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#12462 Do Some Orthodox Traditions Allow for Multiple Marriages? - William Albrecht
“Do Some Orthodox Traditions Allow for Multiple Marriages?” This episode explores the nuances of Catholic and Orthodox relations, addressing questions like which Church Fathers and Councils support the Papacy, the historical split between the two churches, and how to respond to those drawn to Orthodoxy. Tune in for a thoughtful examination of these important topics. Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit Catholicanswersspeakers.com Questions Covered: 04:55 – What Fathers and Councils should I read that support the Papacy? 11:26 – Who led the parting of the Orthodox church with the Catholic church? What was the key disagreement? 16:15 – How can I respond to someone who feels that they are being led from Catholicism into Orthodoxy? 30:00 – Do some Orthodox traditions allow for more than one marriage? 40:40 – Are we allowed to take communion if a Catholic attends an Eastern Orthodox ...
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- [00:00]
Announcer
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- [00:26]
Edgar Lujano
Foreign. Welcome back CATHOLIC ANSWERS live. Edgar Lujano, producer for the show and your host for today. On this wonderful Monday, we've been having an awesome hour this first hour on answering Orthodoxy and we're going to continue it because we got plenty of questions on and we're giving plenty of answers on Catholic answers on Orthodoxy. So if you have a question here with William Alperecht, you can give us a call. There are lines open, 888-318-7884. That's triple eight 31 truth. Type that in. Give us a call. We'd love to hear from you, William. That was a phenomenal hour. In the midst of all of this, for some reason I started thinking of a I forget who it was. I was listening to an interview with a it was an Orthodox priest priest talking to a convert. And they mentioned that amongst the conversation that some Orthodox churches don't accept Catholic baptisms. And can you kind of explain that? Because I know Catholics for the most part will accept Orthodox baptisms, but why is it not a thing the other way around?
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William Albrecht
Unfortunately, you will find that there are a few Orthodox churches that do not accept Catholic baptism. By and large they do. Usually those are going to be fringe groups that do not accept isn't a matter of it be of them not viewing the the actual priest as being valid. It's more of them of certain of these groups insisting on a triple immersion formula. Now you're probably wondering, okay, well where on earth do you find that being normative in the early church? Well, it's never normative in the early church in the sense of you've got to be baptized in a triple immersion formula. You will find that there are certain groups that require that, that really do push that forward. And yeah, there are a few prominent people online that do push for that as well. But there is no early church father support for that at all.
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Edgar Lujano
Interesting. All right.
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William Albrecht
Definitely no biblical either.
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Edgar Lujano
Yeah, triple immersion. That's interesting. Yeah. All right. Well, I got nothing else to say on that. Let's move on. Yeah, let's go on. So lines open. Give us a call. 888-318-7884. We're taking your questions on Orthodoxy. So if you're Orthodox, give us a call. William will definitely take your question. If you want a challenge, you're more than welcome to give us a call as long as you do it respectfully here with charity. And also, if you are a Catholic and maybe you've never heard of the Orthodox Church and you want a little clarification, what are these wor that we're using? What is this filioque thing that you're talking about? And it almost seems non important. I don't want to get crushed online for saying that, but I can imagine a new or maybe a baby Catholic or a baby Christian thing that not understanding the theological concepts behind it. So give us a call. 888-31-87884. Let's go to Logan in Huntington Beach, California, watching us on YouTube. Logan, thank you so much for your patience. Go right ahead.
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Logan
Hi, I just had a question. So I, I've been like, kind of like getting over like Protestant apologetics and like, I've kind of like been like studying it for a long time. So I'm kind of over it. So I, I kind of started looking at Orthodoxy and seeing what they're claiming. I'm a Catholic, by the way. I started looking at Orthodoxy and my aunt is Orthodox. So I've heard like, I mean, I've heard, I know of like, Orthodoxy and stuff, and I actually went to an Orthodox divine liturgy and I liked it a lot. But I was, I started looking at it and, and I, I see like a lot of like, YouTubers, like, like Jay Dyer and stuff. I was like, watching their stuff. I was just like, I can't, like, I don't even understand what these guys are saying. Like, they, they're, they're just like light years ahead of like, me, you know? So I was just wondering, is there like any, any. Because they'll bring up stuff like seeing Basil and his argument with like, the Pope and like all these other like, random events, like super duper specific events. But I'm like, oh, yeah, there's no way I'll even mess. Like, I forgot it. I'll forget it the moment I read it. So I was, I was wondering if there's any like, councils or like, Church fathers or like, maybe even some like, apologists or authors I should like, get into because, like, I feel like I don't have like, the historical knowledge to like, combat. Because Jay is like a, I mean, I mean, whether he's wrong or he's right, he knows a lot about like, history and stuff. So it's kind of like hard to.
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Caller/Questioner
Like.
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Logan
Kind of understand his arguments even. But I want to give Orthodoxy, like, a fair Assessment, you know, and same with Catholicism.
- [05:31]
Edgar Lujano
Great.
