Pints With Aquinas - 234: Should We Become Eastern Orthodox? W/ Erick Ybarra

Episode Date: December 1, 2020

I'm joined by Erick Ybarra (bio below) to discuss Eastern Orthodoxy. We'll spend at least 30 min taking questions from SUPER CHATTERS and PATRONS (Patrons, ask here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44303644) Check out Erick's website - https://erickybarra.org/ SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

Hello, hello, and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd, and I am bloody well thrilled to have Eric Ibarra on the show today. The two of us are going to discuss whether or not we should become Eastern Orthodox. I think you probably know the answer by now, but we're going to be sharing with you why we won't be in all love and charity. It's so great to have you here. Thank you for being here. You can probably see this bottle of beer here. I hope you've got a drink. It's going to be fun. I first came across Eric. He was doing a Reason and Theology debate with, remind me his name, Jay Dyer. We'll talk a little bit about that as well. So I just had to have him on the show to discuss this. This is

going to be fantastic. This is the first video I've ever recorded where we have had, I've been ratioed. I've got 71 thumbs up and 165 thumbs down, and I've just clicked record. That's very impressive. So congratulations to everybody who did that. If you do like this, if you are into open discussions with people who disagree with you, give us a thumbs up. See if we can offset the haters. Look, before we do anything else, I need to say thank you. I don't need to, but I'm going. Halo is a Catholic prayer app.

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by using the promo code Matt Fradd. Click the link below. Either way, download the app. It's really good. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. Let's see. Eric, where are you?

Yes. Did your microphone, did your, there you are. It's good to have you. Sorry about that. No problem at all. How are you, my friend? I'm doing great. Thank you so much, Matt, for having me on. I'm very grateful to be here. Now, as I open my beer, tell our listeners a little bit about who you are and that kind of thing. Yeah. Speaking of which, I have my own beer open. It's a Wisconsin New Galeris Coffee Stout. Oh, that's cool. We're both drinking stouts. I'm drinking the Milk Stout Nitro. There you go. So, yeah. Oh, I don't have a cup. I'm drinking right out of the bottle. I'm going to send you a pint with Aquinas beer, Stone.

Your life will never be the same. So, yeah. So, you know, Matt invited me on here to talk about Eastern Orthodoxy. It's been a subject of great interest to me for years. I was, you know, a little bit of background here. I was raised in a Roman Catholic household, quickly descended into atheism as I hit my teens. When I entered university as an atheist, I had a powerful encounter with Jesus Christ through the evangelistic outreach of a Reformed Baptist church. And so I entered into the Reformed Baptist Church and was in the Protestant world

for years. Eventually crossed the horizon, you know, sat down with Lutheran clergy and eventually found a happy home in the Anglican Church, high-end, high-church Anglican tradition. high church Anglican tradition. And while I was there, I was able to study comfortably into the Christian past, and inevitably, Catholicism and Orthodoxy came into view. And so I joined online forums, spoke a lot with Anglican priests, Catholic theologians, and eventually decided to come back to the Catholic Church of my youth. Of course, it was like a conversion for me because I didn't really have any volitional participation when I was growing up. But orthodoxy was still there, and I never really satisfied my study of it. So I always told the Lord that I would continue studying orthodoxy, and I really have never put the study of it down. And so it's been part of my research for a long time. So I reverted into the Catholic Church in 2013,

and since then I've been on and off in public venues, radio shows, and my blog, ericubar.org, talking about various things related to Orthodoxy. And then eventually, we started Reason and Theology, Michael Lofton and I. And it's kind of a cornerstone of our show where we deal with the Eastern tradition, and not just the Chalcedonian East, but even the Oriental Orthodox and the various other ones. And so that brings me here. So when you were a Protestant and you were looking into Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, what was it that was attracting you to Eastern Orthodoxy? Because as an Anglican, our idea was the canon of St. Vincent, which says that is true, which has been believed by everyone at all times and all places. Well, there's some Catholic teachings that you really have to stick your neck out to forbear with in the face of that.

At least it can seem that way from the outside and orthodoxy comes as a sort of less less complicated less complex tradition that comes with continuity it comes with know, a good track record of fighting against modernity. And it really, it's just parlance now. I mean, the undivided church of the first millennium, it kind of makes you wonder what actually happened that made that schism in 1054 symbolically dated anyway. Yeah, I have a great love for our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters. I myself attend a Byzantine Catholic church. My wife and I used to live up the road from a Russian Eastern Orthodox church and would go there on our date nights just to stand before the icons and to pray and to venerate them and love the priest there.

So, you know, I think it's probably helpful that we begin by talking about our love and our reverence for our brothers and sisters in the Orthodox churches. This is not at all, you know, an episode about, you know, I mean, obviously we have differences with them, but it's in love, yeah? Absolutely, yeah. I have a lot of Eastern Orthodox friends on the outside, and I've had nothing but respect for them. And, you know, my wife is very close to a matushka. They talk daily. That's a wife of an Orthodox priest. And so in our home, we invite them in. I mean,

I would love to host Orthodox here and have Orthodox friendships online, in person, wherever. And I think it takes time to really get to the point where you could talk about the more difficult disagreements and still maintain a strong relationship, at least one where you can both realize that, okay, we have some dogmatic differences here, but at the same time, it's not going to really help us to just say, you're a heretic, and orthodoxy or death, you're a heretic. There's got to be some way to have a communication. You know, I think right now it's no secret that we're living through a somewhat turbulent time in the Catholic Church, and I think there are a number of Catholics who are looking to orthodoxy with some hope, because in a way, it sort of seems like the beauty of tradition

without the baggage of certain things that we may want to discard. And just personally, I don't know how representative this is or not, but I would imagine if you were to ask a lot of practicing Christians, what do you think of when you think of the Catholic Church? They might say some things like, what's with Pope Francis or pedophile priests or crazy liturgies and things? And if you were to ask a somewhat knowledgeable Christian, what do you think about orthodoxy? I think a lot of them would say, oh, they're just like super beautiful liturgies and icons and like images of sunbeams coming through the window and reverence and historic faith. And, you know, I think a lot of people kind of feel this way. And for that reason, I think people might be looking to orthodoxy as a sort of a trap door to escape

from the craziness within the church right now. And I know sometimes people may overdo how much we have in common. Obviously, we share much in common, but do you think it's an acceptable thing for a Catholic to become an Orthodox and just to say, look, we're basically both the same church, we have some disagreements, but we're really not in schism any longer? There are certainly some people who try to make that argument. Yeah, well, certainly not. I mean, we couldn't go down that route because as soon as we admit that it's okay to be Catholic or to be Orthodox, then we're subscribing into at least some form of principled religious indifference, indifferentism. And once you open that door, there's really no closing it, you know, because now it doesn't matter if I'm a Coptic Orthodox or a Chalcedonian Orthodox.

