Logic, Rationalism, and Rome

It is quite clear to us why Western theologians with all their logical scrupulousness could not see the unity of the Church in any other way but through the outward unity of the episcopate... This also explains why they could assign an essential worthiness to the outward works of a man; why, when a soul was inwardly prepared but had an insufficiency of outward works, they could conceive of no other means of his salvation than a definite period of purgatory; why, finally, they could assign to certain men even an excess of worthy outward deeds and give this worthiness to those who had insufficient outward deeds.

- Ivan Kireyevsky, as quoted in Fr. Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works

Latinism and The Church

The truth of the Church was greatly distorted in the West after Rome had fallen away from the Church. In the West, God's kingdom began to be viewed more as an earthly kingdom. Latinism obscured the Christian concept of the Church in the consciousness of its members with its legalistic account of good deeds, its mercenary relationship to God and its falsification of salvation.

Latinism gave birth to a legitimate, although very insubordinate, offspring in the form of Protestantism. Protestantism was created from the soil of humanism which was not a religious phenomenon; on the contrary, all its leading ideas are purely earthly, human. It created respect for man in his natural condition. Protestantism, having carried over the basis of humanism into the religious field, was not a protest of genuine ancient Church Christian consciousness against those forms and norms which were created by medieval Papism, as Protestant theologians are often inclined to claim. Far from it; Protestantism was a protest on the very same plane. It did not re-establish ancient Christianity, it only replaced one distortion of Christianity with another, and the new falsehood was much worse than the first. Protestantism became the last word in Papism, and brought it to its logical conclusion.

- "Christianity or the Church?" by St. Ilarion (Troitsky), Holy New Martyr of Russia

Barlaam of Calabria on the Episcopate

Barlaam of Calabria, an important Byzantine theologian of the 14th century (who, incidentally, ended his life in the [Roman] Catholic Church), writes: 'Each Orthodox bishop is the vicar of Christ and the successor of the apostles, so that if all bishops of the world were to apostasize from the true faith and only one were to remain the keeper of the correct dogmas. the faith of the divine Peter would be saved in him.' He further writes: 'The bishops ordained by Peter are the successors not only of Peter, but also of the other Apostles; to the same degree bishops ordained by others are the successors of Peter.' 

The promise given to Peter, according to this viewpoint, extends not only to the Roman Church, but also to all local Churches headed bishops: 'you have made Peter into the teacher of only Rome', an anonymous author of a Byzantine anti-Latin treatise writes, 'while the divine Fathers interpret the promise given to him by the Saviour as having a catholic meaning and concerning all believers past and present. You attempt to give it a false and narrow interpretation, applying it only to Rome. It then becomes impossible to understand how not only the Roman Church, but all Churches have a Saviour and how their foundations rest on the Stone, i.e. on the confession of Peter, according to the promise.'

How does the catholicity of a local Church relate to the catholicity of the Church throughout the world? Protopresbyter John Meyendorff defines this relationship in the following manner: 'The idea of the local Church headed by the bishop, who is usually chosen by the entire Church but is invested with the charismatic and apostolic functions as the successor of Peter, is the doctrinal foundation of catholicity as it entered the Church from the third century. For the Eucharistic ecclesiology assumes that each local Church, although possessing the fullness of catholicity, is always in unity and concord with all the other Churches, which also have part in this catholicity. The bishops not only bear moral responsibility for this community: they participate in the one episcopal ministry. Each bishop fulfils his service together with other bishops, since it is equivalent with that of the others and since the Church is one.' As St. Cyprian of Carthage writes: 'The episcopate is one, and each of the bishops fully participates in it.'

- The Orthodox Understanding of Primacy and Catholicity, by Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria

What then is the purpose of councils?

