Books for Catholics in the Orthodox Section ?
Why do you have books about the Roman Catholic Church, in the section for books that is supposed to be dealing with the Eastern Orthodox Church ?
- There are a couple of different reasons for that.
The first is that for the Orthodox who actually know what Catholic theology is, and is about, finding books on Roman Catholicism in an Orthodox area, is something which makes perfect sense (more on this in a moment).
But to the many Orthodox who do not know about the theology of the Orthodox Church, those Eastern Orthodox are under the misguided impression that Orthodox Theology is unlike the theology of the Roman Catholic Church.
To those who know history, this begs two question:
1 .If the Eastern Orthodox Church was part of the Roman Catholic Church until 1054, which is at least for 600 years, then WHY would people today be pre-supposing that the Orthodox Church would renounce the first 600 years of its origins & faith, the very origins which it claims to support its own "authenticity" ?
If the answer is that the Orthodox Church has not rejected the first 600 years of its Theology, then the implication of this is that the Eastern Orthodox Church is Still following Roman Catholic Teachings, Beliefs and Theology. For that reason, Roman Catholic Theology would still be very relevant.
2. When the Eastern Orthodox Church split from the Roman Catholic Church, just how much of the theological content was the disagreement over ? Was there a 90% disagreement: in worldview, in theology, in doctrine, in rituals, in faith ? or was this a Church split over only a 5% theological issue ?
In other words - to rephrase the question - the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church split over the RCC preference for veneration of Statues and the EOC preference for the veneration of Icons, but just how much of a THEOLOGICAL split is that ?
The answer to that can only be found in the actual records and documents of the local Church Council, that the EOC calls the 7th Church Council. But those records are almost impossible to find, especially for laymen.
Remember the point of the EOC Leaders who practice the following:
Always REFER to the Documents,
but never actually Show the Documents
(and yes, we are implying that this is the case about the 7th Church Council that the EOC leaders often refer to).
But back to the main point about WHY we offer books on Roman Catholicism in the EOC section.
We have not posted all (or much) of the information on this topic, but we believe that the Eastern Orthodox Church has far more in common with the Roman Catholic Church - than its regular church members are led to believe.
But it does not seem as though most of the Orthodox laymen are aware of this (and many of us were not originally aware of this, when we were in the Eastern Orthodox Church).
In Eastern Orthodox Circles, there is a split, a dual approach to information and how it is handled. Two different ways for two different social classes:
1. those who are laymen and
2. those who are "scholars"
Those who are laymen are not usually told that the EOC agrees with the Roman Catholic Church - still to this day - in at least 90% of its theology, and almost all of the theological views and perspectives of the Roman Catholic Church.
This is not told to Orthodox laymen, because those who find this out, and are still searching for their roots, have a tendency to leave the Orthodox Church and go and join the Roman Catholic Church.
The EOC attempts to gloss over this issue rather quickly, simply by saying that it is the RCC which split from the EOC, and not vice-versa. But all this does...is introduce another smokescreen...to take the focus away from the truth that the EOC and its theology is very much Roman Catholic Theology.
This comes as a shock for the Eastern Orthodox, who have trouble accepting this. The reason is because they know that their church Split in 1054 from the RCC. So they are willing to believe - that the causes were theological.
And that is mostly - NOT the case. The split had to do with temporal political power between two competing bureaucracies: the RCC in the West and the EOC in the East.
The split had almost nothing to do with theology, which explains why the theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church remains essentially - Roman Catholic Theology.
This fact however, explains a lot:
1. it explains why the Eastern Orthodox Church is constantly dialoguing with the Roman Catholic leaders, and
2. it explains why the Eastern Orthodox priests can be accepted into the Roman Catholic Church and continue to serve there, as though this were a Lateral transfer (for EOC priests who are not married)
Would this really be possible if the theology of these two groups were so different ?
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Since we favor truth and accuracy, we believe that EOC laymen have the right to know what the Roman Catholic Beliefs actually are. We also believe that they have the right to know HOW the RCC beliefs have changed over the centuries.
How can we (xofc) say 1. that the EOC and the RCC are the same theologically, and yet 2. also say that the RCC doctrines have changed over the centuries ?
Because the answer is that both the RCC and the EOC doctrines HAVE changed over the centuries, in ways that are contrary to the original teachings of the first 6 church councils.
The problem is that EOC laymen are not given access to historical material, and certainly not to sources or documents that contradict the official position of the wealthy EOC leaders.
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The other challenge is that we have noticed that Eastern Orthodox scholars defend their own theology, not with Eastern Orthodox material and books, but with Roman Catholic sources and books.
This means that - in most cases - Eastern Orthodox scholars already know and recognize the simliarities between the RCC views and doctrines and the EOC views and doctrines. But they don't want laymen to realize the extent to which this is true, otherwise many of them will leave and find the Roman Catholic Church
Still another reason why the similarities of the EOC and the RCC are kept quiet, is because EOC leaders know that many of their followers are today coming from Protestant denominations. And they know that Protestants usually have an inherent distrust of the Leaders of the RCC.
Therefore, disclosing or emphasising those ties to the RCC - and explaining how those are still ongoing, and are certainly - theologically - almost identical - would cause many Protestants to wake up to being led astray into Roman Catholic Theology, no matter whether the "label" is officially Catholic or Eastern Orthodox.
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But how will the Orthodox laymen know, or have a chance to think about some of these issues for themselves, if 1) those issues are not addressed in parish counsels/local groups and 2) if the information they are given comes from the Roman Catholic Church, and its own historical bias...in ensuring that certain segments of history, are no longer included in historical books ?
The test is simple: find very old books on the Roman Catholic Church; Start digging up records, and start asking questions.
All we have done is empowered those who truly seek truth or thirst for knowledge, and provide them with information to have access to ALL of the information for themselves. And most of our books have many many footnotes and sources cited, so a person can find out if the quotes are accurate, and can also find out about many other books.
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Since the EOC follows catholic Theology and teachings in 90% of its core areas, we believe that EOC leaders should be telling the laymen where to find more information about the history of the doctrines ...that the EOC and the RCC believe.
It's all nice & pretty to keep referring to the first 6 Church Councils, which the EOC in fact does not conform to. But we don't need platitudes and glib answers. We can make up our own mind. Just show us the documents !!!
We can figure out the rest for ourselves. We are not the children that the EOC or RCC hoped that we would stay. That ended when people learned to read for themselves.
IN the spirit of Free Speech and Open Access, we provide books and materials that allow EOC laymen to decide for themselves. We still have not posted much information (and we hope to have more in 2004), but what we have made available...is far more comprehensive than the steps that the Eastern Orthodox Church has taken, to educate & inform the people.
These books do educate people about the Roman Catholic Church. But much of these books deal with the RCC before the year 1054 in anycase, therefore much of that material also applies to the EOC, which historically was part of the Roman Catholic Church.
We will be making more books available about the early history of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church in 2004.