- [05:32]
William Albrecht
Well, one of these days, if you do get the opportunity to talk to Jay, you let Jay know that William is willing to debate him and Catholic Answers would. Would have no problem hosting that. Be willing to debate him anytime now. In, in. When it comes to Jay Dyer, I do want to warn you, his own clergy and bishops have warned against watching him that he does not represent Eastern Orthodoxy. I want to put that out there. With that being said, there are a lot of great people out there that are Eastern Orthodox. But what do we say in regards to the papacy? Number one, I'd recommend you look at early fathers. My friend Pope Clement of Rome would be one. He is teaching with papal supremacy, writing very early on, probably about 95 or 105 AD. But not only him, you really have to get around Irenaeus of Leone. And an Orthodox really cannot deal with them well, because he tells you that all churches, Ecclesias, all of them have to agree with Rome because Rome has that preeminent authority. And he will then give you a list of all the popes down to his own day, with Rome as the standard. Now, if we look at Irenaeus of Leone, he's the Titan. He was taught by Bishop Polycarp, who was taught and trained by the apostle St. John. That tells you everything. But that is part of the great picture. The bigger picture is look at what the early councils say. And the early ones are massive. The early ones are really, really important because when we look at councils like Nicaea in particular, Canon 6 is a very important one. There are a lot of important things at Nicaea where Rome's jurisdictional primacy is recognized. But then we get to councils like Ephesus 431 and Chalcedon 451. Those are titanic witnesses to the papacy. And why do I bring those up, brother? Well, I bring them up because at those councils, they teach papal supremacy to. We read that the Pope will have successors in his office till the very end. And those are councils that we hold in common with our Eastern friends. At Chalcedon, papal supremacy is right there, front and center. Peter has spoken through Leo. That's a powerful statement there. And that is because the tome of Leo was a shining standard of Orthodoxy for Christology. But then you get to Constantinople 3 and Nicaea too, where very clearly papal infallibility is taught. And these are councils yet again where east and west are united. That is devastating for Eastern Orthodoxy. Now, you mentioned what books would I recommend you read? I'm going to recommend. I I think you told me you're. You're learning. You want to learn a lot. I'm going to recommend two really good books to you. You got to get Joe Heschmeyer's book In the Papacy, number one, and then the other one to deal with issues in Orthodoxy. The late, great Dr. Lakutis wrote a book. He wrote a book in the papacy. I don't remember the name of it. You can look it up on Amazon. It has to do with the Byzantine paper. Byzantine replies. A great book. Dr. Lakutis was a titan for the faith, and he lived a long life defending the faith, and he was one of the very best. Great, great Catholic defender. That is another book I'd recommend. You're going to have two really good books or Joe's book, which will show you how to defend the papacy. And it'll let you know, what is the papacy? Where is it biblical? Where is it in the early church? And then that other book I recommend is gonna show you how to defend it from early church history, particularly against claims from the East.
- [09:07]
Edgar Lujano
How's that, Logan?
- [09:10]
Logan
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Check those out.
- [09:12]
Edgar Lujano
And yeah, yeah, Logan, don't hang up. We actually. So we can't give you the second book, but we'd love to give you the copy of Pope Peter. And with that, I want to throw in Jimmy Akin's the Father the Fathers Know Best. It's a good reference book for you to be able to look through the Church Fathers and what they have to say on various teachings of the Catholic fai. That way you have both of them at hand. So hang on the line and Siobhan will take your information to send those out to you absolutely free. Logan, thank you so much for your question once again. With that, we're gonna go to our first break, and when we come back, we'll take more questions on answering Orthodoxy.
- [09:46]
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- [10:18]
Narrator/Promotional Voice
There is tremendous power in prayer because when we acknowledge that we don't have the power but God does, things then begin to move for our good. Remember Matthew 19:26? But Jesus looked at them and said to them, with men, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. Now that's power.
- [10:58]
Edgar Lujano
Welcome back. Catholic Answers Live. We got a line open. If you got a question, anything about Orthodoxy or if you are Orthodox, you're more than welcome to give us a call, and we'd love to have a conversation with you. That's 888-318-7884. We go over to Guadalupe in Winter Garden, Florida. Listening on the CA Live app. Guadalupe, thank you for your question. Go.
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Logan
Yes, William, I was hoping that you.
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Caller/Questioner
Could help me understand sort of where.
- [11:30]
The Eastern Orthodox broke off from the Catholic origins, I guess you could say. And who, who, if there was like.
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A Martin Luther person that was an.
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Instigator that sort of started and. Or, you know, led the. The process.
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And in particular, sort of like what the.
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William Albrecht
What the key disagreement was. Wow. Yeah. We're going to be here, Edgar.
- [11:56]
Edgar Lujano
I'm sorry.
- [11:56]
William Albrecht
For the next four hours.
- [11:57]
Edgar Lujano
All right, let's go through it. So it started when Islam conquered the West.
- [12:03]
William Albrecht
We love it, man. Great, great question, brother. Now, there are a lot of really clear areas where the. There begins to be fractures, fragmentation and what have you. Can we really pinpoint one thing? Now, the common thing you hear in the online world or on wikipedia would be 1054, the great schism. But, you know, clearly there are issues before that. Can we pinpoint one particular figure? Well, very clearly, even though he. He died reconciled to Rome, Photius would be one particular figure who for a time rejected papal. Papal supremacy and many other things, and even accused the west of heresy. That is one particular figure we can point to early on. Although he died reconciled to Rome, Another one would be Patriarch Michael Cerilarius of Constantinople. That is another figure as well. He famously rejected Latin practices and he even closed Latin churches in Constantinople. That was a big problem. So there, there are a number of areas where, because the east politically didn't like certain prerogatives that the Pope had, because the Pope was the supreme leader, there were a lot of things that the east began to reject. There were many key areas. They began to have issues with. Number one, they began to have issues of papal supremacy. Even though the early fathers and councils laid it out, they on paper seem to agree with it, but then in practice didn't follow through with what they agreed upon. And then issues like the filioqui came up where they didn't like the fact that Rome had the authority to bind certain things on the faithful. It's biblical. Our Lord founded That office. So they had issues with that. They began having issues with the primacy of the pope. And then liturgical differences began to creep in, such as leaven versus unleavened bread and. And even, believe it or not, you're going to laugh at this. But even, you know, even differences in fasting, that became an issue with the east, you know, they didn't like how the west would fast. But really, really, the deep theological root is going to be the papacy. Really, they had a great issue with that. Who would we say? Well, we're Catholic. We're going to believe that. That really the main issue is on their end. Do I think historically we can prove that? I do, because beginning right around the Phocian issues of Fosian schism in the 9th century and then Marco Mark, Michael, Cerilarius in the 11th, and the rejecting of papal authority, that really began the issues of all of those breaks. And eventually it led to a complete fracturing of the body. Now, can we point to one figure that's like a villain? Well, we don't want to paint anyone as a villain here, but we can point to one figure who really prevented reunion because the Catholic Church went out of her way to try to reunite the body for many centuries. And there, at the Council of Florence, which was a failed reunion council, we can point to Mark of Ephesus as being the one holdout that prevented true reunion between east and West. And, well, unfortunately, we haven't come any closer since f. Since the Council of Florence. And that. That really is an unfortunate thing.
