A Raw Inquiry into Eastern Orthodoxy.

Long, honest, and skeptical comments on my limbo between Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity. Skepticism, generalizations, and sweeping claims abound!

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Introduction: Fourth Anniversary “Tribute”

AD 2023 officially marks the fourth year in a row that I’ve experienced a deep and (seemingly) inescapable existential crisis about where Jesus Christ is. One thing I’ve learned is that before I can ever know where He is, I have to find Him in my heart first. And for that reason, this spiritual journey has been marked by a profound patience both with myself, and with God — Who is clearly marinating my love for Him in a way not beholden to any tradition other than the first and original tradition of humanity: love of God, regardless of anything. In this entry, my goal is to reflect openly and honestly (not too academically!) on the things that I have learned, have been confused by, and have found an answer to while being patient.

Some of you may be quite surprised by this entry, but do not be scandalized. No matter your religious affiliation, I encourage you to read on.

Are you Catholic? I am too, and I need answers to questions that people aren’t answering, and honest conversation with people who are having the same qualms as I am. We need Catholics to think deeply about questions that are being posed in the modern West for the first time almost ever. And really, there’s probably not a single unique sentiment in this entry. I’ve seen and read every qualm in here from confused Catholics galore.

Are you neither Catholic nor Orthodox? I encourage you to read on all the same. My prediction? The American public consciousness is going to become very “apostolic” in the future. We really don’t appreciate how strange it is that America is discussing Catholics and Orthodox so often. 100 years ago? Not a chance. American anti-papist propaganda isn’t really a thing anymore, except when deployed by The Left to advance a pro-choice agenda. There’s even an Orthodox monastery in Appalachia (link to cool video about it). There are dozens of Catholic content creators on YouTube with over 100,000 subscribers; a popular platform called The Daily Wire has two politically conservative Catholics, one of whom has become quite the spokesman for the Traditional Latin Mass. Similar phenomena are happening with the Orthodox Church, but at a more moderate pace.

There’s so much to learn. We all deserve to arrive at the truth, but don’t have the option to remain vincibly ignorant if we wish to do so. Some traditional piety might say, “Look away!” but the ethos of the Logos¹ says otherwise. This entry is NOT intended to convince you one way or another. It’s not my business to suck you into my journey, as it were. Nevertheless, if you’re a practicing Catholic, do not be alarmed if you find yourself wondering what’s really going on by the end of the entry. Ultimately, you either tackle an issue, or an issue tackles you. This issue is uncannily relevant as we watch Gen Z start to chase after Christ, wondering where He is. What’s going on inside heads like mine?

Will I find Christ in Rome, or in the Orthodox Church? Do I have one foot on a banana peel and the other on Constantinople? These questions and more, answered in this weeks premium entry: Eastern Orthodoxy.

"Here I come, Constantinople.”

-Primus, “Hello Skinny/Constantinople,” from the album “Frizzle Fry,” 1990

This is unprecedented. Patience is a virtue, possess it if you can; but it’ll be hard

Part of the reason I need to be patient with myself and with God is because this experience is unprecedented. For the first time in perhaps ever, there are hundreds of thousands of Catholics who are becoming exposed to the Orthodox ethos and ecclesiology. It’s so incredibly foreign; and because Orthodoxy has never been a real player in the West, there isn’t as much honest apologetic material as we’d like from our beloved Catholic Answers overlords. “Uh, Matthew 16:18. Um…. the Tome of Leo!”² The best way I can describe contemporary Catholic apologetic efforts against the Orthodox is with one word: LAME, in the archaic sense and the colloquial one. The dissemination of coherent pro-Catholic apologetics is so stunted, that sometimes I feel like I’ve been daydreaming about this entire dilemma for four years. There isn’t much identifiable substance to the Catholic side, that’s really my point. What Catholics have are “gotcha”-isms and “pop apologetics” that appeal to team loyalty.

Behold, my unfair representation of Catholic apologetics against Orthodoxy: drop a quote with no context, say “extra ecclesiam nulla salus,” gaslight your audience, and gatekeep “intellectualism.” Maybe even attitudinally dogmatize a random private revelation from the 1400s AD to keep things spicy and esoteric. All of these experiences make any pull toward Orthodoxy feel… disallowed. It feels somewhat forbidden, and not just because Rome has deemed Orthodoxy schismatic (although that’s part of it) — but because Orthodoxy’s mechanisms are shrouded in mystery, so mentally unapproachable to the average Catholic. And Catholic apologists will do anything to make their debunking of Orthodoxy look, well, simple. Like I said, “Have you ever read Matthew 16:18? Just become Catholic.” But it’s dishonest. It doesn’t approach Orthodoxy’s meatier claims, and thus we Catholics are never exposed to its true positions. Mainstream Catholic apologists are known to strawman the ever-living shite out of Orthodoxy’s positions.

