established a center for gay ministry and celebrated the mass under gay pride banners I mean so

far from Catholic life so and all of that despite this structure that's supposed to keep everybody in line did it it hasn't worked it hasn't worked as we continue down the list past the Filioque universal primacy and FAL ability we come to more dogmatic realities like the teaching of the Catholic Church about what grace is and that and the rejection Of the teaching of the fathers about the uncreated light the result of teaching that grace is a substance of sort different from God you end up with a denial of the traditional Orthodox practice of hezekiah

or the use of pure prayer in which you can have communion with God directly and see the uncreated light this is of course the the drive of our leaders if to be with God and to have the experience of Mount Tabor or in their life to know him and to commune With his light and this is something explicitly denied by the Roman Catholic Church our hezekiah including great Saints like saying Gregory Palamas are considered heretics by the Catholic Church today because they taught that we can commune not with God's essence but with His divine energy

and that that divine energy much as the heat and rays of the Sun are different than the Sun but are also the Sun that divine energy is Certainly God in his presence how could our monastic tradition ever be reconciled with Catholic dogma as long as they maintained a teaching about created grace and a refutation of hesychasm of course there are many soteriological issues that are on our lists purgatory the concept that there is a unique fire that is a purifying fire not a consuming fire not a destroying fire not the fire of hell and not

paradise not the fire of paradise Which is divine light but a third reality that is the destination for most believers who have put their faith in Christ but have not satisfied the demands of God's justice by repentance and deeds of repentance and therefore must go to this place in order to be prepared over years sometimes hundreds of years to be able to be fit for heaven now the concept of pure purgatory certainly appeared before the sysm and there were a number of Really great Western Saints who maintained this teaching but it exploded in the Middle

Ages in the West and became the structure for a whole approach to of relations between the clergy and the laity in which the clergy marketed indulgences and raised lots of money on the concept that this money would go to help people and who you loved in purgatory so that they could get out Martin Luther was very wise in his 95 theses to address right Away the concept that if the Pope actually has authority to limit or absolutely exculpate any deceased person's time in purgatory then why doesn't he just do it out of love right now

without money anyway great is a great point our defender of Orthodoxy st. mark of Ephesus who was at the attempted reunion council of Ferrara Florence in 1438 left us left the church for beautiful homilies against purgatory where the Orthodox teaching is very Clearly laid out with regards to this now I should also throw in here that the Protestant notion which converts and even many Orthodox who just live in America and have been influenced by our worldly mentality the concept that you die and be you're on a cloud and everything's wonderful it's complete nonsense it's as

big none as nonsense as purgatory is we have 40 day memorials for a reason because the process of Moving from this life to the next life is not instantaneous nor is it easy unless you're the Virgin Mary it's very challenging and our prayers are very very important and the testimony of many Saints who went through this some of whom actually were sent back and gave us details about it make it very very clear that this idea that the products articulated in their confessions I'm most familiar with the affirmation in the Westminster Confession of faith in

The middle of the 17th century where the Calvinists the the Presbyterians of England said that at death the soul doth immediately depart and rest with Christ immediately problem is that you'll search the New Testament for any reference to immediately about the parching departing there's lots of references about wanting to depart to be with Christ but the how that process happens the church has information about that's not revealed to us in the New Testament so we have to be careful on the other side as well the immaculate conception which was articulated by the Catholic Church that

the Virgin Mary was conceived in a way unlike the rest of us and that she actually was free of original sin or ancestral sin this is not a cause of her holiness we think that that's actually an insult because if the Virgin Mary was not dealing with the same inheritance of death and corruption and bent this that we all Have as sinners which we can't help but pass on to our progeny which is why we bring them to baptism as children and so they can be communicated with life if she didn't face the same liabilities

then her greatness isn't that great it actually steals from her but if in fact if the church says she was conceived unlike her son she was conceived the way that we have been conceived and yet still was as pure and exceedingly holy as she was this this leads us to him/her To praise her and to view her as a very tangible model for us our fathers also mentioned in the lists the alteration of many of the mysteries or sacraments of the church that the Latins have done and I want to just briefly mention those every

