Catholic vs. Orthodox: Explaining the Difference - Explaining the Faith

thank you everybody for joining us here at the national shrine of divine mercy i'm father chris aylar one of the marion priests of the immaculate conception coming to you live with some brave souls actually several brave souls that made it with us in the snowstorm here in massachusetts so praise be to god drive safe wherever you are and we're grateful that you are with us as you saw on the topic slide today we are going to be talking a piggy back off of last week's talk about russia and the ukraine um that at the heart of this is the catholic and the orthodox church and what a lot of people don't understand is that the eastern catholic church and the orthodox church which is not catholic are similar but different and they split a thousand years ago so we're gonna talk a lot about this and um and it give you some understanding of what's always been confusing to 99 of catholics myself included so we're very grateful this was one of my favorite courses in seminary when we learned about the structure of the church and the three christian churches in the world protestants or should say religions the catholic the orthodox and of course the group of protestants which consist of many so we're going to talk about that today and god bless you for being with us because you know a lot of people wrote me and said father you're picking on the orthodox church from my talk last week no it's a beautiful church we're going to talk about it today and remember what i pointed out was some words of a particular patriarch it's the same with our catholic church we have a beautiful church but sometimes priests and bishops say things that are not accurate or even true and so that doesn't make the faith wrong so that's not what i went last week with the orthodox it's beautiful and let's talk about it today as we begin with a prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen heavenly father we ask that you bless us abundantly bring peace to the nations as we come to you our our gift of divine mercy you said mankind would not have peace until he turns with trust to your mercy we are today lord turning with trust to your mercy we ask blessings upon the russian and the ukrainian peoples especially for the conversions of those who are away from you and we ask all this through christ our lord amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen all right so this is very important and at the end it's today so we're going to do is walk you through what the orthodox church is then the eastern catholic church and then put together what it means today for what's going on in russia in the ukraine so important stuff now christianity is the largest religious group in the world people think it's islam now it's not christianity is the largest religious group in the world a third of the world's population is christian now amongst that is the catholic church number one by far the biggest the catholic church now there was only the catholic church for a thousand years after christ then from that splintered off the orthodox church okay we'll talk about that that was now the second group of christians and they were a partial splinter then in 1519 there was a full splinter and with the protestant reformation and all of those churches then fully separated so we have three groups of christianity we have the catholics the biggest we have the orthodox which partially splintered away from the catholic church and then protestants which are forty thousand denominations mixed bag added together don't equal the size of the catholic church but yet are christians so we have to understand how this comes together what i mean by christians is that they believe in jesus christ but there's a lot of differences that that we need to know for salvation and those are found fully in the catholic church so we have to look at this and say what does it mean father and what do i have to know and why is this important today okay now the latter of those two the protestants and the orthodox churches split in 1054 the orthodox split and in 1519 the protestants split all right now today though we are talking about the split with the orthodox church we'll do another talk on protestant in the reformation later but today we'll talk about the orthodox and what it means in russia and ukraine okay first of all we as catholics don't understand the orthodox church very well what is it about them what is similar what is different now they are not catholic they are christian but both us catholics and orthodox have valid holy orders so valid priesthood they have apostolic succession their priests just like our priests are traced back to the 12 apostles all right they have valid sacraments all right they have we have both valid sacraments and we have basically the same theology well if you're listening to this and of course the same faith in christ so if you're listening to this you're probably saying well then what the heck happened why was there a division and why is this division causing such world unrest right now especially in ukraine in russia all right to understand this i'm going to give you a little bit of a history lesson so before we get to the bigger picture and what it means today let's go back in a little bit in history now you might get yawning here and start yawning but this is so important try to hang with us for just a few minutes all right christianity became the official religion of the roman empire in 313 by constantine no i get these letters all the time constantine created the catholic church no he didn't the mass existed long before constantine was ever born okay christ established the catholic church through appointing peter as the head establishing the mass and the priesthood at the last supper um ordaining the first bishops we can go on and on constantine did not invent the catholic church what he did was made it legal and the official religion of the roman empire in 313. now here's what happened just a few years later in 395 this empire split so the roman empire that we knew for centuries all of a sudden in 395 splits into the east and the west we have the eastern uh roman empire which remained in rome which was always the head of it but then in the east constantinople modern-day istanbul in turkey became the headquarters of the eastern empire so western uh roman empire was headquartered in rome eastern roman empire was headquartered in constantinople there was a split now why is this important okay after this the western roman empire collapsed rome fell not even a hundred years later in 476 this is all documented now when the west fell guess what happened the east in constantinople continued they called it the byzantine empire you ever hear of the byzantine church the byzantine empire and it still remain headquartered in constantinople okay so you're getting the picture here now byzantine often referred to itself as the second rome so we had the first rome then we have the byzantine empire and constantinople they call themselves the second rome they said it's a revision of the first rome and guess who calls themselves the third room russia russia now this is very interesting because i took a lot of flack when i brought up medjugorje but remember medjugorje has not been condemned or approved fully yet partially it has been approved and in there mary said russia after spreading her ears will come back to god and will bring glory to god russia calls itself the third rome so hang with us because we're going to come back to that now the patriarch of constantinople the head of the eastern church now served under the eastern roman empire or emperor so picture this now you have the pope in rome in the western church now it splits now you got the eastern church you've got constantinople the byzantine empire and the head of that empire is the emperor of the eastern empire or the eastern roman empire now here's the thing here's where trouble started in the east that emperor wielded tremendous power over the church that emperor didn't leave the church alone that emperor controlled the church dictated appointments and ordinations this is what putin is doing today people don't understand what's happening is putin is supporting the orthodox church to return to this former glory he stated this please don't crucify me i'm just repeating his own words to bring back the glory of russia and in that glory of russia and that glory of the