But in their canonical collections, those are also formal heretics and separated from the one true church. So, yeah, I don't think we could just say that it doesn't matter. say is that for some people, the matter is so important to them that, you know, and I've had friends who went Orthodox, and they could all testify that I never, you know, grabbed their arms and cry that they would stay Catholic. But what I do tell them is I say, well, maybe you really do need to go Orthodox and see what it's like. I know that sounds kind of, you know, almost as if I'm downplaying schism, but I'm sort of speaking from a realistic point of view. If this person is really dead set on becoming Orthodox, that's their conscience. Their conscience is telling them to become Orthodox. I'm not going to just sit there and fight their conscience. I'll say, well, maybe you should go ahead and do this then. I've had actually different responses after they do

that and they come back to me after a year or so. You know, I've had the they say, well, Um, you know, I've, I've, I've had the, they say, well, they come back and they say, well, you know, it wasn't what I thought. Or, um, many of them think that, which are not part of world Orthodoxy, you know, under the 14 auto-catholic heads. So the journeys vary. But I think sometimes just going to the Orthodox Church, sitting as a catechumen for a while, is something that they may need that. You know, I certainly did that when I was trying to, you know, look into Rome and into Orthodoxy, and that was tremendously helpful for me. Yeah, and I certainly have some Protestant friends who are looking into Eastern Orthodoxy,

and I think, glory to God, you're coming closer here. You know, I said to a friend of mine, look, if you become Orthodox, you do realize that we're going to both agree all of a sudden on the legitimacy of praying to the saints, on the sinlessness of the Theotokos, on confession, on Eucharist, you know. So that's definitely a step closer. Look, why don't we just take a step back here and address those people who are watching this who have really, they don't really know much about the schism, the differences between orthodoxy and Catholicism. Help us understand how the schism came about, if you can, especially for those who are just new to this. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, a lot of people don't know is that this oft-mentioned undivided church for the first 1,000 years is really mythology, because there was a pretty big schism in the beginning of the 5th century

with the spiritual progeny of Nestorius of Constantinople, and this led to, in the grand scheme of history, to a whole church in Persia that was kind of completely outside the boundary of the imperial church, you know, at that point, which was identified as the Catholic church, really. And then in the middle of the 5th century, you have the schism with the Meophysites at the Council of Ephesus 449 and Chalcedon in 451. This was a massive division in the Church. We're talking about Egypt, Syria, Armenia, some parts of Palestine at the immediate history. And that's never been recovered. You know,

they still continue to exist today in the Coptics and the Syriacs and the Ethiopic church and the, you know, the Armenian, of course. So that is, you know, they get a lot of respect from me because, number one, I have a very close friend of mine who's a subdeacon in the Syriac Orthodox Church. And so he always fills me in on the scholarship on their history. And it's fascinating. It's absolutely fascinating. So they would not identify with the Chalcedonian Eastern Orthodox that most people today when they hear Eastern Orthodox, they think, oh, yeah, that one big Eastern church that's on there. There's actually a lot more than that. from that, you really have Rome and Constantinople being the ecumenical characters in what we would call that one undivided Catholic Church. And even then, there was fractures between Rome and Constantinople for decades in pieces at a time, all the way through up until the end of the first millennium. And so what a lot of scholars admit nowadays

is that the material that caused the schism in the 11th and 12th century, there was elements that were already pregnant in the earlier centuries and that they just didn't quite know, East and West, that they were diverging in their beliefs. And this is kind of hard to accept for Catholics and Orthodox today, because the idea is the Church Fathers and the Church, everybody agrees.

But now, you know, we've got the critics, we've got the scientists, we've got all the scholars doing the work. We've got the critics, we've got the scientists, we've got all the scholars doing the work. And it's quite difficult to deny what they're pointing out is that, you know, the West had a slightly different view than the East. And that slight became greater as time went on. reach um the uh you know eighth century debate over the images the iconoclastic controversy um you have rome and constantinople coming together to fight against this um but then you you have certain western opposition to this not not roman but frankish opposition and but Frankish opposition. And we start to see these seeds grow into real plants where, okay, East and West are becoming two things. And so by the time we get to the 11th century, you have a sort of a something come up with the use of the Zines in the West.

The Latin Rite churches were using unleavened bread in Holy Mass and various other liturgical practices that, for one reason or another, it really caused diehard theologians in the East and some in the West to really make this hill to die on and a point of contention. And interestingly enough, though, that famous date of 1054, that's really not monumental for the people of the time. That was a schism that happened really between the Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Carolarius, really between the patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Carolarius, and the papal legates led by the famous Cardinal Humbert. And that really did not define a East-West schism. It really didn't even become a massive record in Byzantium. They didn't even think twice about it. Later on, it came out to be that, okay,

we see something happened here, and a lot of the causes of the divisions later on are rooted in the belief system that the Latin West was espousing, and then the opposition from the East. So slowly but surely, what ended up happening was the Eastern patriarchs began to just take the pope's name off their diptychs. It started in Constantinople, of course. Explain what diptychs are for our viewers. Yeah, so diptychs is an ancient term, and it basically refers to a wax tablet, or I think it could have been in various forms, but it basically had a tablet with names of bishops of the different churches that you were in communion with. Anytime one of those bishops would die, that church would send a statement of faith and the

notice of a new bishop in these churches, and so they would go off and sort of clean off the name of the old bishop and put the new one on, and the old name might go on another side, commemorating or whatnot. But it was basically a list of names of bishops who were to be recalled in the Mass, symbolizing that the one family meal of the Christians, the whole sacrifice of the Mass, symbolizing that the one-family meal of the Christians, the whole sacrifice of the altar, all these people are of one family in union with Jesus Christ, eating one Christ. So that's really what the diptychs are.

So when your name was removed from the diptychs and you were living, that meant that you were symbolically not being recognized at the dinner table of the Christian meal, of the Eucharistic celebration, which means that we don't really recognize you as a fully functioning Christian and, you know, your status is at least under question, you know. So it had different significances in terms of intensity. Sometimes it, for some, it meant this person is excommunicated. Most of the time that's what it meant. Other times, it's sort of a temporary suspension until more facts come in. So that's what the fics are. So the East really ended up, that's how the schism began. There was no one big council that the East had that said filioque and all of its adherents, anathema. Papacy,

all of its adherents, anathema. Unleavened bread and all of its adherents, anathema. You may have had that in smaller synods, but I can't even recall of any, but there certainly wasn't one on an ecumenical scale that did that um and so the the east and west that's how they slowly you know came apart and uh certainly the sack of constantinople really brought the schism home to people at you know at home the kids and the grandmothers were now if they were feeling it, not just church officials anymore. Now it was everybody was feeling that the Latins were not part of the Christian community. I'd love to get to the sack of Constantinople in a moment.