one of the sacraments of the church have been altered significantly by the Roman Catholic Church mostly since the Great Schism mostly posts ISM I'll use this one Practical example that which we take refuge in every day all day long the sign of the Cross the sign of the Cross is as ancient as the church some of our earliest testimonies about its power come from the second century Saint Anthony you know who was born in 250 speaks about the son of the cross being the refuge of every Christian and the greatest power against evil causing Devils

literally to erupt on fire the sign of the Cross is very precious to us And we know that the sign of the Cross was shared commonly between the Orthodox and the Catholics we know that all the way through the middle of the 13th century because we have a catechism this is post ism we have a catechism of Pope Innocent the third in which he's teaching his people how to make the cross and he says to make the cross like we make the cross even specifying from the right to the left sometime after Pope Innocent the

third The sign of the Cross was changed that change was criticized by our fathers not that it eradicate sneaking the sign of a cross but that it was an alteration of one of the most fundamental practices of the church done again without consideration of the entire East baptism baptism has been changed both in its form and in its formula so no longer as is witnessed in the first millennium of the church do the Latins baptize by trying immersion and immersion of the Apostle thought of to do baptizing in the name of the Father and of

the Son and of the Holy Spirit by the end of the first millennium Catholics were baptizing with one immersion which very much scared our bishops because that was an Arian practice but in the Middle Ages in the scholastic period even single immersion dropped off from Catholic practice which is almost universally not done today in the Catholic world where baptisms are done By pouring which is a negation of the very word baptizo itself which means to immerse and besides the form the formula also was changed from the passive the servant of God is baptized to be

active i baptize thee in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit and we are not happy with that change and think that it is communicating exactly the wrong thing placing the locus of the authority to baptize in the priest instead of the priest being the agent of the Holy Spirit to do that st. John Chrysostom thought that as early as the 4th century so this was not unheard of but it certainly wasn't the Latin practice until this ISM baptism has been changed chrismation has been terribly changed in that though the Latin West had

the same form of initiation that we did for centuries meaning that they received people by baptism chrismation and Eucharist they broke up that sacred trilogy of Sacraments and now they Kris they Kris mate or confirm when you're a teenager so you're baptized without chrism so you have now baptized that you have a new invention of type of Christians that the Latins have actually created three types of Christians instead of one we know one baptized Chris made communing Christians Catholics now have baptized and unconfirmed around Chris mated Christians they also separate the reception of the Eucharist

from Childhood till six or seven years old so now you have baptized on communion Christians you can then have baptizing communing but unconfirmed Christians all of this is novelty and it says I think exactly the wrong thing about communion for Orthodox people the idea of being excommunicated just because you're young where's the fairness in fact the Eucharist also for many separate descent centuries was served only under One form not serving the chalice to believers but only the body of the Lord the lifts also mentioned that the Latins began to use unleavened bread which is a

very consistent complaint of the east against the weft that they instead of using a risen loaf 11 loaf which symbolizes the whole body of the church they used unleavened bread and therefore serve multiple they have nothing from which to fracture they have one larger host that the priest fractures and Serves himself but the people get unfractionated individual pieces that come you know all pressed the really nullifying the very important symbolism of having one loaf and one cup in the chalice and we could go on fasting on Saturday something forbidden by apostolic Canon 666 then the

council's of Trillo of the six ecumenical council in chapter 55 we don't fast on Saturday and Sunday like we fast during the week and even in it the most rigorous fasting Periods like Lent Monday through Friday are kept one way but Saturday and Sunday always are experiences a lessening in honor of the Sabbath and in honor of the lord's day not so with the catholics their fasting rules they change tremendously including altering the wednesday friday fast today beyond description which comes from apostolic times today catholics were lucky if the catholics will not eat meat on