tsar and we'll get to all this was overseeing the orthodox church now that doesn't make the orthodox church bad okay please don't don't take that the wrong way all right some emperors of the east now all right claim to be equal in authority to the twelve apostles check this out and they claim to have the power to appoint the head of the church in constantinople so the equivalent of the pope in rome was called the patriarch of constantinople so the two are are are happening in christianity at this time you got the pope overseeing the western church now at the east you have in constantinople the patriarch of constantinople what they saw as equivalent now this church in the east is being overseen by the emperor not by the church like the pope is the ultimate authority in the west not in the east the emperor was this is the problem when we want to see how beautiful this is we have to realize the state should not be running the church this is the whole issue right now what's going on in russia the state wants to run the church and even their patriarch of russia khalil kharil has stated this is such now let's keep going all right these emperors claim to have equal authority and put themselves as head of the church kind of like what's happening in china today funny it's happening in both russia and china now these two offices meaning the patriarch and the emperor they were autonomous they were different but yet the patriarch served under the emperor that is not what god intended that is not what god intended and it's not what the orthodox church intended so i'm not criticizing the orthodox church i'm not condemning it i'm not faulting it i'm not saying it's bad i'm just saying what they were forced to do and serve under the emperor was not what was intended for the church the patriarch was supposed to rule autonomously okay now many patriarchs though of constantinople they were good they were good bishops they ruled well and they resisted this meddling of the emperor the patriarch of constantinople often attempted to bolster his position to stand up to the emperor and sometimes this is scary this is why we're saying that the state shouldn't run the church you know this whole separation of church and state that everybody points to in the constitution of the united states which first of all doesn't appear in the constitution and they say that protects the state from the church you can't mention jesus actually the separation of the church and state is not to protect the state from the church that you can't mention jesus separation of church and state is to protect the church from the state so that you don't have the emperor the president running the church that is what's supposed to be set up now here's the thing this patriarch would sometimes bolster himself in leveraging trying to deal with the emperor and a lot of times that caused conflict with rome because he tried to put himself over and above everything just to fight off the emperor and then it was conflicting with the pope all right so over years of conflict between the east and the west the pope in the west our pope remained firm defending catholic faith against heresies and secular powers especially from the byzantine emperor the emperor of the eastern roman empire now this first conflict came when emperor constantius appointed a heretic as the patriarch all right pope julian in the rome excommunicated that patriarch in 343 and constantinople was in schism until guess what john chrysostom you've heard his name some say chris's thumb john chrysostom came and assumed the patriarch of constantinople in 398 now okay all that history the year you hear is probably 10 54. that's the year that the church is split now let's look at our next slide and i'm sorry i missed our picture of constantine if brother mark can put it up there's our picture of constantine maybe he already got it but there's a picture constantine who lived from 280 to 337. now let's go to our next slide 1054. all right let's look at this in 1054 is when the problem started do you notice on this slide if mark brother mark can keep it on the screen if you can see italy look at the little boot right remember all italy the boot notice that the catholic church is to your left the west and the orthodox church is to the right the east but you see that little section of the bottom boot of italy you see how it's cut off there and it has an orthodox shading to color that is where it all began so those of you from italy you probably know this now here's what happened catholic normans kind of uh kind of barberish took over the byzantine colonies in southern italy and guess what they made the people there eat okay here's the thing they made them used unleavened bread for the eucharist now if you don't know this we in the west we catholics use unleavened bread 11 demeans flattened that's why you receive the host it's flattened in honor of the jews unleavened bread in the bible old testament in the east they use leavened bread all right thicker bread it's it's not flat this is all it was but this is very important to men of the church following the tradition all right now what happens was in southern italy here come the catholic normans they invade and they force the orthodox to use unleavened bread now some of you today might say gee that's a reason to cause schism well listen to what happened all right the basically the um the the um the orthodox got mad so in response and by the way here's the next slide there's leaven bread and there's unleavened bread leavened bread is thicker like the bread we eat unleavened bread is flat again based on the tradition of the jews when they fled egypt they didn't have time to finish the bread they took the bread with them it was unleavened that's how we get the tradition that's passover at passover you eat unleavened bread now in response to the catholics making them use unleavened bread the of constantinople in the east ordered all the western right churches in his area to use leaven bread so it was tit for tat and so basically the latins refused so the patriarch closed their churches and sent a hostile letter to rome and to the pope and in an attempt the pope sent a delegation the delegation went to constantinople there was this is all in 1054. i'll summarize it with this they didn't work they fought the um the cardinal from the catholic church put a declaration of excommunication on the altar and the altar of the church in fact that's our next slide you ever heard of hajjiya sophia the greatest church in christendom at the time there it is that was the church this all happened and so basically the pope and the patriarch of constantinople excommunicated each other they kicked each other out of the church well so history says but it actually was not exactly that way okay the patriarch did retaliate the catholic delegate they were both hot-headed and 1054 was deemed the year that the split happened but it really wasn't it was not officially a schism yet because they still got along people were excommunicated not eat the children there's church just because if somebody excommunicates you from in in your one right and they excommunicate you you're excommunicated as a person you're not excommunicated as a church so there was no way that the whole church was excommunicated just a few people and so there was no single event that marked the schism it just happened a little by little over the years now here's the point the official final break with rome didn't come to the 1450s now there's attempts ever since then to reconcile there's been friendly relations now the two parts of christendom that were not conscious of the separation of each other made it kind of difficult to say there was a schism back in 1054. it really as i said developed now what didn't help i'll just throw a quick slide on this one is the fourth crusade if you haven't seen my talk online the fourth crusade is one of the blackest eyes in catholic and orthodox history because we killed each other stupid i have a talk on the crusades if you want to know what happened basically christians ransacked their own their own city of constantinople but there was reasons behind it not getting payments lies it was a mess but anyway that didn't help so now what's going on all right so what's going on is the byzantine empire collapsed so remember how i said the west collapsed and then the byzantine empire kind of hung on now a thousand years later the