But when the Christians of the East and Christians of the West began to encounter each other and began to notice some differences in tradition, as you say, like married priests, leavened or unleavened bread, etc. Other than those more trivial things, if we can put it that way, what were some of the doctrinal differences that were really at odds between the two? Yeah, so the biggest doctrinal difference was the procession of the Holy Spirit. Yeah. Procession of the Holy Spirit was really where... And is this, would you say that this is, would this be even more problematic than what the Church was believing about the papacy at the time? Oh yeah, I mean, you know, there were,

at the time? Oh yeah, I mean, in terms of Constantinople, you know, they had a very high view of ecclesiastical primacy. So they were willing to go pretty high with what they were willing to acknowledge about Rome and about, you know, its jurisdiction, at least on an appellate level what does that mean appellate level oh yes so you know it appellate jurisdiction means that whenever things could not be resolved on a local level region right well according to the principle of subsidiary you know things should be done on a local level but if it can't be done on a local level, but if it can't be done on a local or regional level, then there's a highest court that the

situation can be brought to, but there has to be lodged an appeal. You can't just travel to Rome and lay the document on the Pope's table, and then the Pope decides it, you know. lay the document on the Pope's table, and then the Pope decides it. There's a system in place so that witnesses are procured, the facts are procured, and the local government of each church is respected. So that's what appellate jurisdiction is. Yeah, before we get to the filioque, I want to spend some time on the papacy, just a little bit longer. What do you say to those who say the papacy is really something of a medieval invention? It's really not something that dates back to the early church. It's not something the

Eastern Church knew anything about. Speak to that a little bit more. Well, that's just, a little bit more well that's that's just uh i you know my reading of history tells me something vastly different than that you know and so when i read the sources uh i'm seeing them describe a an apostolic government where there is a universal head, and that universal head has an office and prerogatives of government which don't derive from a post-apostolic canonical arrangement merely, but is actually something rooted in the plan and purpose of Jesus Christ. actually something rooted in the plan and purpose of Jesus Christ so and that it all revolves around the person of st. Peter okay so Christ invested certain amount of authority in st. Peter unique it was not common it was singular right it wasn't something that was given to all the apostles.

And that it survives Peter into his successors in the Roman bishopric. And I see church fathers in both East and West talking about how this is divinely instituted. So if something is of divine institution, that means it's also divinely irreversible in terms of Ecclesia. For example, the Eastern Orthodox would never say that they can get up and completely obliterate the Episcopal office. They wouldn't do that because the Episcopal office is of divine institution. In the same way, what I'm saying about the sources is that they said that the papal office was essential to the church. In other words, inscribed into the DNA of the church. Now, it may have had different forms, may have had different forms, but there's always going to be that patronological shape

in the DNA of the Church's government. So yeah, I would contest it. I would just simply say that the sources say otherwise. I've got a question from one of our patrons, Tyler R., and this goes to that. He says, what's the earliest patristic source acceptable to both East and West that clearly teaches the Catholic doctrine of the papacy, and what are common Orthodox explanations for why it doesn't? Yeah, that's a good question. The problem with the answer is that the full-blown Vatican I doctrine of the papacy was not really even fully understood in Catholic circles until the 17th, 18th century. You still had debates inside baseball, in other words, between the conciliarists and the papalists in the 14th century. And certainly in France and England, there was scholars who, you know, were at the universities who they admitted that the papacy was a divine institution. They believed that you could

not sever communion with the Pope. But there was squabbling on certain prerogatives and on modes and ways that he could be binding upon the universal church. So it's a bit difficult to go back and say that you can find all of the details of Vatican I in the early church, but I think with enough work you can do that. I would say that the first sources that seem to me acceptable to both East and West is revolving around the Council of Chalcedon. And this is where the bishops are getting together about the issue of the two natures of Christ. I don't want to go into all the Christological details, but it's recognized that the Pope has a divine office

and that this office was of divine calling. It wasn't something of mere canonical prestige. And so I would say this, read on the history of the Council of Chalcedon and Something more clear if they want to get Richard prices translation of the acts of the Council of Lateran 649 That's probably even more clear. But yeah, I would say starting with the Council of Chalcedon It becomes absolutely clear, I think. And that's obviously arguable.

What do you say to our Protestant brothers and sisters who may be watching thinking, goodness gracious, you mean you Catholics didn't understand what the papacy entailed until the first Vatican Council? How can you possibly say that this is something that was handed on by the apostles, from the apostles? Yeah, so that goes into the issue of doctrinal development. How can you possibly say that this is something that was handed on by the apostles, from the apostles? Yeah, so that goes into the issue of doctrinal development. You know, and I would refer them to read the essay by St. John Henry Newman. You know, today, when people hear the idea of doctrinal development, it comes across as greasy dealing. It basically comes across as, look, you have this primitive belief system, and then you've got this late medieval belief system, and you're just trying to bridge the two together by saying development of doctrine.

Well, you've got to read St. John Henry Newman's book, because he explains that his mission in the book is various, but one of the missions of the book is to show that all Christian confessions rely on doctrinal development. So I'll just give an example that the Orthodox share in the doctrine of of diatheletism, for example, the two wills in Christ, that really was not hashed out until the Council of Constantinople 681. Because there was a legitimate debate going on about, okay, does he have two energies?

Does he have one energy? Because it can't conflict with the divine and the human. And so you see that as you zoom in, things start to become, other questions start to come out about the specifics. So in the same way, the Catholic West always understood that the successor of Peter was the, you know, he was the primate of the universal church. He had universal jurisdiction.

His decrees have to be obeyed. But then the question would come up, OK, but what's the role of the bishops with the pope? Do the bishops have a causative relationship to the pope's decrees, or do the pope's decrees of themselves have binding authority? Do you see what I'm saying? As you zoom in, as history moves on, doctrines become thought about more, and there's further questions that can be had about certain things that would not have been had before. So the Orthodox, the Protestants, and the Catholics don't escape this. The Protestants' systematic theology—I have a bunch of systematic theology

books where they do just that. You know, they look into, they explore, and they come up, you know, is this superlapsarian, infralapsarian predestination? Is it double asymmetrical predestination, or is it asymmetrical predestination? But none of them would say that that means they're just completely bringing up novel things. Right, right. Yeah, that's fair. Okay. Well, that's good. Just to everybody who's watching in the live stream, we want to get to your questions and your objections for Eric, so please stick around. Looking forward to taking them. But I think we should probably touch upon the filioque, and then at least touch upon that before we start delving into questions. What do we mean by that? What does filioque mean? Why is it a source of contention between Catholics and Orthodox?

