Different flavors of Christians

Factual Questions
1

I’m wondering some about the relationships between the different churches that all descend, in theory, from the original church (rather than those that were founded later or based on later revelations.) There’s the Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, the Oriental Orthodox, and the Assyrian Church of the East (am I forgetting any?) These churches can all trace their operation back to the original church, correct? How did they break apart? How are relations between them - is there any special recognition on the part of, say, Catholics, that the Eastern Orthodox churches are also descended in an unbroken line and have similar rituals and beliefs? How about the Eastern Rite Catholic churches - how did they get to be accorded special status within the RCC?

What are the fundamental theological differences that led these groups to break apart? Are they still matters considered important, or is it more tradition that keeps them established as separate churches now? What are members of these churches taught in regard to the other churches - are there efforts on the part of any of them to convert members of other churches?

2

Man, you bit of a big subject. I will share what little I know and feel smart.

The Eastern Orthodox seperated from the Roman Catholic when the Roman Empire fell and the two areas became politically isolated. Catholicism was more or less in it’s infantcy, so practices in the two areas developed very differently. While similar theologically, I doubt you would find a whole lot of similarities between Eastern Orthodox practices and Roman Catholic ones. They developed under the influence of very different cultures.
So, there wasn’t really a theology issue that seperated the Roman Catholics from the Eastern Orthodox. Just a seperation at development.

Speaking with Roman Catholics I know, Eastern Orthodox is in a grey zone between the areas of “Roman Catholic” and not “Roman Catholic.” I was once advised by my father that, should I find myself in a foreign country on a Sunday with no church to go to, it would be okay for me to attend a Greek Orthodox service. And if I’m lodged in hethan Arabia, well God would understand so long as I remembered to say my prayers that Sunday. If I were to choose an Eastern Orthodox man for my husband, I’m sure both sets of parents would encourage either myself or my fiance to convert.

And that is all I know! Now I must quit the SDMB!

3

Noticed one group of Christians you forgot: The Protestants. Now that was a difference of opinion.

Oh, and one group can talk all kinds of smack about another. A smash session I got dragged into once had this group of Protestants swearing up and down that Roman Catholics are idolitors because they have statues of saints and whatnot that they pray to. For the SDMB record: Roman Catholics don’t worship the statues, they use the statues as a focus point for thier concentration. And the whole praying to saints thing is a left over medieval practice that is no way idolotry. It may be silly and useless, but it’s not idolotry.

</rant hyjack>

4

As Pullet said, most of these splits developed in periods when communications were slower and individual church leaders and communties were more isolated. Local opinions on dogma could become established and later when church leaders encountered differing beliefs thay had to reconcile these differences. In some cases they were able to reach an agreement, in some cases both sides were ruled acceptable, and in some cases one side overtook the other. But in some cases doctrinal issues arose which could not be ignored, reconciled, or suppressed. In these cases, a “new” church would end up being formed. However, the believers on both sides rarely regarded themselves as practicing a new faith - usually they were just following the same beliefs they had held for generations.

5

:confused: No, I was specifically only asking about those descended from the Historic Episcopate (assuming I’m using the term properly.) And it’s not like there’s a unified group of “Protestants” - that’s a whole lot of other groups. But I’m not as curious about them.

6

ah, I misunderstood your thread title.

7

Then you should expand your inquiry group to include the Anglican Church, which also holds to the apostolic succession.

Anglicanism rejects the claims of the Bishop of Rome :wink: to have a position superior to that of other bishops and national church leaders. Anglicanism thus takes a position on church governance that is much like the position of the Orthodox church: autonomous national churches in communinion with each other and sharing the traditions of the church, but without the papal supremacy of the Latin church.

8

You might have already seen this website, but this really helped me sort things out in a graphical way. Just click around on the boxes. It is a great way to spend a couple of hours on a rainy day!

Overview of World Religions Project

9

On strongly core issues, the Catholics and the Orthodox are very close, theologically. Originally, there were a number of Patriarchates that were basically equal in position within the church. Since Peter went to Rome at the time the Rome was the center of power, there is evidence (but no universally recognized declaration) that Rome was seen as the “first among equals.” Later (or in the period leading up to the division), various Western individuals would argue that this gave the bishop of Rome primacy over the church–a point hotly contested by those in the East.