Friday that would be a major step the lift also Mentioned mandatory clerical celibacy this was a big issue in fact their relationship to sexuality especially the sexuality of the priests is a big separating issue between the East and the West and I should say something too about that as early as the first ecumenical council the delegates of the Roman pontiff attempted to get the council to pass a law that all priests even if they were married when they became priests must cease from having Sexual relations conjugal union with their wives if they're going to serve

the minutes of the council say that one of our great Desert Fathers Abba pop nucleus stood up and said what would become the standard line for the Orthodox to this day you would say look we honor the rigor of the Roman pontiff but to mandate such as a law is to set yourself forward as more holy and then the Apostles your holier than the Apostles who are you to do that this is This was the answer and Alba path knew Dias won the day and that will remain a point of contention between the East and

the West we of course have many many standards for special standards for priests in the in the realms of holiness and especially with regards to sexuality many things we do that are totally irrelevant to you as laypeople but what we don't do is invent a holier standard than st. Paul and the other apostles this is from Canon 13 of The 6th ecumenical council we say since we have learned that in the Church of the Romans it is regarded as tantamount to a Canon that ordinance to the diaconate or priesthood must solemnly promise to have no

further intercourse with their wives continuing however in conformity with the ancient Canon of apostolic rigor ISM and orderliness so they're accepting the concept of word rigor ISM but they're calling in an apostolic rigor is it not a super Apostolic rigor ISM continuing the ancient Canon of apostolic rigor ISM and orderliness we desire that henceforth the lawful marriage ties of sacred men become strong hah Tweaker become stronger and we are no wise dissolving their intercourse with their wives nor depriving them of their mutual relationship and companionship when properly maintained in due season so that if anyone

is found worthy to be ordained a subdeacon or a Deacon or a priest let him know wise be prevented from being elevated to such a rank while cohabiting with a lawful wife nor must he be required at the time of ordination to refrain from lawful intercourse with his own wife lest we be forced to be downright scornful of marriage which was instituted by God and blessed by his presence as attested by the unequivocal declaration of the gospel utterance what therefore God hath joined together let no man put asunder And the Apostles teaching that marriage is

honorable and the bed undefiled and art thou bound to a wife seek not to be freed we are cognizant though that those who met in Carthage this was a local Western council that the ecumenical council now is going to overrule we are cognizant though that those who met in Carthage and made provisions of decency in the life of Ministers declared that sub deacons and deacons and priests busy in themselves as they do with the sacred Mysteries according to their rules are obliged to practice temperance in connection with their helpmates in order that we may likewise

keep the injunction handed down through the Apostles and continued from ancient times in force well knowing that there is a proper season for everything and especially for fasting and praying for those who assist in the ceremonies of the sacrificial altar have to be temperate in all things at the time when they are handling holy Things so that they may be able to gain whatever they ask God for if therefore anyone acting contrary to the apostolic canons require any person who was in sacred orders any priest we mean or deacon or subdeacon to abstain from intercourse

and association with his lawful wife let him be deposed from office likewise if any priest or deacon expel his own wife on the pretext of reverence let him be excommunicated and if he persist to pose him so if this was An attempt to take the ruling of the local council of carthage which said priests who serve the mass priests who serve the liturgy can't sleep with their wives any more what the Holy Fathers at the ecumenical council did was to take that and say the effort there was to establish de see and proper preparation for

the serving of the sacraments which does not require perpetual abstinence from conjugal union of married press Pater's But timely appropriate intercourse which means that priests do not have relationships with their wives do not have conjugal union when they're performing sacraments when they're preparing to perform a sacrament a priest would never sleep with his wife the night before he served liturgy it's just not consonant with the sobriety of fasting and prayer that you're trying to raise yourself to to be able to serve the sacrament but it doesn't require That at other times you can't sleep with

your wife this is what the church is saying Catholics don't believe that but once again the authoritative rule of the Pope and the practice of Catholic priests over time have been very very far apart you know anything about Reformation history most of the leading Catholic priests of the time including the Reformers were living with women they weren't even their wives and their Bishops knew about it and they simply paid a bishop they specially paid a woman tax that's all they did it was their penance we accused them of eating unclean foods especially what we meant

by that was foods with the blood in it or strangled things something I think we find strange strange accusation today but it was really a difference between a Mediterranean climate and a northern European climate where where certain animals were eaten that weren't Appropriate to the East we we criticized the West for allowing brothers and sisters-in-law to marry we had different laws of affinity there monks ate meat in fact they continued to do that which was is a big scandal to the Orthodox ascetical practices I remember reading an account from the late metropolitan Anthony crop povitsky