Well then, how many strawmen can you build up in your heart before a spark comes, and the cumulative incongruities burst into a roaring flame that consumes your faith in the Roman claims?

In my experience, I was often denied true intellectualism from the Catholic side in apologetic discourse, but also told that the Catholic side is the only place you can really find it. Maybe this is typically the case, though. Perhaps Catholicism does have the mind, and the overarching intellectual rigor. Just take a look at Thomism, for example. It’s systematic, and patently beautiful in its own right. But no matter how much logic and systematic theology I find in the Catholic tradition, I am still convinced that Catholicism lacks the heart that Orthodoxy has.

These battles between mind and heart have led to some interesting experiences in the past. The following experience was the most common (but quite random) sprouting-up of Orthodoxy into my life. I remember many times looking at my ex, smiling, and with some Goblin-ass, E.T. roleplay tone, playfully saying “Eaaassstttt, I’m gonna go EAST!” alerting her to that paternal whisper within me, saying “Do it. Go East. Listen to your heart.” But I couldn’t listen to my heart, even though it was my heart that was making me whisper “Eaaaassstttt” to her. I needed the rigor of my mind. I needed assurance! Intellectualism, dammit! The heart misleads, right? But I could sense the strawmen in the closet. I could feel the effects of slowly-building distrust, and the beating heart of the East. Eaasssssssttttttttt.

In Christian charity, I have to give credit where it’s due. Scant as the apologetic rigor from Catholics may be, I have seen some quality scholarship from Catholics in the internet badlands — the technognostic border world between “schizophrenic” and “based”, the alt-nether — where only the self-exiled existentialists go; or rather, where they end up. Mr. Eric Ybarra has produced some incredible content about the historic papacy, and has produced some material that may suggest papal primacy of jurisdiction in the early Church.

In sum, it’s still the wild west in Apologetics Land, so I need to be patient.

<3

While I’m in this limbo of traditions between East and West, between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, I will give everything that moves my heart its due attention — no exceptions. It’s no longer all about my intellect. Most things in the following list of inquiries and concerns might seem entirely intellectual, but that’s not so. They’re actually matters of the heart for me, because I have mostly graduated from my previously adolescent mental categorization system. That system crashed, as it were. My heart is now torn more than my mind. So, it’s time for a software update.

This is my last my Catholicism-Orthodoxy crisis. I will not perform mental gymnastics to stay Catholic, like myself and so many other have done, and are doing. I will not coldly categorize all things. I will not feed myself polemic propaganda from YouTube grifters. I will not rush one way or another. I must now objectively discern.

I will listen to my heart more, and give it the attention it’s been begging me for. At the end of this journey, wherever that may be, I will end up either decidedly Catholic, or decidedly Orthodox — and certainly much closer to Christ my God in any case.

Okay. Let’s get right to the meat.

“He who anticipates the journey will walk further than he who anticipates the destination.”

-Unknown

A Claim: Eastern Catholics venerate Gregory Palamas. Palamas teaches against absolute divine simplicity (ADS), and ADS is Catholic dogma. Therefore, Catholics venerate a heretic in their own rite (pun intended).

This is true. Eastern Catholics do venerate Palamas; and not only does he deny ADS — a theological concept integral to the Catholic praxis — but he even goes so far as to say the following about the Filioque clause, which is Latin for “and the Son,” and was a dogmatized addition to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed by the Roman Catholic Council of Ferrara-Florence (1431–1449):

“The Latins listen to Satan on their Filioque doctrine.” -Gregory Palamas

This is a major criticism that Orthodox apologists levy against Catholics. “How can you venerate a man who said this of your dogma?” Well, as it happens, you’re allowed to venerate some schismatic saints in Orthodoxy, too. According to one Reddit comment (I have to check for the veracity of this claim): in the USA, a former Byzantine Catholic Franciscan community turned Orthodox (OCA) has been allowed to liturgically commemorate St. Francis of Assisi – which certainly constitutes a public veneration of a Western schismatic saint considering the nature of liturgy. In the Antiochian Orthodox Church — which spearheads the movement to restore the Western Rites in the Orthodox Church — you find private veneration of post-schism Western saints.