eastern byzantine empire collapsed 1450 guess what happened the muslims took over the turks the turks took over constantinople now the turks controlling constantinople then the rest of the empire crumbled now these muslims pressured the churches in the area to sever their union with rome so what's really interesting most of the schism nobody says this and i know i'm being politically incorrect and i know i'll get letters but the fact of the truth of history was it was a lot because of islam and islam forced those churches because now they controlled to split to go away from the catholic church now what happened all right there were more that than that though not just that here's what else happened two other events reduce the patriarch of constantinople remember the head of the church in the east to basically a figurehead kind of like the queen and king of england they were powerful at one time now a figurehead so islam let's go back to this gave military protection to the eastern orthodox church this is who we're talking about now but at a very high price the sultan the muslim sultan would sell the office of the patriarch so you know all this talk we hear about the catholic church selling indulgences which by the way was only i think one maybe two priests in history and it was not teaching of the church was way less in comparison to the sultan the muslim sultan selling the office of the patriarch in the east do you know that he would change the occupants of the patriarch often and regularly for money the highest bidder so as soon as somebody came up with more money they got to be patriarch is this what we want in our church no is this the fault of the orthodox am i saying that they're a bad faith because of this no they were victims now from 1453 to 1923 the muslim turks removed 105 of the 159 patriarchs that is meddling all right now another blow that weakened the patriarchs came from russia and now we can tie some of this together ivan the terrible you've heard of him ivan the terrible his grandfather ivan the great became the first czar you ever hear a czar in russian spelling it's t-s-a-r you know it's in english c-z-a-r and you know what it stands for caesar the word czar is a russian for caesar so this new czar took up complete control like the new caesar the new rome whoa this is what's happening now moscow moscow called themselves the third rome and the caesar tried to become the protector of the chris the eastern orthodox does this sound familiar does this not sound all the letters that i'm getting how beautiful what putin's doing for christianity okay yes i'm not saying it's bad of course it's wonderful to to squash these immoralities of the west abortion and transgenderism and and redefining marriage i couldn't agree more i could not agree more those are problematic and those are the topic of another talk so please when you say father chris what about these things i will get to them i can't today but we will the point is look what's happening putin stated i want to return to this glory he said the biggest tragedy of the 20th century was the fall of the soviet union we need to return to the glory of the russian motherland well this is what it was ivan the great becoming the tsar and becoming the protector of eastern christianity the problem with that is then eastern christianity becomes a puppet not because it's their fault their teaching is true their sacraments are true their priesthood is true the communion is true their belief in jesus is true [Music] but we need to keep them independent the problem is right now it's not happening now i listen to your emails i read every one of your comments and many of you have caused me to change my opinion on something so many you wrote to me about the true intent of russia and what russia is doing and bringing in christianity that i looked and looked and studied and researched this i mean i've done countless hours on this talk to theologians and yes i do believe that mary's words at fatima were true that russia was going to spread her heirs we've seen it they've done it but i also know that mary at medjugorje has said that russia will then ultimately give glory to god could we be in that process if we will get to that we need to do our first saturdays we need to pray we need to do penance we need to stop the errors so that russia can bring glory to god we're not there yet well father we're trying okay that doesn't mean we kill innocent civilians what it means is we pray and we do penance and we pray for the conversion of russia we do our five first saturdays all right now so what's going on moscow becomes the third rome and this new czar becomes the leader of the orthodox now with the collapse of the patriarch in constantinople the eastern church then fragmented what a mess so russia claimed independence from the patriarch of constantinople russia split off so now not only do you have constantinople splitting off from rome now you have russia splitting off from constantinople when did this happen 1589 they were the first country to split from the patriarch of constantinople now then others followed now over a dozen independent orthodox churches exist you may have heard them the greek orthodox the serbian orthodox the russian orthodox they're good people i am not condemning this religion or their teaching not at all please let me emphasize this i got so many letters saying i do i don't it's beautiful but what we're trying to do is bring us under union of where jesus wanted us to be peter the chair that's what's being segmented now this gets really interesting now there are orthodox churches in communion with each other and not in communion with each other russia she's in communion with some and she's not in communion with other orthodox churches all right so i'm going to tell you a quick story about what's also happening in russia did you know this do you know what's at the heart of all of this all right we're going to get right to it and please this is just fact this is not my opinion a few years ago the current patriarch of constantinople yes he's still there even though it's been weakened his name is bartholomew patriarch bartholomew he approved a plan in 2018. we're just talking a few years ago he approved a plan to create a single self-governing church in the ukraine all right led by its own patriarch his purpose to unify the 30 million orthodox in the ukraine orthodox and ukraine outnumber the eastern greek catholic church that's different we'll talk about that in a minute somebody wrote to me and they're confusing the eastern catholic greek or uh sorry eastern catholic church what we call the eastern ukrainian greek catholic church versus the orthodox ukrainian church okay so let me try to explain this again right now a small percentage in ukraine are catholic they are called the ukrainian greek catholic church they are part of rome then you have a much larger group ukrainian orthodox these are the ones the bartholomew in 2018 the patriarch of constantinople tried to say i give you independence gather together you 30 million orthodox and come together the problem was the russian orthodox patriarch of moscow was furious and cut ties claiming that bartholomew as the patriarch of constantinople recognizing an independent orthodox church in the ukraine not catholic independent orthodox departed from his authority he was not allowed to do this russia took it as a slap in the face all right so the announcement removed the right of the russian patriarch of moscow to ordain the metropolitan of kiev this is all behind the scenes that people don't know about so with this move the russian patriarch which is now a guy by the name of kirill who is now the patriarch of moscow does not have the authority now based on the movement of bartholomew and his announcement this russian patriarch no longer has the authority to ordain the metropolitan of kiev metropolitan is another head like a patriot excuse me like a patriarch now this was a move as i said that russia saw as a slap in the face they saw it as infringement on their authority enter putin putin accused the ukrainian government of being behind this he accused him of trying to destroy the russian-affiliated church so all of you are writing to me saying putin is trying to stand for christianity yes the christian church but which church the church of god or the church of putin now this doesn't mean that russia is bad this doesn't mean that russia