Why I'm Not Eastern Orthodox...

Welcome back to Samus Pulri. I'm Joe

Heshmire and I spend a lot of time on

this channel responding to objections

raised against Catholicism by Protestant

apologists or by non-Christians. And I

think because of that, a significant

portion of my audience is actually

Orthodox. Now, as a Catholic, I'm very

grateful to have you here. We have a lot

of areas of agreement, as I think the

rest of my videos show. I also know

though that many of the people watching

this channel might be Protestants who

are right now discerning whether they're

meant to remain Protestant or become

Orthodox or become Catholic. And that

can be a heavy question to discern. So

today I want to address that question

outright. Why be Catholic and non-eern

orthodox oriental Orthodox? So we're

going to look at some of the areas we

disagree. And I'm going to actually

answer this by telling you my reasons.

Now other people have their own lists.

My reasons may or may not click for you.

I hope you'll let me know either way in

the comments. And speaking of clicking,

if you click on the link in the

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that's my Patreon. You can get bonuses

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for as little as $5 a month. And by the

way, special thank you to McKenzie over

on Patreon for asking me to make this

episode. Now, I'm grateful both to her

and for everybody supporting this

channel over at shamelessjoe.com. So

let's begin with four areas where I

think Catholics and Orthodox at least

broadly speaking agree. First of all, we

reject the idea of self-shepering sheep.

There's this model of Christianity

associated with Protestantism in which

the individual searching for the right

church has to first settle all the big

theological questions for themselves and

then once they figured out their own

interpretation of everything in the

Bible, they find the denomination or the

church that best agrees with them. But

this approach is not biblically sound.

Nobody in the Bible behaves like this.

Worse, it results in the individual

sheep of the flock of Christ shephering

themselves instead of being led by the

shepherds that God has given to us.

Second, this is a heavy burden to place

on somebody. Go get your PhD in

theology. Go settle the Reformation and

the Great Schism. Child's play, right?

And then, and only then, you can be sure

you're joining the right church. Well,

third, this approach also doesn't work

very well in real life. Father George

Masterton Tonus, a Greek Orthodox

theologian, points out that the church,

not you, is infallible. So trusting in

yourself and your interpretation, that's

not going to work. And is in fact how

you get a bunch of different

denominations teaching contradictory

doctrines. So if your answer to the

question, should I be Orthodox or should

I be Catholic? Requires advanced

theology or obscure church history, I

suspect that you're making it too

complicated.

Second area of common ground. Ecumenical

councils are really important. When a

theological controversy breaks out in

Acts chapter 15, the church meets the

council, settles it, and does so

speaking on behalf of the Holy Spirit.

Both Catholics and Orthodox recognize

ecumenical councils as a means by which

the Holy Spirit speaks infallibly

through the visible church. Simple

enough. Third area of common ground.

When Jesus founds the visible church, he

makes St. Peter the leader of the other

apostles. Now, I've said this before as

a place where Catholics and Orthodox

actually agree. And some commenters

disagreed and they didn't like that too

much. But the Orthodox Church in

America, for instance, refers to the

holy, glorious, and all praised leaders

of the apostles, Peter and Paul. And

they honor their joint feast day with a

reading from St. Augustine in which he

says that Jesus entrusted his flock to

St. Peter in John 21 because Peter was

first among the apostles and as such the

representative of the church. Besides

which, having turned in this instance to

Peter alone as to the top apostle,

Christ by this confirms the unity of the

church. So we agree on this. There's

some sense in which St. Peter is the top

apostle. He can speak on behalf of the

whole church and this confirms the unity

of the church. That brings us to the

fourth area of common ground. Both east

and west have always recognized that

Peter and Paul establish the church of

Rome and that this church somehow

continues in a role of leadership

presiding over the other churches. Now,

there's plenty of disagreement about

what that's meant to look like, but

history is too clear to deny it

entirely. So, for instance, the Greek

speaking Saint Irenaeus, who grew up in

the church of Smyrna in the east,

described how the church of Rome was

founded by St. Peter and St. Paul, and

that is a matter of necessity that every

church should agree with this church on

account of its preeminent authority.

Now, that was in 180, but we see that

authority exercised all throughout

church history. So for instance in the

mid-300s there's this fight over

christologology between theians in

Antioch and St. Athanasius of Alexandria

and Ucius writes to the pope and tries

to get him to call a council and to be

himself the judge if he's so pleased to

condemn Athanasius. Well, Pope Julius

writes back rebuking Ucius and the

Antiochians for not writing to him

sooner and asking if they're somehow

ignorant that had they had doubts about

Athanasius's orthodoxy, they were

supposed to first write to Rome and then

await a just verdict on the matter. St.

Cyprian of Carthage referred to this

kind of practice of taking disputes to

Rome as going to the throne of Peter and

to the chief church whence priestly

unity takes its source. So look, a

simple positive Catholic case would be

this. Jesus establishes Peter as the

leader of the apostles. Not so that

Peter is going to boss everybody around

all the time, but so there would be both

a visible leader and a visible sign of

unity. So you knew if you were in union

with Peter, you were in union with the

visible church. And this sign of unity

continues on with Peter's successors,

the popes of Rome. Now that connection

is made pretty explicitly by early

Christians like St. Octatus in the 300s.

If we're in union with the church of

Rome, we're in union with the visible

church. That's why, as Irenaeus had said

before, it's a matter of necessity that

every church should agree with this

church. But okay, let's say you reject

all that. You decide that no, whatever

may have been the case in the early days

of the church, we can no longer trust

the church of Rome. Now, in that case,

where should we go? You might say become

Orthodox, but that's really not a good

enough answer. So for instance, should I

become Eastern Orthodox or should I

become oriental orthodox? Both Catholics

and Eastern Orthodox accept the council

of Calcedon, which taught that Christ is

one person with two natures, human and

divine. The Oriental Orthodox reject

Paladon is a false council, referring

instead to the one nature of Christ that

is both fully human and fully divine. So

to resolve the eastern verse oriental

question, do I need to go do a deep dive

on the differences between

monophysitism, diophysitism, and

neophysitism and figure out which side I

think is correct? Because that sounds

very much like the kind of

self-shepering that we should rightly

reject. On the other hand, maybe you

just say, well, we'll decide it

geographically. If you live in Serbia,

you join the Serbian Orthodox Church and

accept Calcedon. If you live in Armenia,

you join the Armenian Orthodox Church