a very famous Russian bishop at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution who kind of organized the Russian Church in exile he When he fled the Communists took refuge in a Catholic monastery and he became good friends he wrote in a factory book they're very from his book on confession he had no books and he wrote the entire book from memory including lots of scriptural and patristic quotes just an incredible man his books in English on confession it's a fantastic book but he describes how shocked he was because he was friends with these with these monks

with his Catholic monks who Were serious about their faith and he saw them not exercising traditional temperance but eating meat on Wednesdays and Fridays in the monastery and then at night he would be in his cell praying and he would hear the mom next to him whipping himself until he bled she she write this is this this concept and he said he said in writing metropolitan he goes look I don't I don't understand that right you neglect the traditional practice to to tame your unruly desires Which is not harmful to the body temperance practice fasting

and then by not doing that then then you go make yourself bleed and you whip yourself we also on the list noted that the catholic bishops priests and monks actually served in battle and it's kind of a historical reality that the barbarian invasions of the west militarized the church including in the clergy ranks this of course hit a climax during the crusades where you had whole monastic Military orders this is something very very offensive to the orthodox mentality about the role of clergy and monks with regards to warfare we have clergy in the military but

they're chaplains they aren't they aren't like it's supposed to be killing people we criticize the fact that they celebrated more than one Eucharist per day per altar per turret or per priest some of that was the fact that the the Latin Mass became served apart from the Traditional offices which you wouldn't see in the Orthodox world you'd have Vespers and or throw sand liturgy as part of a sacred Trinity of services but in the Catholic practice it became normal just to pray the very simple mass and therefore they often prayed at multiple times a day

we criticized in the in the scholastic period and post there clean-shaven priests we thought that that was a violation of the forbidden sub unisex appearance in the Bible Moses is very serious about unisex appearance especially with regards to clothing we criticized their burial customs because they didn't cross their peoples hands like this when they buried them instead they put them like down like this we thought that they showed improper reverence for the altar because they left they allowed laymen to come into the church we criticize them for sitting especially this was the case after the

16th century when pews became Common after the Protestant Reformation you know the Protestants invented the pews because they replaced the Eucharist with a very long sermon and they also got rid of the bishops chairs so that whole practice of chairs was completely reversed for us Orthodox sitting is a place of authority right if you're in authority you sit you stand to show you're under Authority in the Protestant world they got rid of the bishops chair they put chairs for everybody because The Eucharist was gone they were going to preach a long service and the Catholics

ended up imitating that and we Orthodox kind of imitative that too in the in the West but it's I tease my people a lot sometimes if they sit when I don't tell them to I come out I'm about to give a sermon and they you sitting I'm like oh maybe you should tell me what I'm listening you're all going to be giving some great sermon right now I'm well you know your Seat and your chairs of authority I'm just Here I am standing in reverence before you they also ordained only on four days a year

what are called ember days they serve the mass in week days of Lent they don't use the vulgar language when they do their missionary work although that was not a practice all the time in the first millennium anyway you see there is these incredible long lists and one things you can conclude and that by the Way of course that's not even dealing with the last five centuries this isn't even dealing with what we've seen in the last century or some of the things I was telling you about the decimation of Catholic practice today but you

see that these lists they're kind of like you would never find a list like this against the Jews or the Muslims but this is kind of an inter family squabble this is even though the lists are strong and they have very many important things We're the very fact that they exist show that we have a lot of history and we're really not happy about walking away from each other we're really not happy about that and we're gonna have a little fight about it and we're gonna fuss today of course as I mentioned the list would

be very very much longer I'm a fan of a Catholic priest scholar named a Thomas day and he wrote two really powerful books one book is called why Catholics can't sing and it's his record of the Overthrow of the sacred art of liturgical chant Gregorian chant which was as ancient in the West as our Byzantine chant and a classic old Russian chant slovak chant in the east which almost universally is gone today except a few monasteries that sell CDs to support themselves because they have really great choirs he also wrote a book called where have

you gone Michelangelo and and that book is about the overthrow of the classic sacred art of Architecture and just take as an example the monstrosity of the new cathedral Catholic cathedral in los angeles a hundred and eighty-nine million dollars now you would think with that kind of change they could really do something that would just cause the Catholic Church to explode in Los Angeles they could just buy a block and build a heavenly building they had a great church they had a great Cathedral it wasn't big enough but it was very Beautiful it's classic Basilica