can't give glory to god this doesn't mean that we can't pray and fast and and and do what they did in the vestula for poland and change this course and so that there will be a conversion of russia and russia will bring glory to god father chris how dare you condemn russia i'm not condemning russia i personally believe they will bring glory to god i believe the words of our lady at medjugorje i believe when she said russia will bring glory to god it's just not yet yes i think the seeds are in place now here's what's funny i'm getting tons of letter from people who are screaming at me that russia's not consecrated but then in the same letter they're telling me that russia is standing up for christian values don't you see that that might be the seed of consecration do you think that there is yes there's a million problems in russia right now but if you think the seeds are there they're against abortion they're against redefining marriage doesn't that tell you that the seeds may have been starting to grow from a consecration we don't know but the question is worth asking fascinating actually and so the people who who who sent me these these these letters saying father how dare you attack russia russia this and and they're standing for christianity but at the same time they're telling me russia's not consecrated you couldn't have this if there wasn't some form of consecration russia was vehemently against christianity under communism russia was vehemently against it now some of that communism ideology still exists putin is former kgb the patriarch of moscow uh karil many people claim his former kgb i don't know for sure so the communist ideologies are dying hard that's the errors we talked about last week and i stand by that but i also thinks to you the listener and all the letters you poured into me got me thinking got me researching got me studying got me talking to theologians and i'm like whoa i'm starting to see a bigger picture here these could be the fruits of the consecration father russia is against abortion russia is against redefining marriage yeah but that could be the seeds as i said of consecration so we have hope that russia will end up giving glory to god but right now we have to stop the killing that's why we're here all right amazing stuff amazing stuff okay now i even forgot where i'm at now all right so all right this announcement let's go back to bartholomew i infuriated the russians all right now the infringement on the authority putin stepped in and said you're trying to destroy the russian church let's go to our next slide here is a picture of putin with the patriarch of moscow karel there they are together all right and karil continues to support the invasion of ukraine this is what i was saying last week is wrong no matter what is being done in the ukraine or mistakes they've made or how bad they were themselves we don't stand by and watch innocent civilians get killed that is the message now that's what the church says that's what pope francis is saying now both the ukrainian church catholic ukrainian catholic church and ukrainian orthodox church condemn i'm sorry yes the ukrainian orthodox church that spun from russia and the ukrainian catholic church both condemn the invasion that's why putin and kirill kharil wanted to become back to the under the control of the russian orthodox it makes perfect sense but nobody knows this because the media of course isn't going to talk about it most of our priests don't know about it i didn't i admitted it took a hundred hours of research in communications and studying and talking with theologians to try to piece this together that's what i'm sharing with you now all right so let's go back to some of the problems that cause the split now all right a big one i can't not mention is the filioque way anybody know what the filioque way means that's the theology problem a major theological disagreement is the word filioque way that is latin for meaning and the son what am i talking about all right the nicene creed did not used to say the holy spirit proceeded from the father and the son it used to just say from the father the spanish catholic bishops at the end of the sixth century added and the son with this addition the creed says that the spirit the holy spirit proceeds not just from the father but the father and the son let's look at our next slide you want to see the whole problem between the catholic and the orthodox church the entire problem theologically one little thing that diagram if you have your phone with you you can see this one little diagram explains the entire problem in theology between the east and the west that one little diagram what it's saying for the orthodox is that both the son and the holy spirit come from the father separately so you have the father and from him comes the son and from him comes the holy spirit that is the orthodox view the catholic view from augustine is that the father and the son the love between them is so great that from it like a parent the husband and the wife the love between them is so great from it comes a child the catholic church teaches that from the father and the son that love is so great that it's the holy spirit the holy spirit is the love between the father and the son so if you look at the catholic diagram if brother mark can keep it up there the holy spirit comes from both the father and the son that's why at mass every week we say who proceeds from the father and the son and with the father and the son is adored and glorified he has spoken through the prophets that one little phrase and the son threw this whole relationship into a theological nightmare and what many claim caused the schism all right now here's the thing the orthodox say that the spirit proceeds only from the father like the son does the catholics pointed to scripture and said it's no it it comes from both and i got a ton of scripture quotes that can prove that you can email me if you want them the scripture basically points that it comes from the father and the son now that's how the church fathers taught it all right now the eastern orthodox often refer to the holy spirit referring to the father through the son now wait a minute here if the holy spirit proceeds from the father through the son the orthodox are okay with that here's the point that's very similar and it is equivalent to our catholics the father and the son and do you know that the catholic church even put this in the catechism catechism 20 excuse me 248 says this is not different theology we're just using different words can you imagine this entire split over different words but not different meanings this is why we believe there will be a reunification of the east and the west and when that happens look out that's going to be amazing now today there is every hope that the closeness of these two sayings will be recognized and mended now they claim but wait a minute you should never have changed the creed they were upset that the spanish bishops added that word to the creed but you know what a creed is a creed is your your profession of faith have you ever heard that we will now in the mass do the profession of faith that means the creed that means what you believe it is meant to fight heresy so therefore it has to be amended and added to or taken away as heresy comes and goes so there's nothing wrong with that it should be though however they claimed done with their input that was the mistake of the west they did it without the input of the east that's what upset them all right finally ecumenical councils what is an ecumenical council that's like vatican ii vatican one the council of trent all right now here's the thing this is a bigger reason for disagreement both sides agree that ecumenical councils are needed to define the teachings of the church but here's the point the eastern orthodox only believe in the first seven first seven ecumenical councils way back in the fourth and fifth sixth centuries the three councils of constantinople the two councils on nicaea the councils of chalcedon and the council of ephesus those seven that's it anything after that including vatican ii they reject people might be saying well gee father i should become orthodox because i reject vatican ii as well well there's a problem with that because now you don't have that counsel to define church teaching everybody splinters on their own then you become like the protestants this is important catholics recognize