Isaac the Syrian is venerated in the Orthodox Church, but died in the Assyrian Church of the East, a church which is indeed quite schismatic. The Assyrian Church of the East is technically Nestorian, and denies the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451). Even better, there is a decent case for Isaac believing in universal reconciliation. In chapter 39 of the Second Part, Isaac writes,

"It is not the way of the compassionate Maker to create rational beings in order to deliver them over mercilessly to unending affliction in punishment for things of which He knew even before they were fashioned, aware how they would turn out when He created them, and whom nonetheless He created."

Okay, that’s universalism, a condemned belief by the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and most others. So Isaac is definitely schismatic, potentially Nestorian, and arguably a universalist. What’s going on here? Why are Catholics venerating Palamas, and the Orthodox venerating Isaac?

(Edit 4/19/2024: That the schism between the Eastern Orthodox Communion and the Assyrian Church of the East had been completed at the time of Isaac’s death is disputed.)

We might conclude that there is some separation of person from their teachings in the canonization tradition of apostolic churches. Saints are not 100% correct people, but rather abundantly virtuous people who chase after Christ, full speed. What we’ve learned so far is that the so-called hypocrisy of venerating so-called heretics and schismatics from other traditions – East or West – exists in both East and West. Alright then. If the Orthodox and Catholic positions are truly the only tenable ones, and both of them permit the veneration of those who taught incorrect things or were from schismatic churches, then we clearly must adjust our hagiological framework to understand “veneration” in a dramatically new way. What that new way is, I do not know, but we can certainly speculate.

Is all of this veneration stuff problematic? Yeah. It is a problem? I don’t think so. I can’t help feel like both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church find themselves LARPing as super angry epic le intellectual, le mystic, goated, aesthetic, gigachaded, superior theologied churches respectively, but they’re both just kind of weak-knee wobbling toward the eschaton as best as they can.

But usually when I start to project my own desire for spiritually childlike innocence on the Eastern and Western hierarchies, I remember that Russian Orthodoids (this name is just some polemic fun) conspired with communist demoniacs; and Pope Francis is meeting with literal global supervillains; and Constantinople preferred Turkish enslavement to union with Rome; and Rome created and standardized the Novus Ordo Missae, etc. etc. etc. etc. blah. etc. blah. blah. blah. etc. ad infinitum ad hominem modus ponens ipso facto de jure Filioque blah oikonomia blah. blargh. It’s just not simple, and if anyone says it is, they’re either ignoramuses or dishonest.

If the Holy Spirit didn’t occasionally let us destroy ourselves, we’d get too haughty, and perhaps construct a spiritual tower of babel; but that’s just a thought.

My most liberal position to date

As I have studied this subject more and more, I have begun to think that the Divine Master is far from condemning those who reach the breaking point between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Once you get to the point where you could snap a finger and make the jump in either direction, the information in your head is so vast and startling — and the case for both sides becomes so strong — that your destination is nearly left up for chance… or perhaps providence.

It somewhat reminds me of the horseshoe theory in politics, or some weird variation thereof. Authentic traditional Catholics and zealous Orthodox faithful are much closer to one another than the average Novus Ordo Catholic is to the average Orthodox babushka. Nobody in either extreme is quite sure how to fix the schism, but both sides are willing to admit that it’s one of the greatest evils to befall Christendom. Nobody really knows what’s going on, and the absolute pity and empathy I feel for Christendom is beyond enormous… I can’t imagine God’s magnitude of sorrow. It’s sickening and saddening. Both East and West are often like bumbling buffoons, anxiously awaiting divine intervention. It doesn’t seem like either side is going to concede, and the authority of the Orthodox Church is so decentralized that I can’t see a future where the synodal, snail-paced Orthodox Church returns to communion with a Rome that still clenches onto papal supremacy — that infamous dogmatic zinger, immortalized in Vatican I. Speaking of Vatican I…

“You think Vatican II is bad? Take a look at Vatican I”

I don’t know how to explain this, but there’s something unusually silent about Vatican I compared to its implications. Perhaps this is because the council contains a claim — immediate and universal jurisdiction (Pastor Aeternus, Vatican I), and infallibility — that is so eerily do or die. If this Vatican I claim is falsifiable, then Rome is officially done for. No redemption is possible. Extra Romam salus est, if you will.

