Vladimir the Great Sums Up Pope Francis the Fake

Vladimir Putin has once again demonstrated why he is the most perceptive, farsighted, and for a politician, the most honest world leader to come around in quite a while.  If it had not been for his patient and wise statesmanship, the world may have already been embroiled in an all-encompassing global conflagration with the possibility of thermonuclear destruction.

Vladimir Putin is sizing up Pope Francis with his “good grief, where did they find that one” stare. Since the East-West schism of AD 1054 there have been differences between the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Church, one of which concerns the issue of papal primacy (which the Orthodox Church rejects, although it would be prepared to acknowledge the Pope as a primus inter pares). Under Pope John Paul II previous doctrinal differences were downplayed in favor of further rapprochement. In this John Paul II followed the spirit of the decree Unitatis Redintegratio promulgated by Pope Paul IV in 1964. As the time the Catholic Church altered its stance toward the Protestant and Eastern Orthodox Churches by no longer referring to them as “heretics and schismatics”, but rather as “dissidents and separated brethren”. John Paul II went a step further by declaring that the major theological differences between East and West should be viewed as complementary rather than conflicting. Said differences concern primarily Palamist doctrine, which emerged in the 14^th century in the course of the dispute over Hesychasm.  They revolve mainly around the nature of the Holy Trinity (specifically the so-called “filioque” clause, as well as Palamas’ differentiation between God’s essence and energy) and the rational (scholastic) vs. the mystical (Orthodox) approach to the faith. Laymen may well deem these controversies as examples of “how many angels can stand on the head of a pin” type disputes (consider e.g. that theologians fervently debated whether the writings of Gregory Palamas indicated that he regarded the essence-energy distinction as “real”, “virtual”, or “formal”). In times past, much could depend on how such doctrinal disagreements were resolved. Maximus the Confessor, a 7^th century monk and theologian who was eventually canonized by both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches is a good example. His views on monothelitism (the interaction between Christ’s divine and human nature) initially led to his conviction as a heretic. In order to prevent him from spreading his alleged heresies, his tongue and right hand were cut off so that he could no longer speak or write and he was exiled. Less than twenty years after his death, he was fully rehabilitated; soon thereafter he began to be venerated as a saint. The East-West schism has been in place a lot longer, but a trend toward reconciliation emerged in the second half of the 20^th century, with the Catholic Church adopting the view that its differences with Eastern Orthodox Churches were largely of an ecclesiastical rather than a theological nature. Most people think of the Catholic Church as inflexible, but in the words of Catholic theologian G. Philips: “The essence-energies distinction of Palamas is a typical example of a perfectly admissible theological pluralism that is compatible with the Roman Catholic magisterium”. John Paul II seems to have agreed with this view. In fact, the Eastern mystical concepts of khatarsis, theoria and theosis are far more apodictic than the rational “theological pluralism” permitted by today’s Roman Catholic Church. In short, the Eastern Orthodox Churches actually tend to be more inflexible and dogmatic in their outlook. It is little wonder that Putin – who sees himself as the temporal protector and patron of the Russian Orthodox Church – looks askance at a Pope who often sounds like a representative of Marxism-inspired “liberation theology”. [PT]

Photo credit: ANSA

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