these same first seven ecumenical councils but not as only seven the the point is we believe all the way up to vatican ii because these now there are some issues yes and i'll get into that in another talk all right but they say there was no council since 787 and no teaching after the second nicean council all right this is important though because we need to be able to define doctrine and if we lose that we're in trouble and so we have to look at this i'm not saying necessarily vatican ii didn't have flaws i'm just saying that you can't abandon the concept of the economical council and that doesn't mean uh ecumenical council means that we take the input from all these other religions and change our teaching it means that it's universal for all the catholic to define catholic teaching now the other big problem the pope the pope which i'm also going to do a whole talk on all right the orthodox claim that the pope does not have ultimate authority this is part of the schism they say he has a primacy of honor not a primacy of authority all right here's the thing though that idea of primacy of honor without authority is not biblical it's not biblical how do we know this when jesus spoke to peter every time about his relation to other apostles he emphasized peter's special mission not simply a place of honor but a place of authority how do we know this let's look at our next slide all right and uh by the way i apologize i missed a slide on the vatican too brother mark can show it that's the vatican ii look at all those bishops those are that's an ecumenical council right there that's an ecumenical council that is what it comes together to bring you church teaching whether they didn't make mistakes or not they are protected in official teaching of faith and morals now let's go to our next slide what's jesus doing there this is biblical jesus is giving the keys of the kingdom to peter in matthew 16 19 jesus gives peter the keys to the kingdom and the power to bind and loose well father he also gave the other apostles the power to bind and loose yes he did but he never gave the keys to the other apostles never did so in luke 22 28 jesus tells the apostles that they will all have authority yes but he singles out peter with a special authority over the other apostles to strengthen their faith luke 22 31 it is only to peter that jesus says feed my lambs all right feed my lambs giving him the roll of shepherd he did not tell any other apostle to feed the lambs that's the shepherd's job and there's one shepherd the absence of a pope from eastern orthodoxy clearly causes problems from a lack of leadership with no pope to call such things as ecumenical councils the orthodox haven't had one in centuries and this is paralysis not criticizing them i'm not criticizing their teaching just saying that we still have to have teaching develop based on current events a functioning teaching authority capable of setting settling heresies and new controversies is needed this is why jesus made peter the rock in matthew 16 18 the direct leader of the church okay you got enough of the history all right so now we're going to explain how these churches work together this is the fun part all right let's look at the orthodox first of all what does orthodox mean that means right believing i'm an orthodox catholic i follow the church teaching what the church teaches i believe it's not a blind obedience it's because i trust and surrender that god knows better than i do the word orthodox means you're right believing now there are many catholics who are not orthodox catholic priests and bishops they're teaching abortion is okay redefining marriage is okay that's not orthodox but we're talking about orthodox faith now catholic and then the orthodox churches different same word but capital o versus little o little o is the adjective i'm little o organ orthodox and then the big o capital orthodox is the churches now the mainly have been used in greek speaking world let's look at our next slide that's why you see icons with greek on it these are the eastern churches you know with the perfectly round heads i did another talk on icons a couple weeks ago that's why you see the greek on them they mainly were used in the greek speaking world but here's the point everybody with 300 million orthodox christians in the world and how many catholics are there there's over a billion there's over a billion catholics in the world but the orthodox are good there's 300 million of them and they're mainly in the balkans the balkans the balkans i should say middle east and the former soviet union in those countries see the connection the former soviet union now let's go to our next slide because the eastern orthodox churches now not the catholic all right are constantinople alexandria antioch you heard those in the bible jerusalem georgia cyprus bulgaria serbia the serbian orthodox russia the russian orthodox greece the greek orthodox poland romania albania and the czech republic in slovakia all right now these churches in modern times tensions have been lessened and we're overcoming a lot of the difficulties in fact did you know in 1965 paul vi this is fascinating that nobody knows paul vi and the patriarch of constantinople lifted the mutual excommunications that's a great start let's take a look at our next slide yes we must continue to dialogue there's pope benedict with the patriarch of constantinople we must dialogue it doesn't mean we concede it doesn't mean we change our teaching to make other people happy but we start with knowing each other all right so what are some of the similarities and differences all right this to me is the fun part um some of the similarities and difference all right many say that the orthodox don't believe in purgatory indulgences papal infallibility the immaculate conception or the assumption this is partially true it's just they define it in a little different way yes they don't use the term purgatory father i didn't know that i thought the orthodox believed in purgatory they don't use the word all right most of these are semantic differences and that's it all right purgatory for example the orthodox don't traditionally use the word purgatory for purification but it's like the word trinity trinity's not in the bible but the concept is and so the word purgatory is not used by the orthodox but they believe in purification after death they believe that purification happens they pray for souls of the faithful departed which makes sense only if they believe those prayers can help them so they got to believe in some form of purgatory even if they don't use the word so if you're anti-catholic don't point to the orthodox and say see they reject purgatory they don't they reject the word not the concept no matter what word we use the reality is the same we need to pray for the dead this is second maccabees all right another difference we have the pope centralized authority they have no centralized authority the problem with that now you become like the protestants everybody has their own version you need a centralized authority that's why jesus put the pope on front this is a difference all right patriarchs and metropolitans their version of the church leaders they're really mostly administration they're really mostly administration now that's not my words this comes right from my seminary training now one of the good things about the orthodox they have much more discipline than we catholics in the west they fast what equates to believe this or not almost a third of the days of the entire year that's phenomenal they fast for what equates to almost a third of the total calendar days in a year that's unbelievable i've never seen an overweight orthodox now sometimes there could be gland problems and stuff like that please don't send me the letters on that please i don't mean anything negative it's just that they do have an amazing discipline to fast and to sacrifice that's a big difference here's another difference let's look at our next slide do you know that the sanctuary is actually separated from the nave what's the name father you people out here are sitting in the nave the nave is the main part of the church this is the sanctuary now the orthodox between the nave and the sanctuary have a big wall look at your slide it's called this is the uh word akonostasis econostasis and this is a screen with a bunch of icons all right the econostasis is a screen with a bunch of icons