The Vatican I Question is one of the weirdest ones I’ve ever gotten studied in the Catholic-Orthodox debate, but it actually appears the most approachable — damning as it might be for the Roman position. There’s admittedly something a little bit… LARPy… about taking a jab at Vatican I; but as I’ve found, that’s only if you’re still operating in the Roman mind. When you exit the Roman mind and go into investigative mode, you can suddenly look much more sensibly at Catholicism and Orthodoxy side-by-side, instead of Catholicism on top, and Orthodoxy as some strange bearded branch that’s always operating in relation to its big brother — a very common attitude.

I have to admit, I would feel less LARPy and reactionary if Vatican I had been named something else. “Oh you think Vatican Two is bad? Wait till you hear about Vatican ONE, buckaroo.” There are transient tinfoil hat vibes every time I don my speedo to dive into the Vatican I Question.

Time to decide.

Some may say, and many do say, “You silly, purity-spiraling trad. Never satisfied, always a gripe! You can’t even let Vatican I slide." And to the quasi credit of those specific critics, I am indeed searching for purity. When there might be impure accretions attached to something that should be pure, the soul pushes us to remove the doctrinal, liturgical, and disciplinary leeches. It’s not that I’m a religio-political hardliner — that everything must "#retvrn” — but rather that I sense parasites in the Catholic Faith, parasites which seem to have taken over the host in Vatican I through legislated, near-ultramontanism. To the credit of Eastoid apologists, I can’t seem to find the immediate and universal jurisdiction from the Petrine See in the pre-schism Church; yet in Vatican I, the Petrine See infallibly claims this for itself as something that it always had, has, and always will have. Oof.

“See” what I mean?

I’m deeply concerned. A new gripe has come about, one which has me thinking very differently about ecclesiology. What happened to all the sees? After the Great Schism, the Roman Church formally cut itself off from every historical see. Antioch? Holy hand-grenaded. Jerusalem? Kaput. Alexandria? Mummified. Constantinople? Uhh… Non-stantinople…? I know that this isn’t the strongest claim ever (it may even be the weakest), but if we’re being honest, Rome ditched the Pentarchy — whether rightly or wrongly — and not the other way around. Rome’s claim is clear: it is more correct to belong to its see than to the communion of all other sees, which compose the entire mind of Christianity. We must honestly admit that the operation of the other apostolic sees together was more integral to the foundation of Christianity than Rome alone. And to this day, the rest of the Pentarchy remains in schism according to Rome. How can it be that every other apostolic see except Rome entered into schism? It makes sense, but it also doesn’t make sense.

Moreover, all of the other sees seem to be operating as normal. They’ve got random political schisms (which are far different from theological schisms), dramatically unimportant variance in liturgical function, and the to-be-expected difference in emphases depending on the Church. For example,

Russian Orthodox Church: Liturgically and socio-politically traditional

Greek Orthodox Church: More emphasis on the ascetic life, a little bit less on the liturgical experience from what I’ve experienced and heard

Both churches: still Orthodox.

Okay, sure. Orthodox patriarchs disagree over who has authority to grant a smaller Church — such as Ukraine’s — its independence. That’s where you get something like the schism between Constantinople and Moscow. There’s a chart that roughly illustrates the Orthodox communion of churches which looks like this:

This chart is out of date by at least four years.

We’ll get back to the chart shortly.

Yes, there are political schisms, and fights over jurisdiction; but do they fundamentally disagree on which rite is the unique expression of Byzantium after one patriarch invented a completely new, bastardized rite of worship intended specifically to look less Orthodox? No. Is there one giga-Patriarch (this is analogous to the pope) misleading millions upon millions of people and attacking the ancient Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom? No. I’m beginning to realize that a collection of patriarchs is not “less catholic” because they lack a “central figure” to “settle things.”³ The Roman Catholic Church has a central figure — one shepherd — but he’s certainly not settling things. The beauty of there being many bishops with equal authority to the next is that, if one bishop goes south, not everyone is screwed. Just that one bishop is. If the Patriarch of Constantinople kisses a Quran like Pope John Paul II did, we may be scandalized. But how likely is it that we’ll begin to instantly question the visible unity of the Church? Not very, because the entire Church itself is not dependent on that one bishop. In Orthodoxy, the predictable weakness of bishops is spread out, as it were, among all the sees. Filtered, if you will. The apostasy of one bishop does not equal the dissolution of the universal Church.