Yeah, so filioque, you know, this is a very complex debate theologically. We wonical councils were dealing with a lot of controversies that came about in the East. They made it to the West, but it really, the hotbed was the East. And so a lot of the theological thinking was done in the East. And so this idea of trying to understand how you have one in three, three in one was the big challenge. You know, how do you have monotheism and not tritheism with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? And so you had theologians that were trying to understand how this works, and the Cappadocian theologians in the East, they developed a certain way of thinking about the triads, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And the West, for long story short, had its own departure of how to think about this. They were both essentially correct,

but there are some significant differences that you're going to see on first and second level of theological exegesis. And so the East always wanted to understand that the Father was the sole monarch of the Trinity. All of the production of persons in the Trinity come from the Father. The Father is the—that's what makes him Father. He is the sole principal, the monarch of the Trinity, the one person out of which comes the Son and the Holy Spirit. And in the West, the West understood that the monarchy of the Father was important, which is why Augustine and all the filioquists in the West still maintain that the Father alone is the sole cause, you could say, of producing the persons of

the Trinity. However, in the West, and we see this beginning with Tertullian, it comes up in Ambrose, it comes up in Hilary of Poitiers, comes up in Augustine, mainly, that there is some relationship of the Son in the breathing out of the Holy Spirit, and not just in relation to creation, but in relation to the inner life of God. And the East, by the time the East heard of this, the first time they heard of it was actually from a fellow Easterner, Cyril of Alexandria. But when they started hearing about this in the West, it really raised eyebrows.

And it really came to a head with Photius of Constantinople. And basically his his accusations are are summarized in his mysticology that this makes this it does all kinds of damage to the Trinity. You know, and and so the East and the West, there was reunion efforts, obviously, at the Council of Lyons in Florence. And basically, the Catholic Church in Florence said there's two ways to bridge these two. There's one way to bridge these two beliefs. And so the Catholic Church has been able to absorb the Cappadocian and the Augustinian form. But the Eastern Orthodox are really staking it out that the Cappadocian way is the only way to think of this. And so that's, you know, it's a really, really complex debate.

I wish I could go into it, but it's just... Yeah, I mean, what do you say to those who say it was the West that added the filioque to the creed, and therefore we ought to remove it and just agree with the East. Yeah, well, I mean, again, that's another complex debate, because some of the canonical rules against additions to the creed didn't pertain to the Nicene Constantinopolitan creed, it pertained to the Nicene creed, and yet there was additions done there at the Constantinople 381. Again, Richard Price, who's a patristic scholar, him and a number of other scholars in a book called

Chalcedon in Context, talks about the canonical origins of that lock on the creed, and whether it really meant no additions no word additions I would I would say that in short it really comes down to this if the church has the authority to lock the Creed then the same church has the authority to unlock the Creed and if we that, then we're denying that the church had the authority to lock the creed in the first place. So, long story short, without getting into all the conciliar machinery with Constantinople 879, because I know some of the Orthodox thinking about that. It really does boil down to whether the church can unlock the creed again.

And we argue that that rests on papal authority, which is why the papacy today is really the center of disagreement. It used to be filioque. Now it's really the papacy. And so that's the long story short on that one. But I would say the Orthodox agreed twice to the filioque at the Council of Lyons 1274 and Florence 1439, but of course, you know, it didn't end up, it ended up folding because the Eastern bishops did not go along with it. Okay, well, here's what we'll do.

Obviously, as you say, we could do several episodes to each of these topics, so we're not trying to cover absolutely everything. So I'd love to take some questions in the live chat. If there are objections, that's fine, too. We'll take questions from patrons, especially super chatters. Before we get to that though, I want to say thank you to Ethos Logos Investments. Do you want to feel good about your investments? It doesn't matter if you've never invested before or if you've been investing for decades. Ethos Logos Investments makes it easy to invest in portfolios that are good for you both financially and spiritually. We know from Jesus' parable of the talents that Christians are called to exercise good stewardship over their money. We also know we are called to live our faith and to love our neighbor as

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Okay. Man, this is great. First of all, we should point out too that you are willing to come on Pints with Aquinas and debate Orthodox personalities, theologians. Is that correct or no? That's correct. Yeah. I mean, I want the audience to know that kind of in keeping with my personality on reason and theology, I'm not hungry for the controversy. But because I think there is a utility and a great benefit to hearers to have debates, I'm willing to have debates. And, you know, it would just be a matter of planning. you know, it would just be a matter of planning. Yeah, sweet. So there you go.

If there's anyone out there, and there's anyone you won't, because I've got some people in the comments now that are talking about some guy called Yubi. Jay Dyer, you've already debated. We're going to do, right after this, everybody who's watching, we're going to do a Patreon-only segment where me and Eric talk about his debate withay dyer um so if you're a patron

be sure to go to patreon.com slash matt frat up right after this um but yeah what about people like jay dyer you be you willing to debate them or no well you know it really all depends on how we can mend the uh relationship there um because there is some past, uh, you know, discrepancy. I would say that I'm not willing to debate, uh, inflammatory characters who have taken my name to the internet and just sort of, um, thrown it in the mud. And, I've learned, number one, I'm not as hungry as they are for the controversy. You know, if I was younger, I have I have I have sick kids. You know, I have to go read bedtime stories after this. If I was younger, you know, in the books, younger, you know, in the books, you know, I may be hungry for that kind of debate and that challenge. But I based on a lot of the inflammatory things I've seen coming from specifically Ubi

Petrus and Jay Dyer, I just think that my policy of staying away from them has been the best. I just think that my policy of staying away from them has been the best. And if people want to take that as, if they want to take that as a evidence that Orthodoxy is true, Catholicism is false, Eric Ibarra doesn't want to debate, I'm okay with that. It's not true, but those are my initial reasons why I won't go forward. But if the relationship could mend, then we'll talk, obviously. All right. Okay, we've got a question here from Bali Protestant. Thank you for the super chat. He says, it makes no sense to point to 4th century EC when the council judged Leo's tome to see if it was orthodox or not. Vatican I says

an EC is not over a pope. Yeah. Well, you know, I would dispute that because, you know, the council didn't judge the tome of Leo. In fact, you know, I would just appeal to the scholarship today that recognizes that the majority of the bishops there, when the first session of the council opened, they were all eager to get the Tome of Leo into the books. So you did have a couple of, you did have a small minority of bishops who did contend with it, with the Tome of Leo. They're a very small number of bishops, and the council is not going to just say, oh, you don't agree with the Tome, and you don't agree with the council, you're out. No, they said, OK, well, we'll teach you how it's orthodox. And so the majority of the council agreed to a committee, which was really scheduled by the imperial commissioners of the council.

In fact, the bishops probably wouldn't have even done this because they were so eager to get the tome in the canonical books. But there was, you know, there was a willingness to examine the tome by some of the bishops there, but there was no conciliar vote, you know, is the Tome of Leo Orthodox? Let's look into it or not. Most of the bishops had agreed to it before the council even met. Now, the question is, how did they come to agree with it before the council? Did they agree to it just because it was written by the pope? Or did they agree to it because after they read it, they resonated with it? Well, I would say it's a mixture of both.

Well, I would say it's a mixture of both. I would say that when Leo wrote his tome, he wrote it out in a very elaborate way so that when people read it, and that's it. No, he wrote a very systematic theology because he wanted to convince his readers. So I think it's quite natural that the Eastern bishops would read it, mull it over in their head, and then give their own agreement to it. The Jason 909, thanks for your super chat, agreement to it. The Jason 909, thanks for your super chat, says, Eric, can you please speak to Canon 6 at the First Council of Nicaea? Yeah, good question. So the churches of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch had wider pastoral supervision. Maybe explain what Canon 6 is, unless you're ready to do that. I'm sorry.