 It is true that people intoxicated by false opinions participated in the Ecumenical Councils; some of them returned to the truth, others were stubborn in their errors and as a result were finally separated from the Church. But the point is that these people, in spite of their errors, did not deny the divine principle of ecumenicity in the most fundamental dogmas of the faith. They held, or at least declared the hope of defining in clear terms, the dogma confessed by the Church, and also hoped to be worthy of the grace of testifying to the faith of their brothers. Such was the aim of the councils, such was their significance, such was the concept implied in the usual introductory formula to all their decisions: "It has pleased the Holy Spirit...." These words do not express a haughty claim, but a humble hope, justified or repudiated later by the acceptance or nonacceptance of the decisions by the whole people of the Church or, as the Eastern patriarchs put it, by the whole Body of Christ. 

There were, from time to time, heretical councils. Why were these councils rejected, when outwardly they did not differ from the Ecumenical Councils? Solely because their decisions were not acknowledged as the voice of the Church by the whole people of the Church, by that people and within that world where, in questions of faith, there is no difference between a scholar and an untutored person, between cleric and layman, between man and woman, king and subject, slaveowner and slave, and where, if in God's judgment it is needed, a youth receives the gift of knowledge, a word of infinite wisdom is given to a child, and the heresy of a learned bishop is confuted by an illiterate cowherd, so that all might be joined in that free unity of living faith which is the manifestation of the Spirit of God. Such is the dogma lying beneath the idea of the council. 

Now then, why have a council if the Western world has been deemed worthy of such a clear revelation of divine truth that it has considered itself empowered to insert its revelation into the Symbol of Faith without waiting for confirmation from the East? What might a wretched Greek or Russian helot do at a council seated alongside these chosen vessels, these representatives of people who have anointed themselves with the chrism of infallibility? A council is impossible until the Western world returns to the idea of the council and condemns its own infringement of the council principle and all the consequences stemming from this infringement. Or, to put it another way, until it returns to the original Creed and submits its opinion, by which the Creed was impaired, to the judgment of the Ecumenical Faith.

- On the Western Confessions of Faith, by Alexei Khomiakov

Eastern Patriarchs on Infallibility

The Eastern patriarchs, having assembled in council with their bishops, solemnly pronounced in their reply to the Encyclical Letter of Pius IX that "infallibility resides solely in the ecumenicity of the Church bound together by mutual love, and that the unchangeableness of dogma as well as the purity of rite are entrusted to the care not of one hierarchy but of all the people of the Church, who are the Body of Christ." Encyclical dated May 6, 1848. This formal declaration of all the Eastern clergy, which was received by the territorial Russian Church with respectful and brotherly gratitude, has acquired the moral authority of an ecumenical sanction. 

- On the Western Confessions of Faith by Alexei Khomiakov

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski’s Confused Ecclesiology

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski recently shared his rationalizations for remaining a papist on the Roman Catholic blog OnePeterFive in a post titled “Why Remain Catholic, in Spite of Everything.”  His post was in response to a concerned reader who, out of a sincere concern for his spiritual welfare, asked Dr. Kwasniewski to explain how he could remain in communion with the official Roman Catholic church "if Vatican II was faulty and the popes from John XXIII on have all been Modernists in varying degrees, as you and others convincingly argue; if full-blooded true Catholicism is found elsewhere."

Dr. Kwasniewski’s entire post is steeped in Romanism and offers much to contend with from an Orthodox perspective. In the name of brevity and simplicity, we’ll focus solely on the main thrust of Dr. Kwasniewski’s article: that of discerning where the “true Catholic Church” exists, what it consists of, and how traditionalist Roman Catholics can be sure they are in communion with it.  Afterwards we will offer the much clearer Orthodox vision of what constitutes The Church.

Dr. Kwasniewski opens with quoting 2 Timothy 1:12, “Scio cui credidi…” “I know in whom I have believed,” and connects this profession of faith with placing the focus of his faith on the Church and its Holy Mysteries.  All good and well if one is Orthodox.  Being a papist though, he immediately begins to stumble.  In the second paragraph he declares fealty to a quote by Martin Mosebach: “The liturgy IS the Church—every Mass celebrated in the traditional spirit is immeasurably more important than every word of every pope. It is the red thread that must be drawn through the glory and misery of Church history; where it continues, phases of arbitrary papal rule will become footnotes of history.”