The division actually originated in mundane politics, with Charlemagne siezing on a fairly minor theological point to get an opponent branded a heretic so that Chuck could get the support of the church for his political position. Unfortunately, once the issue became one of dispute, it stopped being a minor theological point and rose to become an issue of Great Importance. Eventually the bishops of Rome and Constantinople excommunicated each other. (There were actually reconciliation efforts made following that event, but there was too much bad blood and too many players for whom reconciliation was not politically expedient for the two sides to actually make up.) Since that time, the rise of Western Europe established the Roman patriarchate with more overall secular political power than all the other patriarchates, combined, and the Catholics simply went on as if nothing had happened. In the ensuing years, the Catholics have convened several General Councils to hammer out new understandings of doctrine while the Orthodox have noted that such councils cannot be convened without representation from all the patriachates, so the Orthodox condemn as heresy any doctrinal pronouncements that emanate from the Catholic councils while (because of the absence of Rome) declining to convene any Great Councils of their own.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes that there are no substantial differences between the Catholics and the Orthodox, saying

A perspective with which the Orthodox would profoundly disagree.

(When John Paul II visited Greece a few years ago, there were threatened riots over his presence and only the fact that his first words on arriving were to ask forgiveness for the rift kept them from erupting.)

The Eastern Rite Catholic Churches tend to be groups who had been aligned with the Orthodox, but who, in the last 200 years, or so, found theselves at odds with their Orthodox patriarchates with which they were associated and who announced their intention to “rejoin” with Rome.

In theology, all these groups are very close. Outwardly, their most noticeable differences are in the realm of liturgy and in their cultures, in which Rome has traditionally emphasized the ancient Roman legal approach to issues while the Eastern Churches have tended to follow a more mystical approach.

10

I did a long and brilliant post on the subject, which the hamsters decided was rodent chow. :frowning:

Summary:
[ul][li]Assyrian Church – only surviving Nestorian Church, split at time of Council of Nicaea[/li][li]Oriental Orthodox Churches – one of the Mar Thoma Churches of India, Armenians, Syrian Jacobites, and Egyptian and Ethiopian Copts. Split at time of Chalcedon, largely over the monophysite issue, though they’re not themselves monophysites[/li][li]Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches – split from each other in 1054 AD, after fighting for the previous couple of centuries. Excommunications rescinded in 1967. Tom~ detailed some of the agreements and disagreements between them. Eastern Orthodox Churches number 18, including Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Greek, Antiochian, Orthodox Church in America, others.[/li][li]Swedish and Finnish Lutheran Churches – but not the other Lutheran Churches – preserved apostolic succession and historic episcopate when they split with Rome at the time Sweden withdrew from Kalmar Union.[/li][li]Anglican Churches – includes Church of England, Scottish Episcopal Church, Episcopal Church in U.S.A., Anglican Churches of Canada, Australia, etc. Like Swedes, national church split, keeping historic episcopate.[/li][li]Old Catholic Churches – includes Jansenist Churches who left Rome in 1600s, Old Catholics who split after Vatican Council I in 1871. Small group but very widespread across Europe. Polish National Catholic Church in the U.S. was part of them from its split in 1880s until just a couple of years ago.[/li][*]Bizarre footnote: Antiochan Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Peter II consecrated Paul Athanasius as Archbishop of Mar Thoma Church in 1877. His successor consecrated the French priest Joseph Rene Villatte as a bishop in 1892. Villatte appears to have handed out ordinations and consecrations like AOL promotional CDs; there are dozens of micro-“denominations” claiming the apostolic succession through Fr. Villatte. To give an idea of the extent to which he went, one man he ordained was Aleister Crowley![/ul]

11

This is not quite correct. From the Orthodox POV, there is no theological reason why another ecumenical council could not be called; indeed, there are some who refer informally to the Photian and the Palamite councils as the eighth and ninth ecumenical councils, as they are such in all but name. If a future ecumenical council were to be called, it is likely they would be officially designated as such. We see ecumenical councils as being called for the purpose of combatting a heresy that threatens the Church – the two aforementioned unofficially ecumenical councils were convened to fight the filioque and the teachings of Barlaam of Calabria, respectively. Since then, there just haven’t been any major heresies that have warranted the entire church coming together to condemn them, but in any case the ability of the Orthodox to convene ecumenical councils is not hamstrung by the absence of Rome.

12

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
[li]Oriental Orthodox Churches – one of the Mar Thoma Churches of India, Armenians, Syrian Jacobites, and Egyptian and Ethiopian Copts. Split at time of Chalcedon, largely over the monophysite issue, though they’re not themselves monophysites[/li][/QUOTE]
'Scuse me, I’d always heard that the Coptic churches were monophysite. One reason the Copts in Egypt were glad to be rid of Byzantine rule in 640. The authorities in Constantinople persecuted the Monophysites, but the caliphs of Arabia didn’t care and left them alone.

13

They’re all, according to a couple of OOs that I’ve met, miaphysite. And this is a point where semantics gets deep slogging. Monophysites, of course, believe that Christ had a single, divine nature; everybody knows that. :wink: Nicene Christians hold that he has two natures, one human and one divine, united in one hypostatic union. In contradistinction from this, Oriental Orthodox hold that he has a single fused nature, both human and divine brought together into one. Precisely how this disagrees with the hypostatic union of two natures I leave to the Orthodox of whichever subdivision to unpeel.