separating the sanctuary of eastern churches from the nave that's a difference it's so sacred to them we in the sanctuary now don't hold that stat in the west we don't hold that sacredness i mean we walk into churches sometime and you almost feel like there's people playing cards up in the sanctuary so a difference another difference children we in the catholic church wait till age seven for the age of reason before they receive the sacraments in the east in the orthodox it's right when they're babies they get the sacraments they get communion confirmation baptism altogether as a baby so there's a difference there what about the sign of the cross did you know this make the sign of the cross in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit we went from the forehead to the chest left shoulder right shoulder they go from the forehead to the chest from the right shoulder to the left shoulder small but interesting differences we sit and kneel at our worship the orthodox stand and prostrate if we complain about kneeling go to an orthodox faith church they prostrate well i can't get my clothes dirty father they don't care that is reverence very very reverent all right more differences catholics we use relics way more than they do we have way more relics than they do they don't they don't they don't have the same emphasis but we have way fewer beards [Laughter] than they do just just a little little levity there all right orthodox they have two kinds of clergy white and black not ethnic but white are married and black are monastic not married wait a minute father their priest can marry yes if they get married first once you're ordained in the orthodox church you can't get married after you can only get be married if you're married first then you can be ordained that's why some friends of mine that were in philadelphia at the eastern orthodox seminary they took the fourth year theology off to go find a wife [Laughter] it's kind of an unwritten i don't know smiling kind of tradition that's that's your year to find the wife if you don't then you're done because once you're ordained you're then celibate but they'll use some of them not all of them not all of them but some of them will use that time to go try to find a wife and then be ordained all right so you have the white clergy which are married and the black which are monastic catholics we don't we're all celibate and trust me i totally see the wisdom of that nobody wanted to be married more than me and i said you know what's gonna figure and the church can change us you know in the west the pope can declare priests can marry he can't declare women can be ordained because christ was a man and the person in persona christi as the priest he can't change that but the pope can a matter of discipline not dogma and doctrine but a matter of discipline could change it the church could say tomorrow priests could marry i kept stalling my vocation hoping that the church would declare priests could marry and i was going to get married and then become a priest now that i've been a priest for eight years there is no doubt in my mind god and the church know what she's doing that is very important all right so anyway ours do not marry now is everything the same in our bibles as the orthodox bible the same from the catholic bible very similar everything in our catholic bible is in the orthodox bible but they add a few things you know how we have okay this is interesting the protestants have no book of maccabees martin luther removed it and the book of maccabees was in the original scripture protestants remove it so the one group of christianity the protestants have no book of maccabees we as catholics have first and second maccabees in our bible and the orthodox have first second third and fourth maccabees so a little different in scripture they also have a psalm 151 we have 150 psalms they also have the prayer of manasseh in chronicles and first esdras in the book of the bible but our new testament is all the same all right now in the east we are different from the west and what we call our worship what do we call sunday worship the mass in the east they don't call it the mass they call it the divine liturgy now here's what's interesting as a catholic can you go to it does the eastern orthodox church allow you to go to their worship service yes but they prefer you not receive holy communion they don't now we in the west are much more open if orthodox wants to fulfill their obligation and come to our mass and receive the sacrament yes they can but they prefer us not to receive their holy communion all right although yes it's true an individual clergy member of the orthodox church may permit you to let's suppose you are traveling let's suppose and and you can't find a catholic church you're in uh england or you're in the middle east you're in the soviet union you're in russia and it's sunday and you want to get to catholic church but there isn't anyone for a hundred miles and you got a plane to catch but there's an orthodox church if you have no other options our catholic faith teaches us that going there does fulfill your sunday obligation even if you don't receive holy communion now if you're in downtown detroit where they have some of the most beautiful catholic churches in the world like sweetest heart of mary and saying albertus was there and then they have an orthodox church i can't just say hey you know what let's go to the orthodox church today even though you have easy access to the catholic that does not count for your sunday obligation now what's another reason they don't want you to receive communion this one's very interesting do you know that married orthodox priests and laity who serve at the altar follow the canons very strictly and they abstain from sexual relations marital relations before holy communion so another reason they don't want us receiving holy communion is that's completely foreign to us in the west married couples are allowed to engage in the marital act right before so you are probably not observing their discipline of abstaining from marital relations before receiving holy communion it's another reason they don't want us to receive so there are a lot of similarities and differences let's take a look at a couple i saw this slide that summarizes them all right so brother mark can put up the differences what are some of the differences all right in the roman catholic church we speak latin in the orthodox church they speak greek in the roman catholic church the pope is in charge in the orthodox church it's the patriarch or the bishops archbishops as we explain in the roman catholic church the pope claims authority over kings and emperors and this is the big one in the orthodox church emperors and presidents claim authority over the patriarch let me repeat that one in the west in the roman catholic church the pope has authority over kings and emperors and presidents nobody's above the moral law in the orthodox church the emperors claim authority and presidents over the patriarch that was the issue i brought up last week in the talk finally the priest cannot marry but in the orthodox church the priest can marry now let's go to our next slide because there are some similarities there's not just differences what are the similarities the big ones we believe in jesus we read the bible we go and use the sacraments especially baptism marriage and communion we believe in the priesthood and the bishops and we spread christianity this is what it's all about all right so real quick and no and this is the part is um the orthodox really believe in a genuine priesthood and a genuine eucharist and a genuine service it's very reverent i want to show a one-minute clip take a look at this clip this is a video of the russian orthodox divine liturgy it is breathtaking let's watch this one minute clip of the russian orthodox church in their divine liturgy [Music] yes [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] oh [Music] okay now wasn't that absolutely beautiful reverent but i have to be careful i do a whole talk you can reference it online called is there salvation outside the catholic church and the problem is as beautiful as this is they are in schism the church teaches that when you separate yourself from the cheer of peter which was established by jesus christ not by man not by catholics but by jesus if you separate yourself from that you are in schism and so we have to pray for