The liturgy is the Church?  In Orthodox ecclesiology, the Liturgy is a very important part of the Church and partaking of the Holy Eucharist is the height of the act of worship.  The universal Church is present at every Divine Liturgy, with the Church Militant and Church Triumphant being united in this most holy and reverential act of worship.  For the Orthodox though, the Liturgy is not literally The Church.

If meant literally, Dr. Kwasniewski’s ecclesiology would be shocking to any Orthodox Christian.

 What does he mean here?  Is he being hyperbolic, or waxing poetical, for effect? Is he merely engaging in an emotive or rhetorical argument to convince his reader that the liturgy is of utmost importance?  Whether he is being literal or not, the effect is the same upon the reader: confusion.  If being poetic or playing fast and loose with metaphysical terminology, the reader is still left with no clear answer to a serious question: where can one find the 'true Church' if not in the official, visible, Vatican II church?

If being literal, then is it true that the Roman liturgy itself is the Church?  Are believers and practitioners not 'The Church' when they are not participating in the Roman liturgy? Outside of the Roman liturgy, then, what are the people? What about all the other sacraments, are they not a part of the Roman church? Perhaps he is speaking metaphorically, as if the liturgy was the 'source of life' for the Roman church?  

No, Dr. Kwasniewski is not speaking metaphorically nor waxing philosophical or poetic.  The quote he uses is speaking literally, as proven by the statement, “every Mass celebrated in the traditional spirit is immeasurably more important than every word of every pope.”

  This is a clear and undeniable declaration of Authority.  It is a clear and straightforward declaration of an authority of the liturgy over and above that of any Pope, even a valid one.  Not only that, but of all the popes, “every word of every pope.”  

This does not fit with the Vatican I definition of Papal Infallibility.  Even if one subscribes to the extremely narrow interpretation of 'infallibility' only applying to ex-cathedra statements, then the above quote rejects any word uttered by any pope that might oppose 'the liturgy.'  This means that the authoritative power of the liturgy supersedes the teaching authority of the Papal Throne.  It rejects the ultramontanist views of the Papacy that stretch back to at least medieval times.  

And what of the liturgical reforms by popes?  They are numerous.  By changing the liturgy, were these men overstepping their bounds and actually changing the Roman church itself?  Does this mean all the liturgical changes or reforms made by popes are invalid?

This statement opens a can of worms if applied to the Papal system. He is rejecting centuries of official Roman theology and teaching, which state that the Pope is the source of all authority and teaching, not the liturgy.  

If this is not enough to create confusion, he adds the extremely subjective and abstract concept of “every Mass celebrated in the traditional spirit.”  What does “traditional spirit” mean? Who decides when someone is following this “traditional spirit” and how does one know if one is feeling, following, or worshipping in this “traditional spirit.”  Back to what time period or date should a traditionalist Catholic root or backdate this “traditional spirit”?  To the 16th century?  The 12th?  The 5th?

It is clear from many centuries of Roman doctrine that within the Papal system the Pope decides what is Tradition.  Dr. Kwasniewski seems to be inverting this and saying that the traditional Roman liturgy dictates to the Pope.

If popes must submit to the authority of the Roman liturgy, then why were popes attempting to suppress or review the Mozarabic Rite in Spain?  Why were liturgical changes made time and time again by popes throughout the centuries?  Why the fetish with imposing Vulgar Latin upon the nations when older, more traditional forms of the liturgy existed in the vernacular?

Dr. Kwasniewski continues to add confusion with, “As the foregoing already suggests, I am not one of those who assumes that the Church is to be equated with popes, bishops, and councils. They obviously play a role in articulating the content of the deposit of faith and condemning errors that threaten her members, but it is a supporting role, not the star of the show.”  