So Canon 6 at Nicaea basically says that the bishop of Alexandria is going to be able to have jurisdiction over larger regions in the Egyptian populace of the provinces of churches and according to ancient custom and because that custom is the same with Italy and Rome so the idea is well they gave jurisdiction to eat to the to the Alexandrian bishop over Egypt and he's they're using Rome as a paradigm to compare. So Rome must have had limited jurisdiction over Italy. Well, that's true. That's true. But what kind of jurisdiction are we talking about? In the context there, all the scholars,

modern scholars recognize it's talking about metropolitan jurisdiction or something quasi-patriarchal. So this is not papal jurisdiction, which is universal. That's a different kind of jurisdiction. So the bishop of Rome had different levels of jurisdiction. He had jurisdiction over the local church in Rome, he had metropolitan jurisdiction over the closer-knit provinces close to Rome, and that eventually grew to a patriarchal jurisdiction over Italy and even beyond Italy. So that jurisdiction is certainly comparable for the Egyptian diocese or for the Antiochian Syriac diocese.

That's not even talking about the papacy. It's talking about something else. Okay. Jacob Sparks, thanks for your super chat. Appreciate it. It says, I am Orthodox. Catholic friends ask me, why not become Eastern Catholic? Seems to me that many Eastern Catholics do not hold to Vatican I people infallibility. Why are they allowed to be Catholic but not hold to Catholic dogma?

That's a good question. There are some Eastern Catholics that seem to think it's okay to reject Catholic doctrine. They do, yeah. And of course, it's not true. You can't. It's not true. That would kind of defeat the whole purpose of becoming a Catholic. In fact, I would say they'd probably be better staying Orthodox and fixing that question before becoming Eastern Catholic. So Vatican I's definition is very clear that this is a matter pertaining to all the baptized members of the Catholic Church, and certainly the Eastern Catholic churches have been incorporated in several different magisterial scripts, specifically like under St. John Paul II,

which incorporates all the rights, basically, R-I-T-E-S, all the rights, the Bishop of Rome has jurisdiction over all of them. So that would be a point of contention. So if an Eastern Catholic really disagrees with that, I would say he needs to, you know, obviously look into the sources, look into the look into what his responsibilities are. And if he can't believe in it, I would say he probably should reevaluate his commitment to the Catholic Church. Yeah. Have you seen that sort of tendency? I know I have. In Eastern Catholic circles, I've often had Eastern Catholics say, it feels like I am, this is what they'll say to me, it feels like I am a child of divorced parents. My allegiance is with the Eastern

liturgies and prayer traditions and these sorts of things, but I also have an allegiance to Rome. But then I also do tend to see this. There's this sort of like slippery slope where they start to look upon Catholic doctrines and dogma that is in conflict with what Orthodox Christians hold and think, well, I don't really need to hold that. It's not that big of a deal. You know, I've come across it, and it's something I came across more years ago, but since then I've developed a lot of close friendships with Eastern Catholic, even Eastern Catholic clergy, who have all been very adamant that they hold all of the dog. Yeah, and that's certainly been true of Eastern Catholic clergy. I agree with that,

but as far as lay people. Here's a question from one of our patrons, Theodore. He says, the Orthodox Church rejects the Immaculate Conception of Mary. How is the Eastern Orthodox Church positioned generally on what grounds is the Immaculate Conception rejected? Yeah, so this is a complex question, and we actually have staff at Reason and Theology who are the real experts on this, like William Albrecht and Elijah Yassi. I'm kind of the student in the corner listening to their discussions on this stuff but I would say that the Orthodox Church obviously doesn't have an official position on the the mat whether you know whether Mary was immaculately conceived, I would argue that the sinlessness of Mary is tantamount

to what we're saying with the Immaculate Conception, because all we're saying with the Immaculate Conception is that from conception in utero, the Virgin Mary has been salvaged from the demonic captivity. Virgin Mary has been salvaged from the demonic captivity. And so I think the Orthodox should— there's a lot of Eastern fathers, you see that, you see that very clearly. Ephraim of Sirium, for example. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're not going to get down to the biological specificity. I mean, St. John Damascene actually does. But he talks about the spotless, pure seed that became the Virgin Mary. He's obviously talking about a biological holiness in utero in the production of the person of Mary.

know, in the production of the person of Mary. But in many cases, they're not going to be talking about the biological specificity, but they are going to be talking about terms that imply absolute sinlessness in the Virgin Mary. So I really don't think there's a dogmatic difference, but I do have to respect the Orthodox in the sense that they've never really gathered in a council to really give a conciliar decision on the matter. I've been told by good authorities that the sinlessness of Mary is basically a teaching. It's in the liturgy. And that's another rule of faith for the Orthodox. rule of faith for the Orthodox. So if you come out teaching that Theotokos was a sinner, or had sin, or some sort of spot on her, morally speaking, I think you'd be at variance with the Orthodox consciousness. Yeah. Okay. We have a super chat from Event Horizon. Thank you so much.

He says, when writing to the Arian Maximus, Augustine cites Scripture as common witness in the dispute. What role does Scripture play in the Eastern Orthodox Roman Catholic debate? It's essential. It's essential. You know, how we understand the famous 2S Petrus passage of Matthew 16, for example. How we understand the procession of the Holy Spirit, John 14-17, in those chapters. The doctrine of original sin, Romans 5.12. What does it mean to be to sin in him, all sin in him?

So I think the Scripture is certainly a place where Orthodox and Catholics can really investigate their dogmatic differences. And contrary to what some think, Catholics pay a lot of attention to Scripture when it comes to investigating doctrine. Okay, thank you. Another question from Arnold Wayne. Thanks, Arnold, for the super chat. He says, What is the consensus of the Church Fathers? Did most of them believe in papal infallibility, or at least in the higher authority of the Pope? Yeah, so consensus patrum, the consensus of the Fathers. when I was an Anglican, that was kind of the light to my feet, so to speak. No, I would say that not every church father believed in papal infallibility.

And for that matter, not every church father believed in conciliarism. Not every church father believed in conciliarism. So you're going to have a quantity comparison. And I would say that the majority of the church fathers stretched in the first millennium recognized the divine institution of the papacy, which that's very important. You know, a lot of Orthodox seem to hand wave that, you know, because they want to get to Vatican I. Vatican I has all those highfalutin specificities. But all you really need to do is say that there's a divine institution of a papal office over all the churches. And right now you're admitting something that doesn't exist in the Orthodox Church.