Au contraire…

During Vatican I, Bishop Vincent Ferrer Gasser (1809-1879) was commissioned to produce an interpretation of the council document Pastor Aeternus known as Gasser’s Relatio, so that there may be no confusion about what was being voted on regarding the council document’s contents. It serves as the official interpretation of the dogma of papal infallibility. In it we read,

“This prerogative [inerrant teaching authority] granted to St. Peter by the Lord Jesus Christ was supposed to pass to all Peter’s successors because the chair of Peter is the center of unity in the Church. But if the Pontiff should fall into an error of faith, the Church would dissolve, deprived of the bond of unity. The bishop of Meaux speaks very well on this point, saying: ‘If this Roman See could fall and be no longer the See of truth, but of error and pestilence, then the Catholic Church herself would not have the bond of a society and would be schismatic and scattered—which in fact is impossible.” (Rev. James T. O’Connor, The Gift of Infallibility).

The somewhat haunting conclusion is that, because the Church would dissolve if the Pope fell into error, and the Church cannot dissolve, the Pope cannot fall into error.⁴

Therefore, in many cases *deep breath*:

If the Bishop of Rome goes south, we kind of have to pretend he didn’t. And if we can’t pretend that he didn’t, we have to be OK that he did. And if we can’t be OK that he did, we still can’t judge him. And even if the universal Church tries to judge him, he’s still the Pope (nobody can judge the Pope according to Vatican I). But if the Pope is a heretic, he’s no longer the Pope. Or maybe he was never truly elected Pope, because a Pope cannot be a heretic. Or maybe, because he loses the Papacy the very instant he becomes a heretic, a Pope is still never a heretic. But we would never know if he lost his papacy due to heresy, because we still have to obey the visible Pope, and obedience to the visible Pope precludes him from judgement. And even if we could know that he lost his papacy due to heresy, we couldn’t do anything about it, because we would be presuming to judge a Pope, and according to Vatican I, you just can’t do that, silly willy! And said with a lisp, at that! Hmph!

Back to that chart. When I first saw it, I thought it was a deal breaker. There was no way I was going to join myself to a Church with that much nonsense in its communion. In the process of honestly looking at these questions and concerns however, I learned that the chart really should look like the one below, with added emphasis. The skinny red circle in the first version is just not emphatically honest enough about how all of these communion dynamics work within the Orthodox Church. There’s just a different family dynamic in the Orthodox Church.

Fellas, gents, ladies, lasses, if we’re being totally upfront: the only reason Roman Catholicism is so “unified” is because it’s the only original apostolic See in its own communion with which communion is sourced, AND demands full and immediate and universal submission. Basically, what I’m saying is that Roman Catholicism’s “EPIC UNBEATABLE PAPAL UNITY!!!” is an… illusion. It’s just one apostolic see, of course it’s going to have one aggressively identifiable, intuitive communion. Fellas, lasses, this simply was not the Christianus modus operandi before the schism, which is why the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church have such different ecclesiologies. These are the kinds of things we have to be very honest about if we’re going to find the truth. From what I can tell, Orthodoxy’s status quo ante is the same as their present status quo; meanwhile, Rome’s has dramatically changed, and is not very parallel with the arguably divinely-ordained apostolic missions that founded different sees such as Antioch, Jerusalem, et. al. “See” what I mean?

Please pardon the crudeness of the drawing.

“In quo omnes peccaverunt” - "In whom all have sinned”

Are we guilty of Adam’s sin, or do we just suffer from the curse of his sin’s effects? This question divides East and West more than you think, although you wouldn’t really know it, because the schism of this subject is largely attitudinal. To better understand this attitudinal schism, we have to talk about SEX.

