Category: Roman Catholicism

Can You Baptize Without Baptism? Review: The Ecclesiological Renovation of Vatican II by Fr. Peter Heers

· Fr. John Cox
Is it possible to receive an unbaptized person into the Orthodox Church without baptizing him? What would it mean to do such a thing? You might not expect a book about the Second Vatican Council to elicit such questions from Orthodox sacramental theology but Fr. Peter Heers’s 2015 doctoral thesis, published with the title The Ecclesiological Renovation of Vatican II (ERV2), does…

Synodality or Supremacy? Orthodoxy and Rome

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Catholic University professor C. C. Pecknold has a column out today regarding the failure of “synodality” in the modern Roman Catholic Church as practiced under Pope Francis. There is a reference there to Orthodox conciliarity: Governance within Orthodoxy is built not around the papacy but around “sister churches” gathering together for collaborative, deliberative self-governance in synodal assembly. It is important to understand…

The Bible of the Church: Vignettes and Lessons from a Reformation Controversy

· Fr Esteban Julio Vázquez
Editor’s Note: This article is part of an October 2017 series of posts on the Reformation and Protestantism written by O&H authors and guest writers marking the 500th anniversary of the nailing of Martin Luther’s 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. Articles are written by Orthodox Christians and discuss not just the Reformation as a historical…

Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy 2.0 is now here. Here’s an excerpt.

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Update: New episodes are now available at this link. As I’ve announced on social media and elsewhere, I’m in the process of producing an updated, revised, and expanded version of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy—both the podcast and the book. New episodes of the podcast begin airing on Ancient Faith Radio on November 22. This new podcast series (and book!) represents a full revision,…

Review of ‘Orthodox Readings of Aquinas’ by Marcus Plested

· Dylan Pahman
Dylan Pahman [Note: A version of this review was published in The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 88, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 184-187. Published here with permission.] ORTHODOX READINGS OF AQUINAS. By Marcus Plested. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. 276. $99.00 Hard Cover, ISBN: 978-0-19-965065-1. The encounter between the works of Thomas Aquinas and the Orthodox Church is often told in a…

One Quote from St. Ignatius Converted this Guy to Catholicism?

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
I happened upon this article today. Here’s an excerpt: Like St. Paul before him, St. Ignatius, in his capacity as Bishop of Antioch, is writing with authority against those who break off from the Church founded by Christ. Anyone, says Ignatius, who walks in heresy—that is, against the teachings of Ignatius and the other appointed Bishops—is, alarmingly, “out of sympathy with the…

Is Orthodoxy Really United?: A Question from a Reader

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
I recently received the following question from a reader (slightly edited to remove identifying details): I am aware of one Orthodox church parish leaving one Orthodox group to go to another Orthodox group because of some issue. Doesn’t this kind of dispel the idea of the Orthodox being a unified church organization as it is in the case of the Roman Catholics?…

Did the Ecumenical Patriarch say that the Church is divided?: Response to an Anonymous Greek Orthodox Priest

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
An anonymous piece by a self-identified Greek Orthodox priest entitled “On the Recent Events in Jerusalem and their Ecclesiological Underpinnings” has recently been circulating in response to the recent meeting in Jerusalem by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Francis, especially regarding certain statements by the Ecumenical Patriarch about the Church being “divided in time” and its ecclesiological ramifications. It’s been republished in…

The Future of Protestantism and Catholicism: A Few Orthodox Comments

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Over at First Things, R. R. Reno reflects as a Roman Catholic on his recent attendance at Peter Leithart’s Future of Protestantism conference, in which Leithart et al advocated for a post-Protestant future, especially in terms of what Leithart calls “Reformed Catholicism.” Reno notes that, while Protestants like Leithart may be looking at engaging with Catholicism to imagine their own future, Catholics…