- [15:27]
Edgar Lujano
Guadalupe?
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Caller/Questioner
Yeah, no, thank you. That's a great explanation. I appreciate it.
- [15:32]
Edgar Lujano
All right. Yeah. Guadalupe, thank you so much for your call. That was. Man, you can always count on, William to give you a solid explanation. I need to keep you around a little a little longer on here, William. I'll see if we can solidify that. Solidify that in the future. I can't talk today. What's wrong with me?
- [15:48]
William Albrecht
All right, let's do it.
- [15:49]
Edgar Lujano
Let's go to. Is it Aza in Pennsylvania? Did I get that right? Is that.
- [15:55]
Caller/Questioner
You can't say Asa, but that's okay. Nobody gets it right.
- [15:58]
Edgar Lujano
All right, fair enough. All right, go right ahead with your question.
- [16:04]
Caller/Questioner
So for the first 50 years of my life, I was Protestant. Five years ago, I came into the Church, had really wanted, if I was going to have to leave Protestantism, to come in through Orthodoxy, felt clearly that I, you know, the Holy Spirit wouldn't let me honestly do that because of some of the very issues you're talking about. But my question is, how do I wrap my head around or even respond to Orthodox brethren who were once Catholic or something else, but just as strongly feeling that the Holy Spirit told them, you know, that Orthodoxy was the way to go over Catholicism? I'm not talking about people who want to enter a marriage that's on, not condoned by the Church, or who just don't like the birth control issue. I'm talking about people who say very much like I do. You know, I was studying, I was praying, and the Holy Spirit clearly led me, and only they would say, into Orthodoxy and some of them out of Catholicism.
- [16:59]
Edgar Lujano
Yeah.
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William Albrecht
Number one thing I do want to be very clear about, Orthodoxy is beautiful, ancient, sacramentally real. But it is missing the visible center of unity that Christ himself instituted and that is St. Peter's successor, the papacy. It's missing that. What I would do is I tell him, look, perhaps Orthodoxy helped awaken your love for the fathers, for the liturgy, for the sacraments, Praise the Lord for that. But the other thing I would tell them is that God would never lead us into less of what he gave the early church, and that is the way that I would approach him. God would never lead us into less of what he gave the early church. And the early church had a church that looked very different from modern day Eastern Orthodoxy. Their churches are autocephalous. That was not the model in the early church at all. The model of the early church was a hierarchy. We had bishops, we had priests, of course, we had deacons, but we had that head, that visible head. Peter, they don't have that today. And in order for God to have led them to the fullness of the truth, they would be Catholic. Now, one thing I would say is that they need to look at what the early church taught. I don't doubt that many of them have studied. There's no doubt. But I would if I were you.
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Announcer
Believe?
- [18:23]
William Albrecht
Yeah. God led me to Catholicism. He does guide people all the time. We got to put our own part in as well, though. We got to work with God as well in order to do our own research, in order to do our own studying. And I can tell you right now, if we look at the way the early church acted and lived and, you know, reacted, and where was that visible center of unity? It was in Rome. It was in the papacy. And that is how the early church looks everywhere you go. That is how the early church looked, even if it was only a local council. Let me give you a good example. Even if it wasn't an ecumenical One, even local councils, those cannons, even those had to get the stamp of approval from Rome. Well, today that model is very different in Orthodoxy. I would ask your friends what model lines up better with the way the early church looked? And then tell them we're going to rewind a little bit, even more. We're going to go to the book of Acts, chapter 15, where there people are allowed to debate. But Peter is the one that stands up and he is the one that makes the decision. And then James, who is the bishop of that church, stands up and affirms the declaration as Peter. He recognizes the Lord has spoken through Peter and that holy and the Holy Spirit puts the stamp of approval guided that church. What do we then read? One chapter later, Brother, and I want you to point this to your, point this out to your orthodox friends one chapter later. That decree that Peter made is called a dogmata in the Greek. In the Bible, that word for doctrine in English, in Acts 16 is a Greek word, dogmata. It is a dogma. And that dogma was declared by Peter as the head and recognized by the rest of his brother bishops. I dare say that model wouldn't work in modern day Orthodoxy at all.
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Caller/Questioner
Very helpful.
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You did make me come up with another question, not to be difficult at all. Brethren would say that the fact that James affirmed Peter, they would say that in that case, as the local bishop. And I've, I've read this, maybe not heard it by voice, but I've read it multiple times, that that shows that it wasn't just Peter who had the right to have the final say. In fact, because James is the one affirming it, that in this case, because it was in his jurisdiction, he had precedence and primacy over Peter.