So it's going to be questionable as to, you know, how easy the Orthodox can come out of this debate just by saying Vatican I's specificity is not in the early fathers, because you still have the divinity of the Petrine office, which the Orthodox today have developed an ecclesiology which doesn't require anything about a universal Petrine office. The Russian Orthodox Church, for example, which is half the Orthodox in the world, they really don't entertain this idea, you know, that very well. In fact, even the patriarch of Constantinople right now, Bartholomew, does not believe that Peter was given authority over the other apostles. So I would say that we really need to look at the sources and see what is the irreducible status of evidence for Catholic teaching.

It's not just papal infallibility and all of its specificity. There's also other substantial teachings that are of lower level. Yeah, okay. Bali Protestant, again, says, can an ecumenical council dethrone a bishop of Rome and condemn the theology he defends as heresy? Yeah, so this is, you know, to the surprise of some of your listeners, you know, well past the Greek and Latin schism, the canonists and the theologians of the Catholic Church have all been in the majority of saying that if the Pope were ever to become a formal heretic, there are motions that can be taken to rectify the situation. And I mean, you get this already from Pope Innocent III, who, you know, he is very adamant about the divine institution of the papacy, the universal jurisdiction of Peter's successor, etc., cetera. But even he says that, you know, nobody can judge the Pope unless he were to depart from the faith. And this is a trajectory that grows and grows and grows. You have it in Bellarmine.

You have it in St. Francis of DeSales, Francisco Suarez, John of St. Thomas. sales, Francisco Suarez, John of St. Thomas, and even today, one of the English world's most prolific, well, yeah, his prolific canon lawyer, Dr. Ed Peters, has an article where he compiles basically the theological consensus on this all the way up to the 19th century, this all the way up to the 19th century, that yes, there is a sense in which some control can be had over the Pope if he becomes a heretic. The question is, do those who have that prerogative, are they in agreement that that particular Pope is deviant? an agreement that that particular Pope is deviant. So if they're not in agreement,

then it doesn't matter what kind of political polity, conciliarism, papalism, it doesn't matter. If they're not convinced that he is deviant, they're not going to make a motion. Yeah, all right. Hey, here's a question I think some people have, and that is, you know, when you just look at orthodoxy, maybe superficially, and then you look at Catholicism, it would seem that you have the orthodox over there, and they're very united. When you look at the Catholics, maybe coming from a Catholic perspective, maybe you're in the Catholic Church, and it feels very divided. Is it the case that orthodoxy is this one cohesive, unified church? I'm going to have to beg the forgiveness of your listeners here, because I really don't like to get into this.

You know, it could come off the wrong way. Sure. But to say it shortly, to put it short, no. way. But to say it shortly, to put it short, no. And at the Orthodox Church, there are, you know, differences of a high level in terms of theology and ecclesiology in particular. And you see this not just in present-day events, right? Because right now we have a pretty big schism going on between the Patriarch of Moscow, Patriarch of Constantinople. You have Alexandria and Greece, the Archbishop of Greece siding with the Patriarch of Constantinople. Just recently, you have a Cypriot council, Council, the Archbishop of Cyprus basically agreeing that there is a recognition for this new church in Ukraine. You know, the OCA in the American church is not universally recognized as an auto-Kepalist

church. How to receive converts from Catholic churches, Protestant churches. You're going to get different views in, you know, Russian practice versus Greek practice versus Athonite practice. You're going to get differences on that. And that's a big deal, because like right now, if I, you know, if I decide to become Orthodox in two years or so, I don't know if I need to get rebaptized or not. You know, and I have I have close contacts that would tell me to drive across the state to find an Orthodox priest that's going to dunk me in water and baptize me afresh. And then but that's going to go on the face of the majority that are close to me that would say, no, we're not going to do that. At least that lingering doubt over whether that's right or not. Of course, economia has been a

term that has been there to sort of cream over some of these differences, but they're not as easy to overcome when you start looking at the history of this debate. So you have that in and and I'm not even speaking from a you know an anti-orthodox point of view here even our bishop even metropolitan police thus where was lamenting this in a certain iota address that he gave two years ago over how this is a tremendous problem in the Orthodox Church. And it's not something of present day.

You had this in the past. A hundred years ago, you had certain differences, a lot of tension with Constantinople and Moscow. Certain trajectories of theology have led in certain directions that have caused certain schisms, like the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia, which was outside of communion with Moscow for many, many, many years. The majority broke off from their body and came into union with Moscow in 2007, but there were certainly issues of contention there, and this is not to speak of the contention that's growing today with the widespread practice of

ecumenism in certain hierarchs of the Orthodox Church. So it's a point of contention. I could speak at length about this issue. I don't want to go into it that much because we don't have the time. But the short answer is no. They're not all united of one mind. Yeah. This is a more of a lighthearted comment from Tommy Lee. Thanks for the super chat. He says, Mr. Ybarra, can you please explain to matt why all new glaris brewed beer is better than whatever he's drinking is is he asking me uh yeah so you need to explain that to me is that what you're drinking right now i don't i haven't heard of it i'm drinking new glaris uh coffee stout um it's wisconsin made only uh i'm not a big fan of this one. It was the only one I could grab out of the fridge. I actually like the Spotted Cow version the best. Okay, very good. We have another super chat. Golly, thank you so much for your generosity,

John. Let's see if I can pronounce this right. Kivian Catholic Akathist hymn to St. Joseph the Betrothed has the Theotokos, icon of the church, calling St. Joseph her lord, even though he was not Panagia. How does this mystagogy inform acceptance of the foster fatherhood of the papacy? How's that for a nuanced inside baseball question? Certainly, certainly. I don't really see a connection, to be quite honest with you, because there really isn't a crossover between the vocation of Joseph and St. Peter in this regard. So I think there's some symbolism to get to look at there. I would pass it to a different set of eyes. I'm not seeing it. I do beg his forgiveness

No problem at all Okay let's see here A question from one of our patrons Sean Caslow says I am a relatively new Latin Catholic I converted from atheism Glory to Jesus Christ Sean, welcome He says and I tend to be a little bit optimistic

When it comes to reunification From where I see it There is very little separating the East and West. What do you think is necessary for reunification and how can we obtain it? One minute, go. Yeah, look, I share in the optimism, but the Orthodox Church, ever since 2018, You know, the Orthodox Church, ever since 2018, with the split between Moscow and Constantinople, and now with some of the associates joining in with Constantinople, really the Orthodox Church is really going to have to figure out how to be able to speak with one mouth and one tongue. Because until there's one mouth and one tongue, negotiations with Rome are just going to beget more divisions. So I really don't foresee it happening.

I see a lot of optimistic meetings, getting together and making it look like we're all one. But I really don't see this happening anytime soon, unfortunately. Yeah. Shivery Bob, thanks for the super chat, says, Eastern Orthodox here. I enjoy your content. Why does the Catholic Church allow Catholics to commune in Eastern Orthodox churches in extreme circumstances when most Eastern Orthodox bishops would not allow Catholics to commune there?