Now he is implying that the liturgy is not the Church but rather “the star of the show.”  He admits that the popes, bishops, and councils are not ‘the Church’ but that they also “play a role.”  But if the Roman liturgy is 'the Church', what need have you of popes, bishops, and councils?  If the entire Roman church is contained within the Roman liturgy, what need do you have for anything at all outside of the liturgy?

As to which liturgy constitutes the true Roman church, he continues, "The sacred liturgy is, for me, not just theoretically but quite practically the font and apex (fons et culmen) of my life as a Catholic—and by this, I mean the traditional liturgy, since I can no longer recognize in the Novus Ordo a legitimate liturgical rite of the Roman Church, even if it is sacramentally valid..."

Here Dr. Kwasniewski engages in some intellectual tap dancing, some fancy footwork that TradCats consider delightfully clever, when in actuality it is merely legalistic sophistry used to avoid a stark reality.  You will hear this 'legitimate but invalid' argument often, and it makes no sense at all except as a last-ditch attempt to protect their beloved Papism from the obvious modernism and universalism promulgated by the Papal Throne through the Second Vatican Council.  It is a last-ditch effort to hold on to Papism by using word games to deny that the Papal Throne has officially apostatized from the Christian Faith.

At this point the discerning mind will ask, “What clarity is Dr. Kwasniewski bringing to his reader?”  Clearly none. 

Dr. Kwasniewski is terribly confused as to what constitutes a visible, true church within the Roman system.  This stems not merely from the controversies of Vatican II, as the traditionalist would have it, but also from an incorrect Christology.  

Christology affects ecclesiology.  With the adoption of the Filioque, the rejection of the energy-essence distinction during the Barlaam-Palamas debates, and the adoption of Aquinas’s natural theology, the Roman Catholic church unwittingly adopted monadism, thereby rejecting Trinitarianism.  The consequences of doing so reverberated through its ecclesiology, resulting in Papism and its aberrations.

Dr. Kwasniewski’s problems and difficulty with discerning the 'true Church' within the papal system do not stem merely from Vatican II muddying the waters.  Rome’s problems are much deeper and go back much further in history.

In contrast to the confusion of Rome, Orthodox ecclesiology is clear.  We offer the explanation of the venerable and recently reposed primate of the Local Serbian Church—His Holiness Patriarch Irinej:

The Church isn’t just the bishops, it’s not just the priests. The Church is the people. It’s only in communion with the people that we make up the Church. The Church is one body, a spiritual body, the Body of the Church, and, for relations to be spiritual, sincere, intimate, parental, brotherly, we have to be this way before God. The people should know and sense that an atmosphere of spiritual harmony and spiritual relationships reign in the Church, so we would ask not “Who is greater?”, “Who is more important?”, but who can do more for the development of the Church with his own personal development in the spiritual life. The clergy and the people are our co-laborers. The priests are the most direct co-laborers with the people, and the people are the spiritual field where the seed—the word of God—is sown. There should be harmony in this.

In Holy Orthodoxy, the Church is the people.  The Church is the bishops, the priests, the laymen.  The Church is one body, a spiritual body, the Body of the Church.  The Church is the entirety of right-believing (‘ortho-doxy’), right-worshipping (‘ortho-doxy’), right-practicing (‘ortho-praxis’) people who co-labor all day and every day, in prayer, in their secular lives and duties, and in their acts of worship and participation in the Holy Mysteries.  All who strive earnestly within the Body of the Church to become Christ-like and achieve Salvation.