- [20:55]
William Albrecht
Yeah. So the one important thing to do is to actually read the text. The one other thing that we need to also know is what is the doctrine of the papacy? Is the doctrine of the papacy that Peter is the only one that will speak and that nobody else will speak after? That is not the doctrine at all. In fact, very often there are people that speak after Peter and they confirm that Peter has laid out the authority. In particular, I refer to Chalcedon, where bishops confirm the doctrine laid forth by the Pope. So whether or not James spoke last or whenever he spoke, it doesn't make any difference because Acts 15, 7, 11 says Peter rises after much debate, he stood up and he ended the debate. He tells you right there, we believe that we shall be saved to the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will now, as you Know very well. They're debating whether or not new converts into the Church need to continue to be circumcised. And Peter ends that after a long and heated debate. Then they all fall silent. But the important thing is, what does Peter tell the crowd? God made choice among you that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the Gospel. He uses binding language. Why do you put God to the test? We believe. Notice that just like all those later papal documents and teachings, he is speaking for the Church. We believe. But then notice you're right, James does speak afterwards. But what does he say? Verse 14, Simeon. Peter has declared. The key word is declared. He is confirming Peter has made the declaration. He doesn't correct Peter. He doesn't override Peter. All he does is affirm. Simeon has declared. That is an authoritative declaration already made. What he does is stand up and say, yeah, Peter is his declared. Simeon has done it. That was his church. He was the Bishop of Jerusalem. And that right there shows you the papacy in action. But another thing, I would point to your Orthodox friends. If they tell you, well, I don't agree with your reading. Well, then read them the great commentaries on Acts 15 from the Greek Fathers. The Greek Fathers agree with our reading. Read them John Chrysostom in his homilies on Acts, his reading agrees that Peter was the leader. He was the leader of the band. All we got to do is go to their very own Greek fathers that they hold high in esteem. They don't read these verses the way modern day Orthodox do. They read them the way the Catholics do.
- [23:38]
Caller/Questioner
Okay, thank you. The that specific answer is very helpful. And the broader answer is. Is equally helpful. That's part of what again led me out of Protestantism is because it looks less and less and less like the early Church. And that's. Yes, that's how the church, in my estimation, is. Is becoming.
- [23:56]
William Albrecht
Praise the Lord. We really do want you to be. We want you to be home, brother. Definitely be praying for you.
- [24:02]
Caller/Questioner
Oh, I am sorry. I've been home for five years.
- [24:04]
Edgar Lujano
Oh, beautiful.
- [24:05]
William Albrecht
Oh, praise God. Praise God.
- [24:06]
Edgar Lujano
All right, we'll come on knocking on the door and well, welcome home. It's still five years. Is still a young Catholic, so welcome home. Isa. It's always good to have new converts into the faith. Yes. And I say five years is still a new convert. So we're doing answering Orthodoxy with William Alprecht. Lines are full. So I'm not going to give the phone out because it seems like people are hungry for this kind of content. And we are here to deliver that. Now, before we go to the final break, I wanted to ask you something that came to mind as we were talking and reflecting on the question about the filioque. So when I think back of the Catholic Church and the different rites that we have, if you go to a Byzantine Catholic church, an Eastern rite Catholic church, they don't say the filioque, but that's not a, that's not condemning the filioque. Can you explain a little bit about that?
- [25:01]
William Albrecht
That is a very, very good point. And do we have maybe a minute or two before we go to the.
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Edgar Lujano
We have about a minute, yeah.
- [25:06]
William Albrecht
Good. Now, for people wonder what is a filioqui, guys? It means and the Son, we believe the Holy Spirit in Catholicism proceeds from the Father and the Son. But you make a very good point there. Well, William and Edgar, I went to a Byzantine liturgy, to a Byzantine Catholic liturgy, and they they don't say the filioque. Do they deny it? No, they don't deny it. Why don't they have it? Only because they preserve the Greek form of the creed. Eastern liturgies are using the original Greek from Constantinople381, which didn't contain the filioquy. But they're united arome. They teach the filioqui. They recognize it as biblical, they recognize it as ancient, they affirm it because they're united to the Catholic Church, but they're merely using the Greek form which doesn't have it.
- [25:53]
Edgar Lujano
Omitting it is not condemning it. So keep that in mind. All right. When we come back, more questions or more answers to Orthodoxy from the Catholic perspective. And we'll see you back. We'll see you here in a few minutes. Go take a break and we'll be right back.
- [26:15]
Narrator/Promotional Voice
What is the Catholic Church? Everyone seems to have an opinion, but the church never quite fits into the boxes people make for it. In the Faith Unboxed, author Andrew Petaprin looks at some of the most common boxes people put the Catholic Church in and explains why they don't fit in. Doing so, he brings us closer to what the church really the institution founded by Christ. Order the Faith unbox today@shop.catholic.com or ask for it at a good Catholic bookstore near you.
- [26:45]
Announcer
We hope that one of the things that we communicate here at Catholic Answers Live is that our Catholic faith allows us to be fully serious about all the problems with we encounter in the church and in the world. But it also lets us have light hearts and maybe even mix in a bit of fun. And that is exactly what our good friend Joe Heschmeyer does in his popular podcast Shameless Potpourri. You should check it out@shelessjoe.com Joe's got a deep grasp of the faith, morals, the teachings of the church, all that, but he's also got a witty conversational style. He entertains and he informs, but you will leave equipped to to better answer the most common challenges, misconceptions and questions about the Catholic faith. He's got insightful guests, he does on air debates, and he takes a close look into all the things that you want to know about as a Catholic living today. You'll walk away knowledgeable and filled with joy. Look for Joe on his YouTube channel. Check him out@shelessjoe.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you hear, become a patron.
- [27:45]
Narrator/Promotional Voice
The stigmata, the appearance of Christ's wounds on ordinary believers. Is it real or fake? What's the evidence? And if real, what could God's reason be for causing this? In God's Wounds, author John Clark offers what may be the most thorough, honest and faithful reckoning with the stigmata ever written, examining the evidence and making sense of it both medically and spiritually. Order God's wounds today@shop.catholic.com or ask for it at a good Catholic bookstore.