the reunification of our orthodox brothers and sisters we'll go into that detail much later but the problem was a lot of those eastern churches left they left the papacy but here's the good news a lot of those churches came back starting in the 16th century a lot of the churches that left because of muslim pressure they've been coming back to the catholic church some churches now in the east are in union with the catholic church once again others still are not all right those that are in union with the catholic church are called eastern catholic and i want to finish today i would be remiss if i described all to you the orthodox but didn't explain to you that the catholic church also has two groups we have the western latin right and we have the eastern catholics different from the eastern orthodox that's where we're going to finish today all right so those in union with the catholic church are called eastern catholic those who are not are still called eastern orthodox now let's take a look at these eastern churches our next slide there's a beautiful example of an eastern catholic church okay here's what we're going to finish i bet you didn't know i didn't know this till seminary there are 24 different rights in the catholic church 98 of the world is latin right that's you and me if you go down to your corner and go to saint joe's catholic church most likely or or saint therese or the divine mercy parish 98 chance you're going to a latin right western catholic church that's us 98 of the catholics in the world are latin right all right so the catholic church though actually has 23 other churches you ever hear of the byzantine you ever hear of the mironite we're going to talk about these all right so we got the one big one the latin or roman catholic that's why you're roman catholic you go around looking for different churches you're roman catholic but all other catholic churches these 23 others are called eastern or oriental oriental just doesn't mean japanese or chinese oriental means east so we call them the oriental churches one person wrote me a scathing letter because i talked about the oriental churches and they condemned the church in china this oriental doesn't mean china or just japan or china oriental means any non-roman western right for instance do you recognize the authority of the pope but within the parameters of a common creed all right each church has its own liturgy devotions traditions but they're under rome let's take a look at our next picture these are the patriarchs of the other churches you see that on the two ends are the roman catholics and in the middle are the patriarchs the archbishops they have their own traditions and liturgy they practice their own religion in a certain way but they're true to the teaching and every one of them is at least a thousand years old twice as old as any protestant faith this shows that the catholic church is truly universal we have these churches in egypt syria iraq ethiopia india i begged father kaz a couple years ago to please let me go to iraq please these christians these catholics these eastern catholics in iraq oh my talk about the bravest people in the world and i wanted to go over there to try to help them father cass said no at this point that's very imprudent pray and sacrifice you know vatican ii says that this variety doesn't harm our unity but nourishes it all of the churches are of equal dignity to each other and to the western church but they are under the authority of the pope i got a another very uh angry letter that said father how dare you say the ukrainian catholic church is under the pope we are under the patriarch yes you are under the patriarch but ultimately it's in communion with rome that's why they're called eastern catholic both are liturgy and culture yes is is maintained but the teaching is unified all right so let's talk about it finish it what are these rights these rights of the catholic church i mean right r-i-t-e the right the catholic rites okay let's talk about this these are the traditions of how the sacraments are celebrated you go one right they'll celebrate the sacraments a little different but the form and matter the way they do it may be different but the actual content is the same all right in the context of individual cultures yes they may change some things but they don't change the essential form and matter these were the early churches of rome syria egypt rome you know this is why it's heartbreaking to see all these nations fall to islam because islam claims that this is islamic territory they were christian catholic way before the even creation of islam all these rites are in use today evolved from those churches biblical all right the catechism says although particular churches possess their own hierarchy meaning a patriarch and they differ in liturgical discipline they possess their own spiritual heritage true they are all entrusted to the roman pontiff all right the divinely appointed successor of saint peter all right so let's finish with this slides the last couple slides the eastern catholic churches who are they they are not orthodox they are the latin that's us the byzantine the alexandrian the syriac the armenian the mironite and the chaldean these are beautiful and so brief few words on each one of these to finish this is starting with the latin that's us the latin rite is headed up by the bishop of rome the pope that is the largest it was founded by saint peter just after the death of jesus no other christian tradition protestant or anything else goes back to that even the orthodox who we know have apostolic succession now do not put themselves under the chair of peter so the current liturgy that we have in our western latin right was handed down from the earliest beginnings after the council of trent we could only use the roman liturgy the only exceptions were ones that were over 200 years old and were ancient rites so the pope is the vicar of these of us and them all right this is from before the council of the trent now here's what's interesting he's also the victor of those rights that came before the council of trent such as the mozara bake the right from spain or the ambrosian right from milan or the bragging right from portugal and all the other ones even the ancient rites of the dominicans carmelites and carthusians you know my friend um a friend of our family the prior at the wyoming carmelites he resurrected the mystic monk coffee guys he resurrected the old ancient carmelite rite and in the west he's allowed to do that now as the vicar of the universal church the pope is the shepherd of the both the east and the western catholics the eastern ones they are completely equal in dignity with us but they submit to the authority of the papacy all of those eastern churches come under his jurisdiction of the pope and the congregation for the oriental churches oriental meaning eastern and that is a fact so the rights are either administered by a patriarch a major archbishop or a metropolitan all right so that's the point now let's get to byzantine this is a biggie this is the largest of the other rights you've probably heard it before the byzantine church the byzantine liturgy was developed by saint james and was modified by saint basil and saint john chrysostom it is nearly identical to the orthodox church if you go to a mass you are a divine liturgy you may not recognize the difference the orthodox churches the orthodox churches are ones that have a right very similar to the eastern catholics and so we have to understand that those are very very similar now the schism that took place uh the liturgy is as i said nearly identical the schism that happened between rome and constantinople in 1054 many of these churches remain separated but over the years they came back this is beautiful and we want the rest to come back so some of these that have come back let's look at our slide the byzantine churches that have come back the albanian the belarusian the bulgarian the croatian the greek the hungarian the italo albanian and i'm sorry i'm speaking so low law because we have a conversation going on in the back so sorry i'm having to speak real loud here to to be able to drown out the conversation um the macedonian the melkite greek the romanian the russian the ruthenian the slovak slovak and the ukrainian greek that is what all the news is about right now this ukrainian greek catholic church is different than the orthodox ukrainian