For further reading on Orthodox ecclesiology:

Khomiakov, The Church is One: https://pages.uoregon.edu/sshoemak/325/texts/Khomiakov/Khomiakov%20The%20Church%20is%20One.htm

Khomiakov, On the Western Confessions of Faith: http://archangelsbooks.com/articles/east_west/WesternConfessions_Khomiakov.asp

Alfeev, The Orthodox Understanding of Primacy and Catholicity: https://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles5/HilarionPrimacy.php?/articles5/HilarionPrimacy.shtml

St. Nektarios of Aegina, Sacred Tradition is the Church:
https://orthodoxethos.com/post/sacred-tradition-is-the-very-church

Mr. Dimitrios Tselengidis, The Function of the Unity of the Church and the Fallacious Theological Presuppositions of Papal Primacy:
https://orthodoxethos.com/post/the-function-of-the-unity-of-the-church-and-the-fallacious-theological-presuppositions-of-papal-primacy

Ann Barnhardt's Ignorance of Holy Orthodoxy

In her latest podcast, the self-proclaimed 'non-effeminate' Ann Barnhardt attempts to attack Holy Orthodoxy once again, flailing around from a position of exposed ignorance, firing wildly in all directions and throwing rhetorical hand grenades like a madwoman, knowing nothing of what she speaks, having no clue where her supposed enemy lies.  Ms. Barnhart is like a lone soldier of Papism, cut off from any supply lines or comrades, isolated and alone in an enemy wilderness, suffering a great many privations.  Spiritually emaciated yet brutally determined to survive, strung-out and hunkered down, she manages to defend her position through the sheer force of self-will and an uncompromising reliance upon her basic Roman Catholic training to carry her through period after period of exhaustion, hunger, and moments of panic.  It is all she has left to keep herself moving, living, breathing, and awake.  To keep the hope of Papism alive in herself.

Ann Barnhardt is convinced by the powerful feelings of her own self-willed anti-effeminacy, by her drill-instructor cadence and manner of speaking, by her self-proclaimed "innate" ability to "recognize objective truth," and, of course, by the Roman Catholic talking points she has never taken the time to question.  

Ms. Barnhardt, though admirable in her valiance, cannot see that her feverish anxieties and her isolation stem from the very same Rome, the very same Roman Curia, that she claims is only just now corrupt beyond all measure.  As if that very same Rome, only just now full of faggots and led by a diabolical pederast named Francis, was any different 100, 200, or even 500 years ago.  Was it so different from now?  And if so, in what ways?  She admits to the existence of horribly impious and even diabolical bishops of Rome, yet she refuses to consider that maybe that same Rome has been pumping out contradictory teachings, lies, disingenuous posturing, and deceptive propaganda for many centuries.  Maybe there have even been criminal groups in Rome and The Vatican for many centuries, jostling for power, covering up the crimes of pederasts, making deals with usurers, and all the same things happening today.  Historical evidence points to this being true beyond any doubt.  One can really only argue the scale of such crimes, and, like most other TradCats, Ms. Barnhardt has convinced herself that the scale of such crimes was virtually zero and most certainly zero in terms of their effect on official Roman doctrine and teaching.

Like her childishly black-and-white, Pure-Good-versus-Pure-Evil understanding of World War II, she honestly believes that the pre-Vatican II Roman sect was some sort of spotless, perfectly white-and-shining Bride of Christ.  She actually thinks that Rome is still this perfectly spotless Bride of Christ and she manages this neat little trick by mentally creating another entity she calls "The Church" that is virginal, untouched, and perfect, one wholly and magically unaffected by either this current Pope and his Lavender Mafia, or by any of the other diabolical popes and antipopes of centuries past. Such a feat can only be accomplished within the Roman papal system by gnosticizing that system.  This is done primarily by reducing the Roman Catholic sect, and thereby even the Papacy itself, to something called 'The Magisterium'.  Ask any Romanist where this 'Magisterium' lies, where it is codified, if it is even a tangible document or series of documents, who has the authority to add to it, edit it, or change it, how one even knows what is and is not included in it, and you will get an endless number of answers, none of which can square the circle of Papism and its historical and theological contradictions.

