I’ve written several articles responding to videos by Fr. Nathan Symeon, the well-known Eastern Catholic priest. Some folks have gotten the impression that I have some kind of beef with Fr. Nathan. Actually, the opposite is true. When I was doing apologetics, I wouldn’t engage with a Catholic unless I thought we could have a friendly, productive conversation. Fr. Nathan is definitely one of those Catholics. He’s a sharp thinker, a deeply prayerful man, and just a really good dude overall.
Anyway. Fr. Nathan posted a video the other day called “In Defense of the Sacred Heart Devotion: An Eastern Christian Perspective”. Like all of his videos, it was extremely persuasive. I won’t attempt rebut his arguments here. Like I said, I’m out of the apologetics game. But I did want to offer some quick thoughts of a more general nature, because I think our Catholic friends sometimes misunderstand the Orthodox critique of certain doctrines and devotions.
Fr. Nathan’s video has five main parts:
1. He identifies the basis of the devotion in Scripture.
2. He defends it against accusations of Nestorianism.
3. He notes certain parallels in the Early Church (e.g., icons).
4. He emphasizes the “Blood and Water” element at the Crucifixion.
5. He Notes the importance of the heart in the Eastern tradition.
Again, his arguments are compelling. And to be honest, I’m not very familiar with the “deep” Orthodox critique of the Sacred Heart. I’ve heard folks call it Nestorian, but I don’t know why. Like I said, I’m not interested in attacking the devotion itself. I’d just like to point out that none of this gets to the heart (ba-dum) of the Orthodox critique.
In July of 1054—just weeks after the events we now call the Great Schism—Peter III of Antioch wrote a letter to Michael I of Constantinople. It’s about the many differences that had grown up between Rome and the East, and how some are more serious than others. Peter writes:
Now, we have surveyed the Roman errors which you enumerated. Some of them seem abominable and should be fled; others are curable; still others can be overlooked. For what does it matter to us if their bishops shave their beards and wear rings as a symbol (as you have written) of their betrothal to the holy church of God?... And as for their eating unclean things and their monks eating pork fat, you will find, if you will investigate, that these things are done also among some of our own people... But an evil, even the evilest of evils, is their addition to the creed.
“As for me,” Peter concludes, “I will make my opinion clear: if ever they would correct the addition to the holy creed, I would demand nothing else, leaving as a matter of indifference, along with all the other matters, even their fault regarding the unleavened bread.”
Of course, much has changed in the last millennium. Some Orthodox theologians would say that the papal dogmas of Vatican I present as much of an obstacle to union as the filioque. Others would include the modernist doctrines of Vatican II as well. Still, there’s no doubt that some of our differences could be resolved in communion. For instance, if Rome renounced all of its errors except the Sacred Heart devotion, would that still present an insurmountable obstacle to communion? Probably not.
But that’s the thing. The Orthodox generally view the Sacred Heart devotion as the symptom of a larger disease: the Catholic penchant for novel views and practices.
Broadly speaking, Orthodoxy teaches that we must take the utmost care to preserve the theological, liturgical, and spiritual heritage of the Early Church. And, from our perspective, the inner life of the Catholic Church is dominated by novelties. The Sacred Heart is one example. There’s also the Rosary, Novenas, the Brown Scapular, religious statuary, the Divine Mercy, Marian apparitions, Eucharistic adoration, Third Orders, First Fridays, etc.
In addition, many practices that were deeply important to Fathers—and which remain vitally important to the Orthodox—have been neglected by the Catholic Church. There’s the use of icons, the Jesus Prayer, chanting the psalms, spiritual fatherhood (and motherhood), etc.
Some of these practices have enjoyed a renaissance of sorts in the Catholic Church, especially since Vatican II. Still, the inner life of a (Latin) Catholic is radically different to that of an Orthodox Christian. As the Ecumenical Patriarch put it during a 1997 speech at Georgetown University:
Assuredly our problem is neither geographical nor one of personal alienation. Neither is it a problem of organizational structures, nor jurisdictional arrangements. Neither is it a problem of external submission, nor absorption of individuals and groups. It is something deeper and more substantive. The manner in which we exist has become ontologically different. Unless our ontological transfiguration and transformation towards one common model of life is achieved, not only in form but also in substance, unity and its accompanying realization become impossible.
