"No ecclesiastical canon has instituted and no imperial law has enacted that the Bishop of Rome is autocrat over the whole world. The arrogance of the Romans has been manifested in our own days, in the council that met at Constantinople for the examination of the Three Chapters...Vigilius of Rome had been in Constantinople for a long time and was invited to the council, but did not go to it. His predecessors as Bishops of Rome had not attended the councils because of distance; but for this one, who was present, the motive was pride, hateful to God." John Philoponus, a Miaphysite prelate writing after the Council of Constantinople (553).
How do you feel about the Old Catholic Church? ... not trying to provoke apoplexy, being sincere.
ReplyDeleteThey have changed the landscape but not the situation. They suffer from exactly the same mentality, ethos and general apathy of the Romans. You can't simply remove the pope and leave all his works intact. 800 years of schism, heresy and apostasy cannot be remedied under the sun of this world.
Delete800 years of schism... so you believe that things went awry with "The Great Schism" of the 11th century? If so, do you see the Eastern Church as preserving Christianity or has it also fallen?
ReplyDelete1054 is entirely meaningless. The real schism between East and West came about in 1204 under pope Innocent III who, while condemning the sack of Constantinople, authorised the establishment of the "Latin Patriarchate."
DeleteMight as well revert to good old fashioned English paganism. It became moribund a lot faster.
ReplyDeleteDid it? I do not know how long it lasted before the coming of Christianity, nor to I know how it might have changed in the 2000 years before Christianity came to the British isles. In any case, although many feel that they can revert to that, I think that there are many practical obstacles to knowing exactly what was believed and practiced by pre-Christian pagans in Britain.
DeleteConcerning reversion to Christian belief prior to the schisms referred to here, I think that there is more documentation... perhaps not entirely reliable. Of course, as you seem to be suggesting, it would be a personal "reversion" and not one likely followed by any institution.