Perhaps I may match one story with another, though in my case the story will be one of documented history.
St. Cuthbert left Lindesfarne to attend the Council of Whitby, where the fate of the celtic church was decided. St. Cuthbert's side lost. So what did he do? He went back to Lindesfarne to tell the monks that they would have to abandon their celtic ways and observe Latin praxis, rite, and kalendar.
CGW wrote:Perhaps I may match one story with another, though in my case the story will be one of documented history.
St. Cuthbert left Lindesfarne to attend the Council of Whitby, where the fate of the celtic church was decided. St. Cuthbert's side lost. So what did he do? He went back to Lindesfarne to tell the monks that they would have to abandon their celtic ways and observe Latin praxis, rite, and kalendar.
I don't know a whole lot of the history of Whitby, but the celtic church was at variance over the calendar.
CGW your turn to "documented history" and write about St Cuthbert leaving the Synod of Whitby and returning to Lindisfarne?
The unconvinced upholder of the Celtic calculation of Easter and the Celtic tonsure was St Colman who returned with his followers to Iona,
according to my reading of two authorities of around that time.
These were the Venerable Bede and Eddius Steppanus in his Life of Wilfrid.
Despite the real tensions between these two traditions there was a true respect for each others' Ascetic Struggle. The Celtic system based on a monastic organisation - with the Bishop as a spiritual leader - was well suited to bringing Christianity to a fragmented and resolutely pagan land. The 'Roman' system was based on the diocesan system, without which Christianity was, perhaps, unlikely to consolidate and grow as it subesequently did. (Not withstanding its continuing rejection for the time being in Ireland).
The Celts isolated as they were do appear to have fallen into an erroneous method for calculating Easter. My understanding is unlike the later Niknonite reforms and our present day situation the result was not a lasting and potential break?
As a Celt and member of a family which resisted the English crown for some two hundred years after much of Ireland had submitted - and who never accepted their reformed church, I might have a 'partisan' view of the Celtic Church. I do not. Instead I stand in awe of the Christian strugglers of both parties and their combined achievements.
In seeing their tensions and sacrifice I do l look for any lessons that might help make sense of today's situation.
Unfortunately, despite all that it written the only point I find for myself may be summed up as follows:
"How long halt ye beween two opinions", 1 Kings 18, 21
and
"He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and that regardeth the clouds shall not reap", Ecclesiastes 11,4
My point was that truth is supreme. A layman with the truth has more power than a council with 500 bishops that lacks truth. If Plato or Aristotle or OOD, or Paul speaks the truth, then it is truth. It is only when a bishop and a layman both have the truth, that the bishop is far above the layman. But if the bishop (for example) is a neo-nestorian, while the layman is Orthodox, then certainly the layman should be listened to more attentively and authoritatively, while the bishop (in spite of his official position) should be given less of a hearing. And yes, I know that this brings up all sorts of epistemological questions about how do we know that we aren't just trying to place our opinions as supreme.
Justin Kissel wrote:And yes, I know that this brings up all sorts of epistemological questions about how do we know that we aren't just trying to place our opinions as supreme.
Well, um yes-- but since we, as mortal humans, cannot see things in the terms that you use here, it is this epistemology which is the central part of this problem-- not the truth.
The problem can be stated in very simple words. Where is truth? Where Jesus is. And where is Jesus? In the church. How do you know when you've found the church?
Well, that is where the problem lies.
Intellectual discernment of the church-- that is to say, the Truth found in theological propositions such as the Trinity and the various named heresies-- is inately a difficult question. If it weren't, there wouldn't be so many differing "truths" offered. And while I don't want to get sucked into the debate about the historical development of both Orthodoxy and heresy, I don't think, in light of all the various things that have been deemed heresies or orthodoxies, that it can be claimed that Orthodoxy-- the Truth-- is this simple thing which every true Christian must believe, tenet for tenet. That simplicity takes you to Anglican "mere Christianity", not to Orthodoxy; Orthodoxy is too big and complex for that. I'll take it further: I don't think that but a few people ever find the church that way.
And if you come into theology without claiming Truth, then it looks like any other academic pursuit, with all the attendant sinning. It must be so, for how else does one explain the very many different truths? And then, objectively, one must doubt one's own grip on truth. It is impossible to get very far in Christian theology without being warned about this. We cannot understand the ineffable and transcendent, and even what we can see is clouded by sin. Of all authorities, the first we should suspect is ourselves.
And it is especially a danger in a computer forum, which pushes all arguments towards extremity and where authority is almost cripplingly distorted. Discernment is not the whole gospel, but computer fora will tell you that it is. And they do so because dispute is what tends to keep a forum going.
And if you faith drives you from church to church, is it the same faith, or constantly changing? I think it is the same faith.
CGW,
The problem can be stated in very simple words. Where is truth? Where Jesus is. And where is Jesus? In the church. How do you know when you've found the church?
Well, that is where the problem lies.
The Church is right before you in all Her glory, and you continue to ask "Where is the Church". The Church is not intended as a power structure to be arbitrarily ruled by a clerical elite as if it were a business enterprise. The Church is the Body of Christ and the priesthood is not something which belongs to the priest, but to Christ. The saints of the Church, from St. John Chrysostom in the fourth century to St. John of Kronstadt in the twentieth, are clear on this point: it is not the bishop or priest who celebrates the Liturgy, but Christ Himself who celebrates His own Mysteries. The bishop and the priest are only the tools.
So "where is Truth"?
When Plate asked this of Jesus, "What is Truth", what was the answer? Jesus’ answer is silence, because he is the one High Priest, the Truth, and in his presence Pilate is face to face with that which he refuses to accept. Is there any greater irony than that?
Silence was Pilates answer because he was not really asking; rather he was saying cynically that Truth does not exist. Therefore, Jesus, like the Church, who will never constrain men to submit, gave him nothing in return for His lack of faith.
And you, "CGW", don't seem to be here as an inquirer about what Holy Orthodoxy is, as you have been told and your questions remain the same - they are not questions of discovery, but of ambivalence. You are here to parade your doubt and hold it up high so that everyone can share and marvel at your ideas.
Your trouble seems to be that you do not accept anything unquestioned, and are proud of it. You consider all values relative, even those which you accept, because you really don't believe in One Church, One Truth; your position is that of a well-disposed agnostic who is willing to agree with whatever is told to you, but will let you understand that, of course, there is no way of proving anything that is said, and therefore, it is inevitably meaningless.
So you too will receive the same as Pilate.
