The Orthodox Mind

Yvonne Lorenzo proposes to demote the Bishop of Rome. She argues that Gregory "the Great" (AD 590-604) never claimed superiority to Constantinople's Patriarchs.

I'd interject: as a matter of political history, we can extend Lorenzo's argument. Take Roman Bishop Martin (649-655), the Confessor. Martin, faced with the Monotheletism of his predecessor Honorius and the tolerance which Emperor Constans II was decreeing, did not issue the contrary from the Cathedra. Martin convoked a synod to the Lateran. That synod found for Dyotheletism against the Emperor. The Emperor, for Martin's role in this, deposed and imprisoned the bishop.

In those days, the Emperor held that authority. The historian must say "Roman Bishop" rather than "Pope" because the Bishop was an appointee. Italy came under the Exarchate of Ravenna, itself an appointment - from Constantinople.

This "Byzantine Papacy" ended in the eighth century, however. Charles King of the Franks, seeking a revolution in Christendom and in its political thought, called upon the independent Bishop Leo III. Together they created the model by which Catholic states and their Protestant successors came to dominate this planet. "The Vatican", as the suite of buildings around Saint Peter's Basilica, now had meaning. (Beforehand, although there did exist a Vatican palace, the bishops inhabited - as I hinted - the Lateran; I vaguely recall they ruled from the Palatine also, but as intermittent agents of Ravenna this could be moot.) Leo III had become the West's Pope.

Lorenzo holds that, following Charles and Leo, this intellectual schism has held firm unto the Fourth Crusade and beyond:

Unlike those in the West, Orthodox thinkers have never thought in Cartesian terms; while the Western theologian might begin by assuming God does not exist—or nothing exists—and then proceed in an attempt to establish His existence and the created world, instead the Byzantine scholar worked [from] the assumption of the existence of God and his creation, “basing his intellectual observations on this a priori assumption.”

As an argument, this vision of Christianity is circular and, therefore, dead. But that much is obvious. I'd rather talk about how Lorenzo got here.

If I read this right: "theology" exists in Western Christendom, and not in the East. Lorenzo agrees with the nineteenth-century Orientalists that the Orient does not reason about God. Not even its Christians, not even the Greeks. Reilly's Closing of the Muslim Mind preceded Islam by centuries in those lands.

And indeed Lorenzo's interpretation of Christianity has no intellectual defence against Islam. Why couldn't an all-wise and ineffable God change His mind - or, if you prefer, change His actions upon this His creation? I observe that Orthodoxy couldn't argue against Zoroastrianism either. Byzantine Christian argument devolved into militancy: witness the Christ-as-miles motif in sixth-century Ravenna (I remind you: a Byzantine colony) and then George of Pisidia. (Lorenzo asserts the Church Militant as a Western innovation because I dunno.)

Roman Bishop Martin and then the third Leo, by the will of God, insisted on the Dyothelete theology and put it into practice, respectively. From the a priori assumption that Martin couldn't claim the title "Pope", the Catholic discovers that Martin was nonetheless God's vicar, against the opposition of the greatest powers of his world. Martin is no longer a bishop but is forever a Saint, a rank far more exalted. The Catholic sees the work of Divine Providence and thanks Him for His gift of reason.

For Lorenzo, all the Catholic can do is pray that she too comes to use the gift of reason, which God offers to the Greeks as well, if they'll only accept it.

LAST WORD 1/1/2021: I've returned to Lorenzo's post. The comments petered out in August. Technically I have penultimate word as of now, not last; but that subsequent word also rebuts Lorenzo to no response. I'm claiming victory - at least over Lorenzo, who is a maskless moron as well. "Orthodoxy" needs a better champion at Unz if we're to take it seriously.