Orthodoxy And The Roman Papacy

For any dialogue between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches to be fruitful, we must first understand our differences. Popes and Patriarchs covers some of the distinctives in theology and worldview that separate the churches of the East from those of the West, focusing primarily on the claims of papal supremacy. Author Michael Whelton, a convert from Catholicism to Orthodoxy, discusses some of the theological and historical issues that led him to explore the teachings of the Orthodox Church, including the doctrine of original sin, the influence of Medieval scholastic thought on the Western Church, and the modern trend toward evolutionary Christianity. Part II examines in depth the true attitude of the early Eastern saints of the Church toward the papacy, an attitude radically different from that frequently attributed to them by Roman Catholic apologists.A final chapter is devoted to typical questions Roman Catholics raise about the Orthodox Church, including a comprehensive discussion of divorce and remarriage.

The Papacy and the Orthodox examines the centuries-long debate over the primacy and authority of the Bishop of Rome, especially in relation to the Christian East, and offers a comprehensive history of the debate and its underlying theological issues. Siecienski masterfully brings together all of the biblical, patristic, and historical material necessary to understand this longstanding debate. This book is an invaluable resource as both Catholics and Orthodox continue to reexamine the sources and history of the debate.

Two different paths. In the West, for about a thousand years, the Roman Catholic church has claimed papal supremacy over the entire Christian world. In the East, since the first centuries, the Eastern Orthodox Church has remained faithful to the Church's original conciliar vision: local churches meeting together in council. How did these two paths develop? What were the cultural, historical, and theological issues that led to their development? What are the Roman Catholic claims about the Orthodox and vice versa? In Two Paths, Michael Whelton dives deeply into Roman Catholic sources to document the development of papal supremacy: 1) Saint Peter and the papacy 2) The ecumenical councils and the papacy 3) The Filioque 4) The Gregorian Revolution and its effects on Roman Catholicism 5) The influence of falsified documents such as the "Donation of Constantine" on the rise of the papacy- Papal infallibility 6) The Council of Constance, and the First Vatican Council 7) The Second Vatican Council. Whelton also uses ancient Christian sources to document the development of the Orthodox conciliar vision of the Church, from the first Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) through the Seventh Ecumenical Council. For layman and scholar alike, Whelton's work is the best and fullest work dealing with this topic from an Orthodox perspective in the English language.

Among the issues that continue to divide the Catholic Church from the Orthodox Church—the two largest Christian bodies in the world, together comprising well over a billion faithful—the question of the papacy is widely acknowledged to be the most significant stumbling block to their unification. For nearly forty years, commentators, theologians, and hierarchs, from popes and patriarchs to ordinary believers of both churches, have acknowledged the problems posed by the papacy. In Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity, Adam A. J. DeVille offers the first comprehensive examination of the papacy from an Orthodox perspective that also seeks to find a way beyond this impasse, toward full Orthodox-Catholic unity. He first surveys the major postwar Orthodox and Catholic theological perspectives on the Roman papacy and on patriarchates, enumerating Orthodox problems with the papacy and reviewing how Orthodox patriarchates function and are structured. In response to Pope John Paul II’s 1995 request for a dialogue on Christian unity, set forth in the encyclical letter Ut Unum Sint, DeVille proposes a new model for the exercise of papal primacy. DeVille suggests the establishment of a permanent ecumenical synod consisting of all the patriarchal heads of Churches under a papal presidency, and discusses how the pope qua pope would function in a reunited Church of both East and West, in full communion. His analysis, involving the most detailed plan for Orthodox-Catholic unity yet offered by an Orthodox theologian, could not be more timely.

This new edition of the bestselling Orthodoxy & Heterodoxy is fully revised and significantly expanded. Major new features include a full chapter on Pentecostalism and the Charismatic movements, an expanded epilogue, and a new appendix ("How and Why I Became an Orthodox Christian"). More detail and more religions and movements have been included, and the book is now addressed broadly to both Orthodox and non-Orthodox, making it even more sharable than before.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1871.