- [28:17]
William Albrecht
Matt Swaim here. Tomorrow on the Sunrise Morning show, we'll discuss an upcoming conference for Catholic medical professionals through the University of Mary. Plus news, weather, sports and more. Now back to CATHOLIC Answers Live.
- [28:41]
Edgar Lujano
Welcome back. CATHOLIC Answers Live. Edgar Lujano filling in for Cy Kellett. I'm the producer for the show and when Cy says I'm gonna go fishing, then I get to fill in. So is he going fishing? I don't really know. All I know is that he's not in today. All right. With that, we're gonna continue the questions and like I said, lines are full so I won't get the number out. We're going to Chris in Man, these pronunciations. Niskayuna, New York listening on 1460. Chris, go right ahead.
- [29:10]
Caller/Questioner
Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking the call. I have a question on the sacrament of marriage. If it's the same in the Orthodox and how do they deal with things like divorce and annulments?
- [29:29]
William Albrecht
Yeah, great question. And the really good one. Now I want to be very fair. It really does vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Remember that Orthodox churches are autocephalous and there are different jurisdictions, but typically it doesn't matter what jurisdiction you are referring to. They generally do allow up to two additional marriages. Now, that might be a shocking for Catholics because they're not used to hearing that, but the typical Orthodox practice is to allow up to at least two additional marriages. In fact, even a third one is possible. But the third one, we want to be very clear, is strongly discouraged, very, very strongly urged against. Now, as a Catholic, we would clearly say this is not the teaching of the early Church and not the teaching of Christ at all. Now, we're not going to get into the whole issue of the right R I T e used for second marriages or anything like that, but it is definitely possible. Multiple marriages are possible. And, and the other thing is, within Orthodoxy, there is no, there is no annulment process. You're not going to find any kind of process like an annulment. Rather, the Orthodox Church, if they, if they declare that a first marriage was sacramentally valid, they're going to still allow for divorce and remarriage. So the first marriage they're going to, they're not going to look into it to see, okay, was it valid, was, was it not. They're going to assume that the first marriage is valid and they'll likely grant a divorce. Under a very unusual circumstance, they won't. But usually they will grant a divorce and then they will very likely bless the second marriage. They'll strongly discourage a third one. But I know accounts of third marriages as well, which have been blessed. From the Catholic point of view, we, we definitely, we do not approve this.
- [31:25]
Edgar Lujano
Chris.
- [31:26]
Caller/Questioner
Oh, how does that impact mixed marriages? In a.
- [31:33]
William Albrecht
No, in the sun, in the, in the sense of. What, what do you mean?
- [31:41]
Caller/Questioner
Well, say a Catholic marries an Orthodox.
- [31:44]
William Albrecht
Oh, okay, okay.
- [31:45]
Caller/Questioner
Down the road, the, you know, the Orthodox is, you know, if, from their perspective.
- [31:51]
William Albrecht
I get you. Okay, I didn't understand what you meant to. Yeah, yeah. So a Catholic marrying an Orthodox, that of course would definitely impact it greatly because if, if Orthodox, if they allow second and even third marriages, well, then Catholic teaching is very clear and it is a non negotiable that if there is a prior valid marriage, you cannot marry someone else unless that first marriage is declared null. Whereas within Orthodoxy, a person may receive a church divorce and get remarried and they believe that they are rightly free to marry again. But from a Catholic perspective, if the first marriage is still valid, well, then to be quite plain and clear, the Church recognizes that the Orthodox spouse still married to their first partner and they cannot marry, they cannot, excuse me, they cannot validly marry the Catholic. So in any, any attempt to, to do a kind of marriage would be invalid. And any kind of, you know, any kind of conjugal act within the marriage would be viewed as adultery. So that it could definitely cause problems. There's no doubt about that. Because Catholicism, to be very clear, cannot recognize an Orthodox Church divorce the same way that it cannot recognize civil divorce. So the couple might think that they're free in the sense of free to get married again, but the Catholic Church sees one spouse is still married, and that. That is non negotiable Catholic teaching.
- [33:22]
Caller/Questioner
Thank you very much.
- [33:23]
Edgar Lujano
You're very welcome, Chris.
- [33:24]
William Albrecht
Absolutely.
- [33:25]
Edgar Lujano
Thank you so much for your question. We go over to Dan. He's driving through Illinois. Dan, welcome to the show.
- [33:32]
Caller/Questioner
Hello. Can you hear me?
- [33:33]
Edgar Lujano
Loud and clear. Would you mind taking us off a speakerphone? I can hear a little bit of feedback.
- [33:37]
Caller/Questioner
Yes, sorry about that.
- [33:39]
Sorry about that.
- [33:40]
You're actually on my Bluetooth.
- [33:43]
Edgar Lujano
All right, this is me better now. A lot better. Go right ahead.
- [33:47]
Caller/Questioner
Okay, excellent.
- [33:48]
Edgar Lujano
Yes.
- [33:48]
Caller/Questioner
So I was a Protestant. I became Catholic 25 years or so ago. And my brother kind of goes to his own self, church of his own. But his son.
- [34:04]
Edgar Lujano
Oh, Dan, I think we lost you.
- [34:06]
William Albrecht
Yeah, he broke up there.
- [34:07]
Caller/Questioner
No, can you hear me?
- [34:09]
William Albrecht
Oh, that went back to Bluetooth. I think.
- [34:10]
Edgar Lujano
I think you got. I think your Bluetooth's back connected again.
- [34:15]
Caller/Questioner
Okay, is this, Is this not good?
- [34:17]
Edgar Lujano
That'll work. That's perfectly fine. Go right ahead and continue with your question.