church that has been fighting with moscow this eastern catholic church the ukrainian catholic church the ukrainian greek catholic church has condemned the invasion they have pointed out that the russian invasion fails three of the four conditions for just war the just war conditions one two and four for a war to be just fail in the invasion of the ukraine and so we have to understand that so anyway let's go back then that's the byzantine brother mark if we could go back to the seven eastern catholic churches the slide before that last one and put it up in the corner i don't know if we're able to do that the back to the seven now the byzantine we just described the alexandrian the liturgy used by the church in alexandria in egypt comes from saint mark this church became known as the coptic church you've probably heard that the coptic christians they are the ones being absolutely persecuted like nobody in the world coptic is the arabic and the greek word for egyptian now i got another letter saying father coptics are orthodox not christian not catholics do your research exclamation point i'm sorry i get a little worked up when people fire exclamation points at me when they're not correct the fact is there are coptics in both the orthodox and the catholic we have both coptics we have coptic orthodox coptic catholic they are egyptians and they are being absolutely slaughtered for their faith we have to pray for them we have to pray for them um in this this is part of the alexandrian there exists in egypt this coptic right as i said is both of them they are also in ethiopia and eritrea eritrea next is the syriac all right the syriac this is from antioch this right goes back to saint james the apostle as well this liturgy was used in antioch in present-day syria and many bishops also broke away at the council of chalcedon they stopped using greek and used their own syriac language the syriac language is very similar to aramaic what jesus spoke now through the work of jesuit and capuchin missionaries they've come back to rome many of them this includes rights from india and again going back to saint thomas because remember he was in india all right three to go armenian you've heard of armenian armenian believe it or not if i was to ask you what was the first country in the world to adopt christianity as their official state religion what would you have guessed the very first country in the world to adopt christianity as their state religion was in the fourth century armenia you know where mother teresa was from no she was albini i think but armenia was the first they used the antiochian liturgy of saint james and the armenian language in turkey they also fell into heresy after the council of calciton and declared that they were separate the turks massacred two million armenians at the end of world war one you don't learn this in the history classes anymore all we hear about in the history classes is social justice we don't hear anything about the two million armenian catholics that were slaughtered by the turks at the end of world war one most of these now live in lebanon lebanon is very strong catholics still not a majority last two mironite you've probably heard of the mironite right that traces itself back to saint marin m-a-r-o-n the 4th century who founded a monastery just east of antioch in lebanon one of the great i think he's from lebanon or syria lebanon is saint charbelle awesome saint so anyway they never fell into heresy and they were only separated from rome because of the muslims well they found their way back and using a liturgy based on the antiochian of saint john james the maronites make up 70 17 of lebanon of all the people of lebanon they make up 17 by the law of that country listen to this this is fascinating i didn't know this by law in lebanon the president has to be a maronite christian the president of lebanon we always think of lebanon of terrorism and and paganism and muslim and islam the actual president of lebanon has to be a maronite christian by law then by law the prime minister has to be a sunni muslim and by law the president of the national assembly has to be a shiite muslim talk about ecumenical so the president has to be a maronite christian the um prime minister has to be a sunni muslim and the national assembly the president of the national assembly has to be a shiite muslim that's in lebanon and lastly chaldeans the chaldeans these are people in modern day iran in iraq once known as the assyrians remember in the bible the old testament the assyrians this is the people coming back to god so do i think there's hope for russia absolutely do i believe they were returned to god absolutely people are angry at me i just keep praying that we stop the killing that's not the way to bring them back to god god can't be a part of that so these chaldeans in modern day iran and iraq were the once known as assyrians the people in this area fell into heresy in the fifth century but with missionary efforts they came back to rome that's why missionaries are so important and in 1553 pope julius iii proclaimed the first patriarch of the chaldeans you know the chaldean is the biblical term also used for babylon babylon and today the patriarch of this right guess where he's located baghdad iraq can't think of anything more courageous this includes the malabar right which is also based in india they are descended from the saint thomas christians as well those malabar rights part of the chaldeans never split the bottom line everybody is we have a beautiful faith our christian roots are deep our christian the catholic roots are the original roots you know how they say there are certain animals that are sprung from the original racehorse or the beautiful winner of the kentucky derby and all these other sired he sired all these other ones the original is the catholic church from it came the christian other groups of protestants and orthodox but you can never top the original and the original came directly from jesus christ so please as beautiful as these others in the traditions are and they are beautiful you can't replace the truth of our catholic faith so praise be to god that we are catholic it be at western or eastern latin wright or byzantine or maronite or syriac or chaldean whatever it might be we praise god for this gift in our faith and let us not give it up and most of all let's pray for our orthodox brothers and sisters in that orthodox we want them to come back to jesus and they do too but it's through the church not the president of russia not the emperor that's the whole issue and i think that's what most of us don't understand and i'm not trying to say you should understand i didn't understand this until i talked to some very knowledgeable people some theologians chris sparks and others who really helped father seraphim he was the one to explain to me all about the eastern catholics all of these notes they came from my seminary class but i forgot to mention praise be to father seraphim you know what he was he was ruthenian part of the byzantine right you saw father sear from up here on this altar he was eastern catholic he was part of this church through the east and so father seraphim taught me so much and that's what i just shared with you his legacy continues so let us pray for unification let us bring us all back to peter as jesus originally intended and let us let the church through the hands of god lead us not the state that's my only issue and that should be your issue too let's protect religious freedom praise be to god and thank you for joining us and let us pray now for the members of these churches and all civilians in ukraine and russia in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen glory be to the father and to the son and to the holy spirit as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end amen thank you and god bless you you

Channel: Divine Mercy

Views: 747,006

Keywords: Catholic vs. Orthodox, Catholic faith vs. Orthodox faith, catholic Church vs orthodox Church, similarities between the Catholic and Orthodox church, Orthodox church, Catholic Church, similarities between the Catholic and Orthodox, differences between the Catholic and Orthodox, differences between the Catholic and Orthodox church, Explaining the Faith, fr. Chris Alar, Chris Alar, Catholic Teaching, Catholic

Id: Gfva7Zwzyfs

Length: 89min 10sec (5350 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 12 2022