Could you tell me a little more about the split between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church?  I was looking at the British Orthodox web site and they seem to say that the Protestant Reformation was a good thing. It just didn't go far enough. What’s with these Orthodox-ians?

Yours truly,

Bill Sands-Smels

British Orthodox?   Someone’s been sniffing too much incense!  Just joking. 

You ask a great question that has an extremely complicated answer.  Let us set the Way Back Machine to AD 60 and learn some history. 

After Pentecost, with a little help from the persecution under Herod Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great (the one who killed the children in Bethlehem, the Holy Innocents) the church began it’s mission to the world in earnest. They spread out through the Roman Empire and to points east of the Jordan, St. Thomas going as far as India. 

But, the major area of missionary work was the empire. The empire had three major cities with populations over 500,000, Rome, Alexandria in Egypt, and Antioch in Syria. The church took root in these cities, as well as in Jerusalem, where the church had been born. As the church developed in the first century, these four cities were regarded as theological centers and were eventually called patriarchates. Patriarch is a Greek word meaning first (or leading) father. 

The early Christians were very picky, as were the Jews, about ordination. Who ordained whom? If I know who ordained you, I know what your teaching is going to be about. Or at least that was the thinking. The Alexandrian Church had as its first bishop, Mark the evangelist, Antioch had Peter at its beginning from 37-53, then was followed by St. Evodius. At some point Peter went on to Rome as did St. Paul. Peter probably died in Rome around 64 AD as did Paul.

James the brother of the Lord, (not to be confused with James, one of the twelve, who died very early as a matter in the above mentioned persecution) was succeeded by Symeon, another relative of Jesus. These four churches along with the Armenian church and the Babylonian church grew and developed so that there are about 20 different varieties of traditional sacrament churches that exist in the east, but these four cities, Jerusalem, Rome Antioch and Alexandria, with their clear line of ordination back to the apostles, were regarded as the major churches. 

Rome had a special distinction because it was the place where both Peter, to whom Jesus had given a unique role, and Paul had worked and were buried. Very early on, the churches throughout the world recognized the unique position of the bishops of Rome. 

For instance, St. Iranaeus of Lyon, a Greek bishop of a city in what is now France, said it is necessary for all the churches to agree with Rome because of its preeminent authority. (Against Heresies 3, 3:2) He said this around 180 AD, just a little more than a century after Peter’s martyrdom in Rome. This idea of the primacy of the Bishops of Rome goes way back.

Well, things rolled merrily along, with Roman emperors trying to exterminate Christianity until the Roman emperor Constantine recognized the church and then made the little town of Byzantium into his new capital. He called it “Nova (new) Roma.”  It quickly took on the name of Constantine’s city or Constantinople, but you can’t go back to Constantinople because now it’s Istanbul. 

Well of course the new and Christian city had a bishop and the emperors decided that if Rome had moved its capital to new Rome, the bishop of old Rome should likewise move to new Rome. The Bishops of old Rome said, “No way! We’re staying here right by the relics of Peter and Paul!” 

Old Rome turned into a small town of ruins and 10 or twenty 20 thousand people, while Constantinople grew to be a metropolis of a million. Why should the bishop of the greatest city in the empire submit to some Italian bishop in the small malaria ridden swamp that Rome had become? 

In 381, the first council of Constantinople said that the bishop of Constantinople should be held as second in dignity to the bishop of Rome. The other patriarchs got huffy about this because Constantinople hadn't even been among the original big four.

In 451, the council of Chalcedon definitively made Constantinople a patriarchate, though Rome was still recognized as the preeminent patriarchate. Well, as time went by, things got more heated and finally the bishop of Constantinople excommunicated the Romans for such heresies as believing the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son and for using unleavened bread at Mass (Oh, the Horror of it!!).

The schism was made definitive in 1054 and thus it has remained. 

However, within all the eastern churches, significant minorities have returned to communion with the bishop of Rome. In fact the Italo-Albanian church never left communion. Yes, there is such a thing as the Italo-Albanian Catholic church. They are called Uniate or Byzantine churches, and are as Catholic as any Bavarian; they just don’t use the Latin liturgy. They use their own forms of worship and prayer. 

Let’s look at all the claims. Nobody’s perfect. There are certainly some Bishops of Rome who have been a bit of an embarrassment. Still, Rome has fulfilled the function that Jesus gave to Peter of “strengthening the brethren.” (Luke 22:31) 

The doctrine handed down through the teaching of the Roman church is truly orthodox and would be quite recognizable to the church fathers. The East however, specifically the bishops of Constantinople have toyed with lots of interesting heresies, such as iconoclasm, Aryanism, and above all a tendency to identify ethnically and politically with specific  governments or nationalities, this is important. 

You've got Bulgarian Orthodox, Albanian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Moldavian Orthodox and, God help us, British Orthodox!?!.  The claim that they are one, and universal, (that’s what catholic means in Greek) it gets a little threadbare. Even the claim to orthodoxy has been a little shaky over the years. Rome really is universal. 

Look at the faces in St. Peter’s Square any Sunday afternoon and you’ll see the oneness and the universality of the church in union with the Pope, the bishop of Rome. 

A lot of people gravitate to the Eastern Church these days because of the beauty of their liturgy. They didn't go through the silliness that the Latin rite suffered through in the wacky sixties, e.g. Clown Masses, which I am not making up. 

Now, however, the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church is on the liturgical rebound and if anyone wants the mystery and dignity of the eastern churches, they can have it and still be truly Catholic, in union with the bishop of Rome.

I imagine there is an eastern Catholic church not far from you. 

But British Orthodox? Give me a break.

Rev. Know-It-All