- [34:20]
Caller/Questioner
Okay, so I'll just cut to my question. Given the deep wound of the division between the Catholic and the Orthodox, why don't both churches just call a joint council with a period of, like, preparation and fasting and then on like Pentecost, just like the apostles did invoke the Holy Spirit together across all the parishes across the world. And at this council. And instead of relying on the. The human aspect of this to come to a solution.
- [34:49]
William Albrecht
That really does sound. Yeah, and I'm gonna applaud you there. That really does sound very, very wonderful. But it's a little bit more difficult than that. I'm going to tell you why you are approaching Orthodoxy from the perspective of unity. And there is no unity even within Orthodoxy because Orthodoxy itself is fractured deeply now. It is impossible to say, well, we're going to gather Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Well, which version of Orthodoxy? Russian Orthodoxy, Greek Orthodoxy? They're not united because within Orthodoxy itself, you have Russian Orthodoxy condemning Constantinople. And back and forth, they go back and forth there. You have Ukrainian schisms. You have the famous old calendar versus new calendar issue. You've got many overlapping jurisdictional Issues you have disputes over primacy within their own. Within their own groups. And there, there's, here's the other problem. What version of Orthodoxy? Many of them don't believe there's been a valid council since Nicaea, too. And then others think the Phocian ones are valid, and then others deny the Phocian was revolid. And then others, I think you get the point, they don't have a final authority to say, okay, we are Orthodoxy and we're coming to the table to reunite with Rome. That is the issue. The great amount of fracturing. There is no one flavor of Eastern Orthodoxy. So it becomes a little bit more difficult. I think that Pope Leo and before him Francis, and of course before him, Benedict and St. John Paul II, I think, have done, made great strides towards hopeful unity. But that hopeful unity is one that we need to pray for and we need to hope the Holy Spirit helps with that fragmentation, because it is a difficult picture. But then we need to realize Orthodoxy is greatly fractured. If anybody ever tells you, well, Orthodoxy is the truth over Catholicism, which flavor of it, there are many different fractured groups within it.
- [36:59]
Caller/Questioner
I don't have a response.
- [37:01]
Edgar Lujano
All right. All right. Well, thank you for your call, Dan. That's, you know, that's an interesting question, William. Yes. Let me ask you. So where did the Orthodox play into in the most recent councils? Were they invited or what did that look like? Especially Vatican II and Vatican one.
- [37:18]
William Albrecht
Yeah. Well, unfortunately, the relations that we had with the Orthodox at Vatican I and Vatican II were not as good as they are now. They are much better known to where various patriarchs of theirs are in regular dialogue with bishops within Catholicism, with the pope. And not long ago, multiple Orthodox patriarchs flat out said, there's no need to be divided anymore. And I truly do pray for that day of unity. Do I think unity is possible? I do. I really do think it is. And the wonderful thing is not only in Eastern Orthodoxy, but in Oriental Orthodoxy, there are plans to meet up again at the anniversary of Nicaea, by the way, Nicaea1, there are plans to meet up and dialogue over various different issues. Now, what are the issues on the table of. The papacy is always going to be there, but for our Oriental friends, they want a dialogue about Christology and they want a dialogue about other things as well. I think a lot of things are on the table. I think we can come to a healthy agreement on a lot of them. And we got to really pray, though. We got to pray for unity because it really is an unfortunate thing that the body is the body is fractured right now?
- [38:31]
Edgar Lujano
Yeah. Wouldn't it be beautiful if at the anniversary of Nicaea there would be a unification? I mean, talk about a miracle. But it's, it would be an incredible thing. Anyways, well, I'm going to take the final break and then we'll go through. We'll go through the final questions right here on Catholic Answers Live.
- [38:54]
William Albrecht
It's all about the truth. Catholic Answers Live.
- [38:59]
Edgar Lujano
Underwriting for Catholic Answers Live is provided by Real Estate for Life. Real Estate for Life connects home buyers and sellers to real estate agents while supporting pro life work organizations. On the web@realestateforlife.org.
- [39:13]
Narrator/Promotional Voice
The wisdom of Mother Angelica. You know, I have never seen women who want to be equal, absolutely degrading themselves. And yet the media degrades your nature, your beauty as a woman, your goodness.
- [39:29]
William Albrecht
Let us pray.
- [39:30]
Narrator/Promotional Voice
At some point, I, dear Lord, touch and their hearts. For more information on Mother Angelica, visit Religious Catalog at ewtnrc.com the Catechism defines.
- [39:43]
Announcer
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- [40:21]
Edgar Lujano
And back to the phones we go. For more questions and more answering Orthodox. See? Let's go to. Let's go to Nick. Yeah, there we go. Let's go to Nick in California. Watching this on YouTube. Nick, thank you so much for your patience. Go right ahead.
- [40:39]
Caller/Questioner
Yes, can you hear me?
- [40:40]
Edgar Lujano
Loud and clear, my friend. Go ahead.
- [40:42]
Caller/Questioner
Okay, if I'm a Catholic and I go to an Eastern Orthodox Church, can I take communion?
- [40:52]
William Albrecht
Ordinarily, you're going to want to take communion at a Catholic church. And ordinarily you would not go to take communion at an Orthodox church unless there was no possible way to attend a Catholic parish. And I can give you multiple examples. One wild example that I always use would be, well, number one, in Russia, it could be difficult to find a Catholic church. So you could definitely attend an Orthodox church. Give you a wild example. What if you're in the middle of the desert, you got to fulfill your, your obligation, and there's only an Orthodox church nearby? Well, then you are allowed. Now you may receive. But here's the other thing. Will they give you communion. I mean, maybe they don't know. Or if they do know, they may prohibit you. The answer usually is no on their end. If they allow it, then great. But usually if they know you're Catholic, they're not going to give you communion. Are you allowed? Under special circumstances, yes, you are. If you go up to receive communion, it's possible the orthodox priest will refuse or he may ask you to in a gentle way to step aside. That is also possible. The other thing is if, if you are simply attending, that is no problem. That is permitted. In fact, the church encourages participating. But ordinarily, ordinarily, unless there is no church nearby, you're going to want to attend a Catholic church for Mass.