As we said, the Orthodox prioritize fidelity to the beliefs and practices of the Early Church, which were given to us by Christ and His Apostles. Catholics, meanwhile, are comfortable with innovation and “development,” so long as [in their view] it remains in continuity with those Early-Church beliefs and practices.
And, again, the question is not whether some such parallels exist. That’s worth mulling over, for sure! But let’s grant our Catholic friends this point. Let’s say there’s nothing inherently wrong with the Sacred Heart, or the Rosary, or what have you. Even then, we would ask:
Are these “developments” really better than the Old Ways? Has the (Latin) Catholic Church improved upon the theological, liturgical, and spiritual heritage of the Early Church—a heritage which has been preserved, virtually intact, by the Orthodox? Over the last century—or even the last five centuries—has the inner life of the Catholic Church been healthier than in the Orthodox Church?
That’s not a trick question, by the way! Most Catholics, no doubt, would say: “Yes, it has.” I’m not trying to argue one way or the other. I’m simply trying to clarify the Orthodox position.
Before we wrap up, it might be interesting to explore what precisely makes Fr. Nathan’s perspective “Eastern.”
Usually, when discussing the different Christian traditions, Eastern is a synonym for Orthodox, where Orthodox means loyalty to the “doxia” and “praxia” of the Early Church.
Of course, the Eastern Catholics complicate this picture somewhat. They generally see the Eastern (Orthodox) and Latin (Catholic) practices as “two sides of the same coin.” They also celebrate the diversity of liturgical and spiritual expressions within the Catholic Church. For instance, earlier this year, Fr. Nathan’s parish hosted a debate between the Catholic apologist Alex Jurado and the Orthodox apologist Denny Sellen. At one point, Jurado says:
Everything that you love in Eastern Orthodoxy, you also have it in the Catholic Church... It’s valid if you’re a Westerner but you feel called maybe to the Eastern tradition. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m a Westerner that was called to the Byzantine tradition. I’m a Roman Catholic that practices as a Byzantine. And that’s the beauty in in the Catholic Church, is that you can do that! You could be a Roman Catholic and you could go to a Byzantine Catholic church and everything is fine... Or if you want to experience the liturgy of St. Isaac of Armenia, you don’t have that in Eastern Orthodoxy. But you have it in Catholicism.
As most of my readers know, I was an Eastern Catholic before going Orthodox, and I was a Latin-Masser before going Eastern Catholic. And, for a while, I felt the same way Jurado does. I saw Eastern Catholicism was basically a preference. It’s not better or worse than Western Catholicism. It’s just... different. Some people get more out of the Byzantine Rite than the Latin Mass or the Novus Ordo, and that’s totally fine!
Yet the more deeply I entered into the “Eastern tradition,” the more my thinking began to change. I no longer saw Latins and Byzantines as two sides of the same coin. Frankly, I came to view the Byzantines as defenders of the Apostolic and Patristic heritage, and the Latins as innovators.
Again, I’m not trying to defend that position right now. I’m just trying to clarify the Orthodox position vis-à-vis Fr. Nathan’s video. And, so, I’ll conclude with this:
Fr. Nathan’s defense of the Sacred Heart is not substantially different to those made by Latin or Western Catholics. He’s essentially arguing that the Sacred Heart devotion is a valid “development” of the Patristic tradition. In other words, this devotion may be unknown to the Fathers, but it’s not incompatible with their beliefs and practices.
So, when Fr. Nathan defends the Sacred Heart devotion from an Eastern perspective, he means “from the perspective of one who prefers the spirituality of the Early Church.” Ultimately, however, his is simply a Catholic defense of the Sacred Heart. He’s defending the development of new spiritual customs in general, and second-millennium Western accretions in particular. He’s saying it’s okay that the Latin Church have these new prayers and devotions, while others (Eastern Catholics, Orthodox Christians, etc.) prefer the older way of doing things.
