Did Photius die in communion with the Holy See?

Originally posted 3/19/2011.

Hail Joseph the just, Wisdom is with you; blessed are you among all men and blessed is Jesus, the fruit of Mary, your faithful spouse. Holy Joseph, worthy foster-father of Jesus Christ, pray for us sinners and obtain divine Wisdom for us from God, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

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Previously I answered with a resounding yes, and I hope this is the case. Yet I can’t really be enthusiastic about Photius anymore, in light of the following observations of Fr. Venance Grumel, A.A. of happy memory in “New Light on the Photian Schism,” Unitas 5 (1953), 147-148.

Did Photius die in communion with the Holy See?
The most striking result of this recent research on the Photian question is the disappearance of the presumed second Photian schism. For many people this conclusion takes the concrete form: Photius died in communion with the Holy See. Is the conclusion justified? To respond we must avoid hasty conclusions, and distinguish between the position in the eyes of the law and the conduct or personal conscience of the deposed patriarch.

We cannot pass over in silence the fact that the Council of 869 was omitted from official lists of ecumenical councils, even in the West, until the second half of the eleventh century. Dvornik has established this with great erudition, and concludes that this silence is equivalent to the annulment of the Council. But we claim that it is more reasonable to suppose that since the Council concerned itself only with a personal issue and not with any question of dogma there was no great reason for emphasizing its importance at the time, and that also it seemed diplomatic in the West to remain silent after the Photian affair was settled in 899.

If it is a question of the position of Photius in the eyes of the law, all that we can say is that Photius died in communion with the Church of Byzantium. If this was in communion with Rome at the time, the former patriarch died in communion with Rome; if it was in schism, he died in schism. We are faced with two uncertainties here—the date of Photius’s death and the situation of the two Churches from the time of Formosus until the reunion council held under John IX in 899. We cannot give a reply to the main question until we can answer these two.

Post-Schism Orthodox Saints (Dictionnaire de Spiritualité)

Originally posted 2/21/2011.

The 1995 Tables Generales of the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité puts (SAINT) or (SAINTE) next to the name of men and women who are recognized as saints by the Catholic Church.

Column numbers are in parentheses.

Fr. Divry’s Explanation of the Tabor Light 2

Originally posted 2/16/2011.

The following is VERY roughly translated from pp. 503-505 of Fr. Édouard Divry, O.P., La Transfiguration selon l’Orient et l’Occident:
8. Is the hypostatic property, defined above, created or uncreated?
Applied to Christ, the question offers an inept alternative response. In fact, “created” and “uncreated” qualify the natures, human and divine respectively, of Christ. A created personal property, and thus driven by the human nature alone, pertains to the Person of Christ; it is therefore defined as hypostatic. A personal property, innate in the divinity of Christ, also belongs to His Person, and is therefore also hypostatic. By the theological axiom of the communication of idioms, the prime unity of the Person with His divine or human properties that exist in the unity of one ontological subject.¹⁵¹⁸ In other words, these concrete properties all depend on the same supposit, the Person of the Incarnate Word.

In the case of Christ’s illumination on Tabor, the Orthodox see in this light an uncreated energy, the Latins a light created by a miracle. However, the two sides, Latins and Greeks, could recognize in this light a certain hypostatic property of Christ.

Fr. Divry’s Explanation of the Tabor Light 1

Originally posted 2/1/2011.

VERY Roughly translated from the French in pp. 425-426 of Fr. Édouard Divry, O.P., La Transfiguration selon l’Orient et l’Occident:

Our solution adopted in order to explain the Light of Tabor
In his Seven Canonical Epistles, Nicholas of Gorran (†1295), in a text very close to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas but posterior to it, carefully posed to us the problem of the Light seen in the Transfiguration, considered in its twofold intelligibility: “I believe that this light was glorious by an analogical similitude, not univocally. Indeed, this was a light formed (formata) in the body by the divinity (a divinitate) that the Apostles apprehended by their external senses. Through this light that their eyes were seeing, they understood by their intellect (intellexerunt) the light of glory that they, however, did not see with their fleshly eyes.”¹³⁰⁹ We will continue to comment on these two levels perceived by Nicholas of Gorran: the visible light witnessed by the senses, and the light of glory that is invisible but grasped by the intellect.

False Ecumenism

Originally posted 12/8/2010.

One of the members of the ByzCath forums said to me concerning my response on veneration of post-schism Orthodox saints,

In spite of Dr. Ludwig Ott, I think you will find on this Forum precious little sympathy (and absolutely none from me personally) for the idea that the Orthodox are schismatics or that it is impossible for the Orthodox to achieve sainthood or that the Orthodox Church is a less certain path to salvation than is the Catholic Church.

Why become Catholic instead of Orthodox, then? Dogmatic differences simply do not matter in this nonsensical worldview! Let us, following the canon law of the Church, call a spade a spade. CIC 751 (1983): “Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith; … schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.” Orthodox Christians who consciously reject Catholic dogmas (papal primacy, Filioque, etc.) and shun communion with His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI of Rome are objectively guilty of formal heresy and formal schism and cannot be saved if they die in these dispositions. This is necessary to confess in light of Pope Eugene IV of Rome (1431-1447) on 2/4/1440, Bull “Cantate Domino” at 17th Ecumenical Council (of Florence) [D714].

Manuel Calecas: On Essence and Energies

Originally posted 1/11/2011.

A VERY rough translation from the Latin in PG 152:283-427, with the Latin paragraph separation. Finished sections will have a √ next to them. In short order I’ll try to translate at least the first sentence of each paragraph. I am almost illiterate in Latin (I haven’t taken any courses at Fordham but will try to teach myself Latin grammar when I have much more free time in summer 2011), so if you’d like to speed up this process and translate some for me, I would be extremely grateful!