Yeah, it's a good question. So this is a policy change that has happened in the Catholic Church. It's not brand new at Vatican II. It's not brand new at Vatican II, but canonists have floated the question over whether the salvation of the soul is more important than certain low-level, non-dogmatic issues. And so the Eastern Orthodox, really, according to our books, they're not really—it's very possible for an Orthodox to not be a formal heretic. You know, it's very possible for Orthodox to be material and material heresy and actually being grace-filled Christians. So there's definitely been a development in that area. There's definitely been sort of a turnaround from the idea of a rigid black and white. But there are certain dispensations that happened hundreds of years ago in this regard, in terms of intercommunion. But the reason why

the Eastern Orthodox churches won't do it with the Catholic Church right now is because of the division of faith. It's very large in their eyes. Even though any Eastern Orthodox listening here who's traveled the world, who's been around for years, they're going to know that there have been certain intercommunion policies between the Oriental Orthodox and the Eastern Orthodox, especially when there's a marriage between an Eastern Orthodox person and an Oriental Orthodox person. You know, you really have to question, you know, is the spouse who doesn't renounce their Oriental Orthodox heirs allowed to receive communion in the Orthodox Church? I think in some cases they're allowed. So, and this is, I have personal friends who tell me this,

and I, you know, they can say it's not a universal law, it's not a universal permission, they can say it's not a universal law, it's not a universal permission, but it's certainly widely known. So they don't do it because they really believe the Eucharist should be a point where everybody agrees in faith. So that's really the bottom line. And the Catholic Church has kind of made certain conditional exceptions in light of the importance of salvation over some of the non-salvific differences that might exist. Yeah. late 19th century patriarchal letters from Constantinople to the Pope, where they basically defend that there is no head of the Orthodox Church. There is no head of, you know, the only

head of the Church is Christ. And today, you have quite a significant amount of theologians who are open to this belief that there is a head of the Orthodox Church. He's the patriarch of Constantinople, according to the canons. And so that, you know, it's gotten to the point now where Kirill, the patriarch of Moscow, Kirill, the Patriarch of Moscow, and Hilarion of Volo Kolombs, basically the spokesman of the Moscow church under Kirill, they have basically accused the Patriarch of Constantinople of papism because of what he's done in Ukraine and because of some other theoretical documents that have been released under his auspices um so you really have that floating in the air right now over the idea of primacy and what that means in the orthodox church it's a huge contention okay and then the filioque way too but that there's some internal debates about that. Some believe it's a heresy.

Some believe it's only economical crime. So there are differences. There certainly are. Yeah. Apologies to all of our viewers. I was on mute because there was some sound out there and then I forgot to unmute myself a moment ago. So thank you to a thousand people who all just told me I was muted. All right.

people who all just told me I was muted. Ryan Pope, lovely last name, who is first among equals, says, How do the Orthodox defend their seeming inability to resolve differences in ecumenical councils? Yeah, so I mean the first thing that the Orthodox do today is they'll say

that this is not a bug of 21st century ecclesiology. Second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth century Christianity saw fractures in communion and sometimes debilitating fractures. And so they might say it's not exactly a bug. It is a bug, but it's like a featured bug. It's something that schism sort of gets de-intensified, in other words. They'll say that it's not as debilitating for Orthodox to have schisms. As we believe the same faith,

the sacraments are still full of grace, but in my mind, that's problematic, in my mind. But in my interactions with the Orthodox, that's certainly where they go. They first go to that. And second of all, they would just simply say that the, you know,

conciliarism or papalism, they both have their curses. You know, the papalistic ecclesiology is prone to a very top-down sort of curse, if it came about. And then the conciliarism has a curse too. Basically, divisions get crystallized, and then everybody wonders on how they're going to reunite. So they would simply say that the Orthodox Church, because of its decentralized ecclesiology, Church, because of its decentralized ecclesiology, has an ability to overcome these differences over time, and it really doesn't, you know, it's not a fatality in their understanding. Of course, I would say that it gets close to a fatality, but that's my opinion, and I don't want to interfere with what the Orthodox would say for themselves on the matter. And the third thing they would say is that they don't need one universal head.

They don't need administrative primacy. They just have their unity from the heart. You know, they have the same faith. They don't need this machinery of administrative unity. They have the unity. Of course, that's arguable, right? It's arguable. So I think the Orthodox have to tweak words like schism, give it different nuance, and they have to sort of salvage what makes their ecclesiology survive as an irreducible minimum. And they get through. I mean, I don't agree with it, but they have an answer. It's not like they don't have an answer. Just because I'm seeing this message come up a lot, I think I'll just throw it at you. And I'm not sure if you're going to be able to withstand it. You may end up apostatizing, actually, because of it.

Let's just see how we go here. Anglo Nile says, become orthodox. So, I mean, good luck. I mean, how do you respond to that? That's pretty good. Yeah, well, I mean, look, I have a very gently written article on my website. It's something called Coping with a Heretical Pope, not Accusing Pope Francis of Heresy, but it's a rhetorical title. And I basically give my reason for why right now I'm not listening to the aggressive Orthodox apologists.

So it's a gentle answer for why I'm not scramming from Rome, if they want more information. Very good. All right, let's say we've got someone watching right now, and they're considering becoming Orthodox or Catholic. They're a Protestant, and they long for the sacraments. They long for the historic Christianity. Give us your kind of few-minute plug as to why they ought to choose Catholicism over Eastern Orthodoxy.

See if you can sum that up for us. All of the church fathers, all of the first millennium dogmatic decrees, including everything taught in both East and West. So I would say becoming Catholic because it's Catholic. It has all the teachings. With all due respect and speaking from my very humble and negligible opinion and point of view, the Orthodox Church has done a use of unleavened bread. We already see references in Al-Quin of York in the 8th century. The doctrine of the successor of Peter having universal jurisdiction. This is a teaching in St. Leo the Great, St. Gregory the Great, St. Agatho the Great. All these saints that are on Orthodox calendars, the Orthodox have to do a lot of editing, deleting, and cleaning off just to keep their Eastern Cappadocian, Poetian, and Palamite tradition.

Palomite tradition. And I would say with as much as I admire it, as much as I respect it, as much as I want to befriend everyone in it, the Catholic Church absorbs all, both East and West. And because of that, it's the one holy Catholic and apostolic church. Yeah, thank you. This question kind of plays into that from Shivery Bob. He says, why are Eastern Catholics allowed to venerate Eastern Orthodox saints such as Gregory Palamas, Sefram of Sarov, etc.? Catholic Church. You know, when you're reading the early church fathers, you see there's a lot of rigidity over who's venerated, who's in the diptychs, who's going to be of holy memory. And the gatekeepers were so concerned over who is in the church that, you know, even if you were found a heretic a hundred years after your death years after your death, they would gather a council to pronounce anathema over you. We've certainly changed. Our policies have changed on that.