14

[nitpick on your hijack]

Technically, what we do is ask the saints for intercession on our behalf. This is subtly different from the veneration of Mary, Mother of God (which, along with the Pope, is where the Chickites get their “idolatry” claims).

[/noyh]

And the difference between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholics is, at this point, only a matter of “We’re tops… no, we are.”

I mean, come on. I know it’s party line to assert that only those of the Catholic Church share the fullness of the faith with the Apostles and with Christ, but “lacks little?” It reminds me of when my mother made me “say sorry” when I whacked my sister.

15

From the Catholic point of view, perhaps. But from the Orthodox perspective the gap between us and the Catholics is as big as it’s ever been.

16

I have two “Comparative Religion Charts”, one of which also has a sort of “family tree” for religions. It’s interesting, if not complete (even for christian religions, which it concentrates on), and it seems accurate. The charts conmpare different beliefs of different religions (mostly brands of Christianity). Even though the charts come from St. Louis, they’re pretty obviously made by LDS – it shows in their ordering of faiths and in the questions they ask. Besides, I picked them up in a Mormon Missionary store.

I’m sure there are other such “family tree” charts out there, but this is the only one I can recall.

17

Me too…and here I was ready for a thread on cannibalism.

18

It really depends on how you cook 'em, don’t you think?

I just wish I understood half enough to get what these differences are. Monophysite? Miaphysite? :: sigh ::

19

[QUOTE=Excalibre]

It is much like the Franciscan missionary contingent sent out to the classic old joke setting of the cannibal island. After boiling one in the joke-standard giant-pot-over-the-fire, and discovering he tasted horrible, they left the others alive and uncooked for a time. The chieftain of a neighboring, somewhat more advanced classic-joke-cannibal-island-cannibal civilization dropped by to visit, and they explained their problem. He looked at the Franciscans, and immediately deduced what the problem was. “You can’t boil these missionaries, and expect anything tasty to result,” he said. “Theyr’e Friars!”

Not only are the dogmas of the Trinity and of Christ’s Nature counterintuitive, but for each seemingly bizarre statement in them, somebody, somewhere evolved a heresy by reversing the value of the statement.

In this case, Jesus is “truly God and truly Man.” Not a 50:50 demigod mix [“God on His Father’s side and man on His mother’s,” in the somewhat unrespectful formula sometimes quoted]. But simultaneously 100% God and 100% man.

Okay, to avoid positing a totally schizoid Messiah, He is described as having a divine nature and a human nature united in one “hypostatic union”. This is diaphysitism, the truth held by Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and mainstream Protestant alike. The monophysites held that He was of a single, divine nature, denying His humanity and therefore His participation in what we are and what we experience. To them, He was merely “God slumming” – a position very commonly taken in Great Debates by people who think it’s ludicrous that “if Jesus was God, then why didn’t He…” As noted, the Oriental Orthodox believe in miaphysitism, that Jesus has both divine and human natures, but fused into a single nature which can be described by both adjectives. And as I said above, I don’t grasp how this differs from the hypostatic union.

20

Specifically, they describe Christ as having one incarnate nature, i.e. a divine nature that has become incarnated and so taken on humanity fully; one way to envision it is to substitute “hypostasis” for “nature”.

The problem wasn’t so much with the non-Chalcedonian terminology per se (after all, St. Cyril had used it), but with their absolute refusal to accept the Chalcedonian terminology as valid, which then led the Chalcedonians to believe the non-Chalcedonians were interpreting the Cyrillian terminology in a heretical way. The non-Chalcedonians saw the declaration that Christ was “in two natures”, rather than “from two natures”, as meaning there were two Christs, whereas the Chalcedonians saw the non-Chalcedonians’ insistence on “one incarnate nature” while utterly rejecting “in two natures” as meaning they denied Christ’s humanity.

In recent years, both sides have more or less come to the conclusion that the whole mess was a misunderstanding of terminology. There are still several obstacles to reunion, though. One biggie is that each side will concede that the other is Orthodox now, but maintains that they were heretical back then, and so each refuses to accept the other’s saints and teachers. It’s unlikely the Eastern Orthodox will ever accept Dioscorus and Severus, and it’s equally unlikely the non-Chalcedonians will ever accept Leo and Maximus. Furthermore, the Eastern Orthodox have made it an absolute condition that Councils 4 through 7 are accepted by the non-Chalcedonians, whereas the non-Chalcedonians have stated that they will never accept Chaldedon, and so still refuse the “in two natures” terminology. So, despite how maddeningly close we are in theology and practice (much more so than with the Catholics), the chances for reunion are not good (though again, better than with the Catholics).