- [42:27]
Edgar Lujano
How's that, Nick?
- [42:29]
Caller/Questioner
Yes, that helps very much.
- [42:31]
Logan
Thank you, William.
- [42:32]
Edgar Lujano
All right. Thank you, Nick.
- [42:33]
William Albrecht
Absolutely.
- [42:33]
Edgar Lujano
All right. Let's go over to Derek in Indiana, listening on, watching us on catholic dot com. Derek, you are on the air. Go right ahead.
- [42:42]
Caller/Questioner
If I aren't out, would it affect my salvation if I did not believe in the Pope or if I did believe it in them?
- [42:50]
William Albrecht
Either way, yeah, definitely. What if you don't? If you effectively reject anything that the Catholic Church teaches, it definitely does matter. Because within Catholicism, we believe that our Lord established one church, not many. And we believe that our Lord founded a visible church built on Peter. And that visible church has a visible structure, visible unity, a sacramental priesthood, a living, breathing teaching authority, which is what we commonly call, what you commonly hear as the Magisterium. So the Church from the beginning has been known as the Catholic Church. So rejecting that divinely instituted office is rejecting something that Jesus himself founded. That is in the Bible itself. And, well, very clearly the Church teaches that. Well, the Catholic Church is necessary under the normative sense, necessary for salvation. Outside the church, there is no salvation. Now, that doesn't mean every non Catholic is going to go to hell. No, it doesn't mean that. It means that if anyone is going to be saved, they are saved because of Christ's grace, which as, as the church has always taught, which flows through the church whether they know it or not. But yeah, it's very important to believe what the church teaches, everything the church teaches.
- [44:15]
Caller/Questioner
Derek, thank you very much.
- [44:17]
Edgar Lujano
All right. Thank you so much, Derek. We're flying through to the questions, which means we might actually get to your call if you have a question. There are lines open, so go ahead and give us a call. 888-318-7884. That's 88 31. Truth. Let's go to Jonathan in Baltimore, Maryland, watching us on YouTube. Jonathan, go ahead.
- [44:37]
Caller/Questioner
Hey guys. I had been about the past year or so discerning between either some branch of Orthodoxy and Catholicism and pretty quickly came to the conclusion of Catholicism. And I go down my list of things coming from Protestantism, you know, okay, the Pope. And I can see that, yep, I agree with that. Okay, the Marian dogmas, I agree with that and sort of go down the list and you know, I'm 99.9% of the way there, but I watch a lot of these YouTube videos, like the young man earlier had said, you know, your different diaries, your other people and your, your apologetic videos from the Catholic side and the other side. And it seems, it seems to me in the hundreds of hours I'm put into it over the course of so long, a lot of their stuff is just in opposition to Catholic beliefs. And one thing that I just, I can't understand or grasp and I don't think it's because I'm a dummy. I just, it almost sounds like it's, they're, they're pushing it too hard is like something like the essence energy distinction versus simplicity of God. And I watch these videos and I watch you, William. I watch a lot of you guys and I can't even wrap my head around it. And it almost leads me to believe like are they purposefully obfuscating it just to be different? And then number two to that question would be what does the Catholic Church think of these things? Because we want to be similar with them, but they're trying very hard to be different. Do we think that they're just wrong? Do we think that they are purposefully obfuscating to be different? Like what's.
- [46:09]
William Albrecht
Well, let me tell you this and by the way, thank you for watching and tuning in. Let me make one particular point when talking about the Essence Energies distinction. The online people on the ortho bro world are not going to be the people that you want to tune into. They're going to make you believe that if you do not believe in the Essence Energies distinction from the palamite point of view, that you're separated from the Church. Now I had the wonderful, the wonderful privilege years back of spectating and being part of helping, moderating and set up a debate between two phenomenal scholars, Dr. Gough, who is a Catholic titan, and Dr. Bradshaw, who is an Eastern Orthodox Titan. At the end of the debate, Dr. Gough asked him, is this a church breaking doctrine to where if we don't agree with it, that there is no unity at all their own scholar admitted that it was not. So that shows you that the online ortho bro community are not good representatives at all. But an issue of the Essence Energies distinction. You're not going to find a lot of positive statements for me from the Palamite point of view. Now, I've done a lot of work. If you've watched me, you know, I've done a lot of work on on this, in this area. And I believe the Palomate view of the Essence Energies distinction greatly differs from the Cappadocian view. They claim that the Cappadocian view is what Palomas adopted in the Essence Energies distinction. And I think that it couldn't be further from the truth. Now, what is the Essence Energies now? We could do a whole show on it. Maybe one day we will. ESSENCE it means God's essence is utterly transcendent. That's usia. God's energies Energeia are his real operations. That is pretty much what it is in a nutshell. Does Catholicism condemn it? No. But we need to make it work with divine simplicity because that is biblical. That is what is taught by the early church as well. Are we able to do that? The answer is yes, we can. Because in Catholicism we can accept diversion that does work with particular clarifications. What would those clarifications be? Number one, God is absolutely simple. There is no real distinction in God between his essence and attributes. We need to lay that out. And we need to point out that grace is a created participation in the divine life. Many of them deny that, but that is biblical. And we need to show that we really, truly participate in God. Second Peter tells you that many of them deny that. And we need to recognize that God's operations, his activities are really God. But the ways they exist in us are created effects. So as long as we can agree upon those issues, we can make the Essence Energies distinction work. But don't break your head on it. It should not bother you much. This is not a church breaking issue.
- [49:07]
Edgar Lujano
Jonathan.