In the West, we are very aware of “Catholic guilt” and the primary end of intercourse being reproductive, but “also” unitive. So basically, the reproductive end cannot be severed from the unitive end in the act, but somehow the reproductive end must be emphasized as primary. Hence why, according to Catholic teaching, the conjugal act can never morally occur without the intention to conceive; or worded in a more palatable manner: the conjugal act must remain open to conception… which in my opinion is a quasi-dishonest semantic shuffle of the actual Catholic attitude of transmitted sin and intercourse, which comes from the teachings of Saint Augustine. Indeed, Augustine was clear that the conjugal act is basically regrettable but inevitable, since “… the action is not performed without evil,” (St. Augustine, Against Julian, III.VII.15). To be fair to Augustine, he does not teach that the activity itself is evil, but that it “cannot be affected without the ardour of lust,” (De bono coniugali). So accordingly, children are conceived in lust — always. Thus intercourse becomes per se utilitarian, and its unitive aspect of becomes sadly reduced to… a consequence, and never can be elevated above reproduction in terms of the purpose of the act. And so developed the Catholic understanding of sex: Primarily reproductive — the marital “duty” — and if we’re being frank, unitive as a consequence. These are the Augustinian roots of the emphasis of reproduction as primary, and unitive as secondary, but both being inseparable during the act.

The Latin tradition teaches that the conjugal act transmits the guilt of original sin (Council of Trent, Decree on Original Sin, 1546), not just the effects of original sin. In quo omnes peccaverunt, says Romans 5:12 in the Latin translation of Sacred Scripture.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man [Adam], and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, in whom all sinned [in quo omnes peccaverunt].

This is how the Latins understood that translation, as opposed to a much more accurate translation from the original Greek: eph’ o pantes himarton — because all have sinned:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned [eph’ o pantes himarton].

To have sinned in Adam as the Latin tradition teaches means that I am an heir to the guilt of Adam’s sin; in Adam, I am something like a son that carries his dead dad’s unpaid debt, as opposed to a more heartful but still tragic simile: like man who has caught a terrible disease: concupiscence. Of course, the traditional Latin position is problematic. How have we sinned in Adam if we have not committed Adam’s sin? As I understand it, we are guilty of sins in general because Adam introduced it, not because we inherit his.

This is the historic foundation of “original sin” in the Latin tradition. We inherit guilt of sin from Adam, the West says. Fortunately, the contemporary Catholic Church is moving away from the longstanding emphasis on inherited guilt, moving closer toward the Orthodox position: not inherited guilt, but inherited sickness. Yet it appears that the legalism of original sin and its influence on the Catholic understanding of personal sin remains.

Personal implications, and conclusion

It goes without saying that if a large part of your reputation is built upon the restoration of Catholic Christendom and the return to tradition within Catholicism, even going so far as to found a traditional Catholic fraternal order, then you will wonder how seriously people will take you going forward after a conversion. I have wondered that myself, and it has concerned me. However, I am more concerned, as it were, with the Holy Spirit leading me closer to the Holy Trinity; and personal reputation comes further than even second in comparison to attentively executing a search for the Truth while managing the balance of everyday life.

If I decide in favor of Orthodoxy, people will inevitably ask me why; and I’ll be able to confidently say that I did not go easily into the East, but rather, I went while kicking and screaming like a child in the pews — a child who doesn’t really know where he is, or where he’s going. He wants to go home, and he wants milk; but the child is too simple-minded to know that he is home, for home is wherever the presence of God is; and his milk is the grace given by being closer to God, and the tender prayers of the Blessed Virgin. I am the child. I desire His divine nurturance, and the purity of His Faith, which is like the shine in a parent’s eye. I weep upon my bed, and He becomes blurry; but the sparkle of His eternal blink catches me through my tears as I lament; I taste salt on the corner of my lips, and crawl onward. Soon, God-willing, I shall crawl up into a walk; and in time, I will eat crusted bread; and in the first bite’s crunch is the savor of God’s ineffable love for us all, and His desire for us to be home, that the Son of Man may lay His head in our hearts.

Peace be with you,

Black Bacon, editor-in-chief and only employee at Ironogeist

PS, I’m not an expert. This are just my experiences. I encourage you to do your own research and discernment.

Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.’ Matthew 8:20

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. John 10:11

1. Laughing out loud at this as I write this.

2. Leo’s Tome was voted upon and was indeed binding by an ecumenical council (Chalcedon 451); but the Orthodox position is that since Rome fell into heresy, it became no longer binding upon the universal Church.

3. The lowercase “C” here is intentional; “catholic” comes from the Greek “katholikos,” and does not mean “universal” as many people think. It more accurately translates to “according to/throughout the whole.” Hence, you can have a variety of liturgical expression and devotion within one church communion, and still be “catholic” if your beliefs are the same. Singular liturgical expression is not necessarily a prerequisite for catholicity.

4. Eric Ybarra does good work. You can read a less truncated article about this here.