I know because I was I did a wedding this summer and the reception was at that church because it's been turned into a restaurant the action that Catholics were gonna sell it and the Muslims were gonna buy it and a Catholic man said no way so a Catholic man went put up the money bought it from his own bishop and turned it into a restaurant called Viviana Viviana is the name of The saint of the Catholic cathedral her relics used to be out in the main Church just like they should be now they're in the

basement in a little chapel saying the viviana has been demoted she's an orthodox saint by the way everyone over at the relics of an orthodox scene in Los Angeles go to the Catholic cathedral go into the basement Chapel and you can see her but there was an article written in the Latin let math magazine about ten years ago I printed Out kept in my files it's called churches from hell and it had pictures that had pictures of just one church at complete violation of the sacred principles of architecture which communicate truth and when you promote

and spend money on ugliness you commit a very clear message you communicate a very clear mission when you radically break with architectural tradition you've communicating a very clear message when you throw over centuries of Sacred musical tradition you're communicating a very clear message do you know that the number of monastics Roman Catholic monastics since 1950 until today has decreased 95 percent their monastic chiefs around their school so you turn their hospitals they don't even exist anymore almost completely gone revolution as what has taken place in the Catholic Church I have a friend who is a

Catholic monk his name's father Kashin he's the abbot Of a monk of a monastery in Italy in fact he just built a very very beautiful Catholic monastery in the hometown of Saint Benedict Nursia there hadn't been a functioning Benedictine monastery in Nursia for centuries being a great devotee to Saint Benedict of course who is the classic Western Orthodox monastic founder comparable to our Saint Basil the Great I asked him we were together in Washington DC a couple years ago and I Asked him I said how's it going I said how many monasteries in the Catholic

world actually follow the rule of Saint Benedict he said one mind in the entire Catholic world only one actually followed the rules that st. Benedict wrote we all read about them but they've been altered and abbreviated and slimmed down and so many times that it's unrecognizable and he went back to start again the real thing with real vigil and real fasting And the real the real estate Benedict deal but that is truly how difficult it is today in the Catholic world which means that we have an even larger expanse to overcome in an effort for

reunification I've often thought what if something did happen what if you know pope john paul ii many times read the Nicene Creed in public without the Filioque he did it and he liked doing that what if something happened where the Pope's Would give up the Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco is a friend of mine his name Salvatore accordi Leone great man it was from San Diego was the citizen Bishop Bishop down there he's a canonist from wrong instead even in Rome and a great lover of Orthodoxy he is a great lover of Orthodoxy and I

have heard him in public say many times that he believes the Catholic Church should cease saying any council that they've held after the Great Schism is ecumenical because you know the Catholics kept on suggesting that their councils were the counsels of the whole church even though we weren't there he says we should stop that we should say they're all local councils and up for discussion if we could get if bishops like that we're talking and they said you know what that became the position of the Catholic Church they're going to relegate all posts ISM dogmatic

decrees to the trash bin and come back Based upon the faith of the first millennium and deal with us that would be a mighty miracle I'll be an incredible miracle please God made that happen that would be fantastic but still practically speaking what do you do the next day this is what I thought let's say it happened and all we could all announce in our church is that the catholic church and the orthodox church have been reunited after a thousand years of separation could any of us Actually go to church technically we could but could

any of us actually go to church in a catholic parish I think in where I live our people just couldn't stomach it they just couldn't stomach they would go there and they wouldn't recognize where they were they would simply not feel that that they could do it it would just be torture for them it would have to be not just a decree from the top but a renovation a reincorporation of traditional Orthodox Catholic life with regards to worship and prayer and all the things that we know of reverence in the church may God bless our

interactions with the Catholics and make something surprise us with something great because it's a pretty challenging picture [Music] you