And so now, you know, and it's not that it's new. It's not that it's brand new. There were church fathers that talked about, well, did he really intend to be a heretic? Did he really understand enough to be a canonical criminal against the Catholic Church? So now we're looking at the inner situation, whereas earlier practices just said if he was outside the church, he's not saved. So I would say that the guys like St. Gregory Palamas, who—I've never been asked to venerate Gregory Palamas, okay? But the Byzantine churches are allowed to do it. I haven't—I don't have—and in fact, I don't have a lot of data on this issue. I know that they were allowed to do it um i haven't i don't have and in fact i don't have a lot of data uh on this issue i know that they were allowed to keep their saints um it's certainly not universal

canon right okay a canon it's it's not uh something where i'm bound to venerate gregory palamas so there there is some sort of a lower level status to it, I would argue. And I've asked canon lawyers about this, and I've got different answers about it. So, again, the Catholic Church has sort of looked into this issue of the possibility of salvation outside of the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church. We've landed on the side that it's possible. And the Eastern churches, it was landed on the side that it's possible, and the Eastern churches, it was dear to them to keep certain men, and we've allowed it. And there's really no more theological rationale, and beyond that, I'm also a questioner.

Right. We had a question like this earlier, but it might be important to kind of address it again. I mean, when it comes to things like artificial birth control, divorce and remarriage and these sorts of things, it seems to me, unless I'm mistaken, that depending on what Orthodox priest or bishop you ask, you might get a different answer. What do you think about that? Well, you know, it's actually not something that is brought under the table. There's official statements by the Orthodox Church on the allowability of contraception. And so I've actually documented this on my website. The Patriarch of Constantinople, for example, he officially sort of ratified a synod that was led by the Greek Archdiocese of North America, basically saying there is no dogmatic

prohibition on contraception that is non-abortifacient. The Orthodox Church of America, I have a lot of friends in it. I have respect for its clergy. I want to befriend everyone in it. I love them. But they do have an official stance, which basically says that in certain conditions, you can use non-abortifacient contraception. This is this is no secret this is public information certain high-end theologians like the late father John Mayen door the late father Stanley Harakas prominent theologians prominent voices in the Orthodox Church have written basically saying look look, we've sort of overcome certain bioethical questions, and non-abortifacient contraception is something that—it's permissible. On certain conditions, it's permissible.

So, you know, if the Catholic Church ever did that, we would have a media uproar. But it doesn't catch as much news in the Orthodox Church because, number one, there's not a lot of money in it for the media, the medium, in other words. they don't have a lot of population. There's not a huge population here in the United States, for example. So this is a big problem, I think. And certainly when I was looking into orthodoxy and I was visiting parishes, I'd be getting the, you know, we don't judge about that answers. And it was very concerning to me. So I think it's a problem. I think it's not just a problem of this priest or this liberal bishop or this liberal confessor, because even those conservative priests and conservative bishops who say no contraception at all, they're still in open communion with the hierarchs who have released these statements. So I think that that's problematic. And divorce and remarriage, again, that's another problem. Of course, in the Church

Fathers, you're going to have a little bit of, you know, there's some differences here on this issue. But the Orthodox have certainly developed their understanding of the remarriage and its permissibility. It used to be that it was only adultery that could allow a man to remarry, never the woman. And then with imperial interventions in the Greek East, especially in the second millennium, nomo canons were being tied in with the imperial rescripts. You certainly, now you have all kinds of conditions that allow for divorce and remarriage, and not just for the male, but for the female victim of adultery. So that's been a huge, I would say that's a huge divergence. But the Catholic Church has also, I mean, with our annulment practice and certain abuses,

I think we've, we don't really, I don't have a position to start pointing fingers. However, what I would say is this. We can turn around from an annulment crisis, but once you've allowed divorce and remarriage to the point where the Orthodox have done, I don't know if there's turning back to the patristic practice anymore. I don't know if they can really go back to it. I don't know if they can really go back to it. We might end on this one. A few more things to say before we do,

but Pius Nile says, Matt, would you have Father Josiah Trenum on? And so maybe we just kind of close with this. What's your opinion, Eric, on Father Josiah? And if you don't mind me asking, would you be willing to have a conversation or perhaps even a debate with him? I have tremendous respect for Father Josiah Trenum. We had him on Reason and Theology, and he was a friendly, uplifting, tender priest. And he even invited me to meet with him if I ever visit California. So yeah, and I think

he's a sharp, intelligent man. So certainly, I would definitely be willing to sit down with him. Yeah, Eric, I was gonna say, congratulations on being so charitable. I mean, not only are you terribly knowledgeable about all of these things, but just the charitable way that you address, I mean, not only are you terribly knowledgeable about all of these things, but just the charitable way that you address our Orthodox brothers and sisters is just like night and day compared to the comments we're getting in the live stream. And that's not even to mention the ones that we've had to block because they've been so vicious. Now, in no way, shape, or form am I suggesting that those comments are illustrative of our Orthodox brothers and sisters as a whole. It seems like there's just a lot of kind of angry Orthodox who seem to be of the same anti-Catholic bent as the Jack Chick Protestants. It makes me wonder how many of them are actual converts

from a sort of anti-Catholic Protestantism. But it's been just tremendous to have you here and just to speak with such love and such insight. Oh, you know, Matt, I appreciate those kind words. The Orthodox are, you know, Matt, I appreciate those kind words. The Orthodox are, you know, even the angry Orthodox, the angry Catholics, they're important. They're important. OK, man, they they deserve to be heard. And I wish I could have a one on one with a lot of these people.

It's impossible. But I would just simply say that I absorbed the criticism, and I was there one time, too. I had my nasty episodes years ago. So they're people, too. They're made in the image of God. And hopefully with time, they'll get some of their questions answered to their satisfaction. You're a good man. Well, I want to say thank you to everybody who's been watching this and who will watch this. Eric, where can people go to learn more about you and your podcast? Yeah, so I really want to recommend Reason in Theology. It's a YouTube channel where Michael Loftin, William Outbreak, and Elijah Yassi, and other contributors, and myself,

we all participate in the tough questions of theology. Go and check it out. Also, ericibarra.org, E-R-I-C-K-Y-B-A-R-R-A.org. Definitely go check out my website. We have a link in the description for everybody watching right now. You just click it. Yeah, and they can contact me there or at Reason in Theology, and that's pretty much it. Awesome. Well, to everybody watching, we are about to do a special video where Eric talks about the debate he had with Jay Dyer on orthodoxy. If you want to get access to that and a ton of other things, go to patreon.com slash Matt Fradd.

And when you become a patron, we'll send you beer steins and signed books and stickers. We even have daily meditations for Advent that I've recorded and have put Gregorian chant behind from Thomas Aquinas. You get post-show wrap-up videos like the one we're about to do, supports our Spanish translation videos, and something really special we have in store that I'll be announcing shortly. So patreon.com slash Matt Fradd. If you're watching this right now and you're a patron, give us five minutes and I'll put up a link to the discussion I am about to have with Eric. Thank you very much.

Thank you much.