I will let you know when I have posted the whole text (i.e., I will post the untranslated parts, too, so I don’t have to keep referring to the PDF file of PG 152:283-427). I’m putting all the Palamite quotes in red, since this is an anti-Palamite work in which the author attacks the Palamites for making what he believes is a real (as opposed to formal or virtual) distinction between God’s essence and energy. I’ll eventually put in PG references to writings Manuel quotes, and add glosses to certain parts of his work.

Palamas & Patristics 2

Originally posted 2/11/2011.

From Fr. Yves, Congar, O.P., I Believe in the Holy Spirit.

Congar III:64: It would, in my opinion, certainly be possible to dispute the meaning of the texts of the Cappadocian Fathers and John Damascene that have been quoted in favor of Palamas’ thesis.¹⁷ The ante-Nicene Fathers, and in particular Athanasius, always denied that there could have been any procession in God other than that of the Persons. According to them, apart from the hypostases, only creatures proceeded from God. …

¹⁷. G. Florovsky, “Grégoire Palamas et la patristique,” Istina, 8 (1961-1962), 115-125, especially 122 (only Basil of Caesarea, Ep. 234 ad Amphilochium, and John Damascene, De fide orthod., I, 14); G. Philips, op. cit. below (note 22), 254.

Did the Fathers postulate a kind of corona of divine energies which were active ad extra, which could be shared and which were ontologically and really distinct from the divine essence and the hypostases? E. von Ivanka, who is also a considerable expert, disputes this (see note 16 below). The problem has, in my opinion, not yet been fully cleared up, and I am in no position to decide.

Palamism & Patristics 1

Originally posted 2/8/2011.

Here is a translation of part Fr. Martin Jugie, A.A. (1878-1954), “Palamas, Grégoire,” in: M. Vacant et al., eds., Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, tome XI/2 (Paris 1932), cols. 1761-1763. Many thanks to Dr. Peter Gilbert of De Unione Ecclesiarum for sending me the French text. I added some references, e.g., to St. Thomas Aquinas.

N.B. This translation is finished, thanks be to God!

Did Palamas have a good game in the field of positive theology? Certainly not. But he could fight more easily there than in the field of philosophy, where he was beaten in advance. He could at first, as we said before, hide behind the anthropomorphisms of common language that the Fathers, just like everyone else, have employed, without always explicitly applying the correctives that they put in place. Also, he and his party composed Patristic florigelia full of vague and meaningless passages, which they pulled together by a sophistic and entirely subjective exegesis. These florigelia have no probative value for the system they are intended to support. We are astonished, when browsing through them, by the exegetical blindness of their authors and the aplomb with which they list a [large] number of texts that have nothing to do with their theories. Without doubt, certain Fathers spoke in a rather obscure manner about the Taboric Light. There are, for example, in the homilies of St. John Damascene and St. Andrew of Crete, in the writings of St. Maximus, and in others expressions which, at first glance, appear to favor the new theology in some way; but is only in appearance, and anti-Palamite theologians have had no trouble in dispelling these verbal ambiguities. They all could assemble a great number of passages in which the absolute simplicity of God is expressly taught and the Palamite distinctions are explicitly condemned. Note, for example, an extract from St. Nicephorus, given in the First Refutation of Constantine Copronymus, 41, P.G., t. C, col. 304-305, falsely attributed by both parties to St. Theodore Graptos, which recurs constantly in the polemical writings of the period and subjected to tortuous exegesis by Palamas and his followers; several passages from St. Maximus, Pseudo-Dionysius, and others, which Nicephorus Gregoras assembled in his discussion with Nilus Cabasilas, Hist. byzant., b. XXII-XXIV, P.G., t. CXLVIII, col. 1328-1433.

VI. Palamism and the Catholic West (col. 1809)

Originally posted 2/6/2011.

Many thanks to Dr. Peter Gilbert of De unione ecclesiarum for supplying the French text of Fr. Martin Jugie’s DTC article.

I have changed some of Fr. Jugie’s words to clarify the meaning (e.g., the sentence involving George Scholarius: turn the spotlight on –> make a laughingstock of).

Thanks be to God! This translation is done. Any revisions are most welcome.

VI. Palamism and the Catholic West (col. 1809)
During the acute phase of the Palamite controversy, that is to say, between the years 1341 and 1368, talks between the imperial court of Byzantium and the popes for a crusade against the Turks and the union of the Churches were virtually constant. Moreover, Latins were not lacking in the East, and some Greeks converted to Catholicism there also. It was therefore inevitable that the noise of the quarrel which divided the Byzantine Church into two rival factions did not reach the ears of Westerners and, in particular, that the papal legates had not one day or another to deal with it.

Palamite Studies

Originally posted 1/20/2011.

Update: Saturday, 1/22/2011: Right now I’m reading the Orthodox Dr. Joost van Rossum’s 1985 Fordham dissertation, Palamism and Church Tradition (I’m about halfway through) and I’ll let you know any groundbreaking points he makes.
Update: Sunday, 1/30/2011: Check out Dr. Peter Gilbert’s translation of Jean-Philippe Houdret, O.C.D., “Palamas et les Cappadociens,” Istina 19 (1974), pp. 260-271.

1. While St. Gregory Palamas’s views on Filioque were indisputably heretical,{1} his essence-energies distinction seems compatible with Catholic dogma on the simplicity of God, provided that it is not a real distinction.{2} Gerry Russo,{3} Dr. Joost van Rossum,{4} and Fr. Georges Florovsky,{5} and ex-Catholic Fr. Gabriel Bunge{6} say that Palamas posited a “real” distinction, in God Himself, between His essence and His energies. Such a distinction would contradict God’s absolute simplicity,{7} but some of St. Gregory’s statements support the theory that he taught a formal distinction.{8}