None of this will stop Ms. Barnhardt.  No siree. Remember, in case you have forgotten, she is not effeminate and she can see objective truth.  If only you stupid people would just get that through your heads.  If not, she will remind you again and again and again.

In Ann's latest epileptic fit of self-assuring condemnation of all things non-Papist, she veritably froths at the mouth while convulsing very many sophomoric and pedestrian Romanist talking points about Holy Orthodoxy.  The grand whopper of her latest shrill diatribe is her claim that anyone can understand that the Filioque is true in "about seven seconds."

Seven seconds.  In this one comment alone she disparages the majority of saints and Holy Fathers of the first one thousand years of the Church, as well as an entire phalanx of doctors and theologians from post-schism Rome.  Two thousand years, seven seconds.  Seven seconds, two thousand years.  Huh.  That is some pretty impressive, speedy, objective truth-seeing on her part.  Such are the gifts of a non-effeminate girl from the American Midwest.

GK Chesterton said the one thing he hated most was "mere light sophistry".  If brushing aside Holy Scripture and 2000 years worth of discourses of the highest quality and of the deepest, most advanced, most abstruse of Christian theology, if judging as wasteful, unnecessary, and imbecilic all the writings, thoughts, debates, and meditations of philosophers, theologians, monks, bishops, and saints upon this very topic is not the very height of "mere light sophistry," then it is only because it is so base as to not reach the level of sophistry.  It is such a crude comment that I'm not sure Chesterton's quote even applies.  Regardless, GK Chesterton has made his position clear.  Ann Barnhardt should listen and not make light of weighty things.

Besides insulting a great many saints and Church Fathers, Ms. Barnhardt stated, claimed, and asserted that:

• we Orthodox 'slaughtered' Josaphat Kuntsevych (who was later beatified by Rome and is known to Romanists as Saint Josephat)
• that Josaphat Kuntsevych was "totally sound, totally Catholic, totally Byzantine"
•  Orthodox Christians are "schismatics"
• the Orthodox Church allows for three marriages
• the Orthodox Church does not teach the necessity of Confession and teaches that sins are forgiven merely during the act of approaching the Holy Chalice to receive the Holy Eucharist.
• Confession is proclaimed to be optional and not necessary in the Orthodox Church
• the Orthodox Church accepts contraception
• we Orthodox reject the Holy Apostle Peter
• we Orthodox are "unsound about the Trinity itself" and that we say the "the Son and the Holy Ghost individually and separately proceed only from the Father" and that this is "obviously, obviously wrong if you just sit down and think about it for more than seven seconds."
• we Orthodox are "intransigent" in the Filioque controversy
• "of course the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, because the Holy Ghost is the manifestation of the intercourse of love between the Father and the Son, the First Person and the Second Person of the Triune Godhead."
• "to say that the Holy Ghost only proceeds from the Father makes no sense"
• "the Holy Ghost is, like, it's the image of marriage and, you know, human marriage is the image that we can all relate to best of the Trinity.  You have Person Number One, you have Person Number Two, they have an intercourse of love and, yes, I used the word 'intercourse' very, very consciously, um, intercourse of love yields a third.  Why in the world would you then say that the First Person of the Triune Godhead has another person proceeding forth from them without the intercourse of love? That's the entire point, that God is relational, that's why He's Triune.  He has to be relational. "
• "Easterners have been unsound on things for a long, long time"
• we have "Ceasaropapism" and that our churches are "attached" to the State and compares us to Anglicans as having kings and queens as the heads of our churches

We're not going to respond to curt dismissiveness with curt dismissiveness.  We would like to offer in-depth responses to Ann Barnhardt's claims and comments about Holy Orthodoxy, for those who wish to investigate these issues soberly and thoroughly. 

In the following installments we will speak to these claims briefly and offer links to articles and books which provide further explanation of how and why Ms. Barnhardt's statements are either false, misleading, or unfair.  They are all based on a woeful and cocksure ignorance.