- [49:07]
Caller/Questioner
Okay, good deal.
- [49:09]
Appreciate that explanation. Thank you, William.
- [49:11]
William Albrecht
Definitely. God bless you.
- [49:12]
Edgar Lujano
Thanks, Jonathan. With we go from Baltimore to Fresno. Daniel watching us on YouTube. Daniel, go right ahead. Daniel, are you there?
- [49:25]
William Albrecht
Yeah.
- [49:26]
Caller/Questioner
Can you hear me?
- [49:26]
Edgar Lujano
Yep. Go right ahead.
- [49:28]
Caller/Questioner
Hey, William, Good to hear from you.
- [49:31]
William Albrecht
How you doing, brother?
- [49:32]
Caller/Questioner
Watching you? Yeah, doing great. So, yeah, I am Mexican, Italian and Armenian and I'm actually going to become the church this Easter vigil.
- [49:44]
Edgar Lujano
Beautiful.
- [49:45]
Caller/Questioner
Grew up Assemblies of God. Got a Biblical theological studies degree at a Mennonite seminary. So plethora of things wow.
- [49:57]
Kind of just felt the whole gambit.
- [49:59]
Edgar Lujano
Here we go.
- [50:00]
William Albrecht
There you go.
- [50:00]
Edgar Lujano
I know.
- [50:01]
Caller/Questioner
Right? And so.
- [50:03]
Yeah.
- [50:03]
No, I'm just really grateful for you and Sam. Just.
- [50:08]
William Albrecht
Yeah.
- [50:08]
Caller/Questioner
Just ask the Lord to continue to direct me and to do that slowly and, like, deliberately so. The question I had was more so on the Armenian Apostolic Church and just the history of that. Just want to know more about it. I know that there was a break in the four hundreds, and I believe they're back in communion with Rome, but just wanted to see. Yeah, like what. What information you had on that, if any.
- [50:38]
William Albrecht
Yeah, yeah, you brought up a great point there. Originally, they were not separate. Now, I'm glad that you brought up the break in the four hundreds. As you know very well, if you've done the research, that break is after Chalcedon. And. And what happens? Well, we know very well that the Armenian bishops were not able to attend the council during the particular time. There were wars that were happening in very various parts of the world, and they were unable to attend in particular because Persia was threatening to invade. Now, there are more details. Of course, it would take up one, you know, a complete whole show to talk about them all. But the other thing that is interesting, and I know it because I've got a near and dear brother who has. Loves the. The traditions. So I don't know if, you know, if you looked at. There have been many. There were before reunion, there were medieval attempts multiple times as well. Unfortunately, those medieval attempts failed, but eventually it did become united in communion with Rome, and that occurred in the 1700s. Now, in terms of today. Today, yes, they remain in full communion with. In Catholicism, there are many Armenian Catholics. And that is a beautiful thing. We would refer to that as very clearly a beautiful rite R I T E within the Catholic Church. One of the Wonderful 23. One of the Wonderful 23 Eastern Catholic churches. That's a beautiful thing. It's just full communion with Rome.
- [52:02]
Caller/Questioner
Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Yeah, the tidbit. I'll look into more.
- [52:07]
Edgar Lujano
Sounds good. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you for your question. Let's go over to Alfredo here in California. If you can be quick, we can get you an answer. Alfredo.
- [52:16]
Caller/Questioner
Hello.
- [52:17]
Edgar Lujano
Yeah, go right ahead.
- [52:19]
Caller/Questioner
Hi. So, yeah, I was calling to ask, I guess, to see if maybe you guys see a similarity in the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholic Church when it comes to, I guess, bishops or even patriarchs, and in our case, the pope, when certain behaviors happen, it seems that in Eastern Orthodox they just say, well, you know, our patriarchs, our bishops aren't infallible and we don't claim that, Bishop. Now, I see that happening on the Catholic side. When the Pope does something and they say, well, it's not a magisterium teaching, would you say there's some similarities there? And if not, then what. What would you say are some of the differences?
- [53:12]
William Albrecht
Yeah. Now, within Orthodoxy, I've seen it very often in the online realm, where many of these online ortho bro people, when they attack particular Catholic teachings and then they find out that their own church teaches the very same thing, their reply is usually, well, we don't have to believe that because our bishop is not infallible. I think they're really misunderstanding what infallibility is, because if they're going to be united to a church that is teaching things differently than they're viewing them and they are condemning their own leaders, that's a big problem. Now, the Orthodox don't have any visible infallible authority. There is indefectibility, but there are no definable infallible teachings. There's no. There's not an infallible teaching organization. And that is a big problem there. Now, within Catholicism, is there that same kind of response? Well, it depends who you encounter. But the fact of the matter is not every single thing that comes out of the Pope's mouth is infallible. You know, a lot of the times the Pope is speaking his own opinion, and that is. That is the truth of the faith. I think they very often misunderstand Catholic teaching.
- [54:26]
Edgar Lujano
Alfredo, thank you so much for your question and for being quick there. We're gonna have to end it there because it's the end of the show, William. I don't know how two hours flew by. That was too quick, man.
- [54:36]
William Albrecht
I thought it barely began. It's already over, man. I had a great time.
- [54:39]
Edgar Lujano
I would say let's do another two hours, but I do got to get home, so maybe next time, William. All right, brother, always great to do a show with you. We'll definitely have you on again.
- [54:47]
William Albrecht
Can't wait to be back, Brother.
- [54:48]
Edgar Lujano
Amen. All right, well, that's going to do it for us. Today you had me tomorrow, and the next couple of days, you're going to have Thomas on the show. So hang in there. And then you'll finish off the week strong with psy at the last two days, so hang in there. It was good being here with you guys, and that's going to do it for us. We'll see you next time right here, God willing, on Catholic Answers Live.