Now, Fr. Nathan may be right! My point, again, is simply to clarify the Orthodox position. From our perspective, Fr. Nathan’s defense is not “Eastern”—at least, not in the sense that we are Eastern. He’s not defending the Sacred Heart from within the Orthodox paradigm. He’s not speaking our language, as it were. And, ultimately, he’s not addressing the basic Orthodox objection to these accretions: that, over time, they have almost completely replaced the prayers and devotions handed down to us by the Fathers and Mothers of the Early Church.
Pope John Paul II famously said, “The Church must breathe with her two lungs.” He meant that we must learn to see the harmony between the Western/Latin/Catholic and the Eastern/Byzantine/Orthodox. This is how most Catholics view our dynamic today.
Yet the Orthodox can’t help but agree with Patriarch Bartholomew I: that Catholics and the Orthodox are now “ontologically different.” We are not two lungs of the same body, but two bodies. We are not two branches of the same Church, but two separate churches. We are not two sides of the same coin, but two different coins.
I know this can be awkward, even painful. But sometimes the most painful conversations are the most productive. So, hopefully, this brings us a little closer to understanding each other.
Glory to God for all things!
As a fellow “ex-Cat, now-Ortho,” I half agree. A deep difference of mentality has grown over time, and this difference is often a bigger deal than the “content” in the abstract. Can bishops loosen fasting requirements? Of course. Does it make sense to never fast (or only fast 2 days a year)? No, now you’ve lost something essential. The Rosary as a tool for meditation on the Gospel? Sure, that’s fine (though it’s well below the Mass, the Office, the Jesus Prayer, actual lectio divina, etc, as a form of prayer). But as a mega-prayer weapon revealed by Mary herself, with wild bargains attached to it, that will “convert the world to her immaculate heart”? Ehh… no.
But by the same token, Orthodox these days have a bad habit of painting with the world’s broadest brush, blindly firing at anything Western because we feel “something” is off. Peter III of Antioch was a wise man. And we need to be similarly wise to not conflate X is Orthodox with X is Eastern/Byzantine. And so I’m highly sympathetic to conversation about those Western things, even the (yes) “post schism” things. Because—and I think this was the good patriarch’s point—if the things “at the heart” were corrected, there would be broad enough space for local variation and development, as there always has been in the Church.
To sum up, for Rome to return to Orthodoxy would not be for it to become Byzantine. It would have to recover its own deep tradition. The “TLM” (i.e. the ancient, apostolic Roman liturgy) is wonderful, but otherwise the “return to tradition” doesn’t mean what traditionalists think it means: fiddlebacks, and Latin-only, and baroquey organ preludes, and the 99 day devotion to Christ’s 999 wounds, and late scholastic theology. It means communing your babies and public Vespers being normal.
I think a side issue to what you discussed (beautiful btw) is this whole West vs East thing and where it really originated.
The broad “West” is convinced they are the true orthodox and the east are Greek heretics. Calvin Robinson is one of the worst believers of this nonsense. This began with the Frankish theologians fighting Nicea 2 and the crowning of Charlemagne and was largely promulgated by Aquinas’s against the Greeks.
Where I woke up was when I realized the Orthodox Church we have today is the continuation of the state religion of the Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church is not.
The English speaking descendants were some of the most negatively impacted by this. It needs to be emphasized but in Britain as an example when the Normans conquered the land they literally replaced all the bishops with continental clergy who would implement the Gregorian reforms.
These Gregorian reforms were largely the product of false canon laws (pseudo isidorian decretals) where the western church pushed restart on all first millennium canon law and it was essentially re-done without any input from the other Christians.
The total arrogance of Western European protestants and Catholics to insist year after year they are true orthodox with almost no knowledge of the first millennium and second millennium Orthodox Church is peak delusion.