From St. Peter to the Popes of Avignon
I believe that it would be far more appropriate if the ardent supporters of the monks of the Most Holy Family Monastery, would refrain from labeling me as an “Orthodox Schismatic”, before they’ve actually spent time and acquired some factual based knowledge on the subject itself. They should ask themselves: What is the actual purported refutation made by the Dimonds against Eastern Orthodoxy? Do these “brothers” really know what they are talking about? Unlike Jay Dyer, it is unequivocal that Peter Dimond knows little to nothing on the subject of the essence/energy distinction. The supposed devastating arguments launched by the Dimonds against orthodoxy in their material are farfetched as well as minimal. Dimond’s article, quoted in part below, affirms a contradiction in MHFM’s position on Orthodoxy as regards the ecumenical councils. [42]
Peter Dimond: “On the other hand, Eastern “Orthodoxy,” since it rejects the supreme authority of the Bishop of Rome and considers all bishops equal, cannot even put forward a framework or criteria by which one could logically distinguish those councils which it says are dogmatic and binding, from those which it says are false and heretical. …Ephesus II (the heretical monophysite council in 449) had almost exactly the same number of bishops as Constantinople I (150 bishops). “Eastern Orthodoxy” would say one must accept Constantinople I under pain of heresy, while one must reject Ephesus II! But if we apply the principles of Eastern “Orthodoxy,” the two councils are on the same level, both being backed by the authority of equal bishops. Unless there is a supreme bishop to make one council binding, it’s a farce to say that one council is definitely dogmatic while the other with the same number of bishops is definitely heretical! Equal vs. Equal results in a draw. …”
Dimond believes that the pseudo-council of Ephesus II can be compared to a valid council, and sees a contradiction in the equal number of bishops present in these two places while one council was deemed heretical and the other not. But it's absurd. For history proves that, although it was in the context of the time that all the councils were eventful, Ephesus II is particularly unique in that many bishops were prevented from expressing themselves concretely, even forced to sign.
An orthodox comment about the Councils: “What makes an Oecumenical Synod Oecumenical? Again, if you are looking for juridical, canonical definitions of a structure and institution, you will not find it. The Church’s bishops from around the world (ἠ οἰκουμένη)are convoked into a formal assembly(σύνοδος) at which they proclaim the Church’s true faith. If you’re asking what invalidates such a meeting, look at the Acts of Chalecedon for the details of what made Second Ephesos a sham. […] A synod of bishops is always a legitimate synod of bishops, and speaks for the Church, as long as it is composed of real bishops and behaves accordingly. In this way, the Lord ensures that they will confirm the truth.” [43]
Comment about Éphesus II: “ Evidence given at the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon contradicts the account in the acts of the final scene of the session. It was reported that secretaries of the bishops had been violently prevented from taking notes and it was declared that both Barsumas and Dioscorus struck Flavian. It was further reported that many bishops threw themselves on their knees to beg Dioscorus for mercy to Flavian and also Alexandrine Parabolani, that some signed a blank paper, and that others did not sign at all, the names being afterwards filled in of all who were actually present.” [44]
If this point has been ignored or put aside by Peter Dimond, it is because he does not possess the necessary analytical finesse to understand it and thus remains anchored to his papal-centric presuppositions. [45] The presence of Roman legates openly opposed to the “wrong turn” made during the theological debate, should not act to justify transforming the other bishops into the their vassals (even if all of them are opposed to this same council) to promote its presiding emissary, the pope, into a supreme episcopal emperor. In any case, the structural organization of the Orthodox Church, which functions as a confederation, would be much more difficult to destroy than a centralized organization operating under papal supremacy that is located geographically in only one location: Rome. It would appear that only those Christian faithful occupying the Catacombs of Rome are left to resist the wickedness of government and the uncompromising pagan religion found in that city today.
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MHFM’s Papist-presuppositions affect their reading of Acts 15
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How could Christ's church go from St. Peter, the humble martyred apostle, to suddenly jettisoning itself in 1054 into an age where the popes took on the mantle of “crowned episcopal kings” possessing the right, the God given authority, to install and/or depose any and all the emperors of the world; a world in which they now, alone, controlled? First of all, as Jay Dyer points out, it is impossible that the Saint Peter of chapter 15 of the Acts of the Apostles, the very one who is quoted by the Dimonds in their video wanting to prove the papacy, [46] thought like Pope Boniface VIII in Unam Sanctam. [47] It's impossible.
Acts 15:6-13 – “And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter. And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they. Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them. And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me.”
Pope Boniface VIII : “Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” [48]
St. Peter did not ask the whole assembly gathered in Jerusalem to submit to him for salvation. According to Jay Dyer, the Orthodox Church is not a giant international bureaucracy. That said, it comes to affect the legal-political sphere. [49]
The false decretals that led to the proclamation of Unam Sanctam are historically recognized as the work of counterfeiters. Only fierce sectarians could accuse those who mention this fact of dishonesty in denouncing papal supremacy. I will present for this the following quote:
Abbot Guettée, The Papacy: “The Ultramontanes cannot openly sustain these Decretals as true, for it has been abundantly proved that they were manufactured partly from ancient canons, with extracts from the letters of the Popes of the fourth and fifth centuries. Entire passages, particularly from St. Leo and Gregory the Great, are found in them. The whole is strung together in bad Latin, which for even the least critical scholar has all the characteristics of the style of the eighth and ninth centuries.” [50]
Who correctly interprets the papal decrees? [51] Answering that a decree is to be read as a definition without departing from the definite meaning does not signify the end of the problem, because each one could still persist in interpreting what he reads in the definition.
For Jay Dyer, there is no way to go from Jesus speaking to Peter in Matthew 16:18 to three different guys in Avignon claiming to be successors of Peter. [52] In fact, so that Catholic theologians could explain all this, they had to invent the theory of doctrinal development (with Cardinal John Henry Newman in the 19th century for example). It is not surprising then that we arrived at Vatican II. [53]
If Rome had been perceived from the beginning as having universal supremacy, never would Paul have written a letter to the Romans, in Peter's allegedly unique jurisdiction, by threatening the faithful, by instructing them; in short, by meddling in what would not have been in business. [54] The problem is not papal primacy but the claim of universal jurisdiction and papal supremacy.
Did you know that Pope Saint Gregory the Great had an opinion very hostile to the idea of a patriarch or universal bishop? In fact, he considered as the precursor of the Antichrist whoever would dare to put on such a definition, placing himself above all the other bishops:
“I say it without the least hesitation, whoever calls himself the universal bishop, or desires this title, is, by his pride, the precursor of Antichrist, because he thus attempts to raise himself above the other bishops.” [55]
St. Gregory developed his opinion by quoting St. Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 1:13), who was horrified by the habit taken by some of claiming to be from such a church of such a man as “I am of Paul or of Apollos.” Saint Gregory flatly rejected any idea of universality on his behalf:
“...you address me saying, As you have commanded. This word, command, I beg you to remove from my hearing, since I know who I am, and who you are. For in rank you bishops are my brothers, in character my fathers.” [56]
This hero of Roman Catholics, St. Gregory the Great, is also recognized and revered as a saint among the Orthodox.
The bishop of Caesarea and Cappadocia in the third century, St Firmilian, was chief of the anti-Donatists. After having opposed the pope of the time, Stephen, he died outside the communion with the Roman Church but nevertheless remained a saint of the Church. He had used sarcasm against the pope, reproaching him for his failure to comply with the salutary commandments and warnings of the Apostle, namely to preserve humility and gentleness in a matter in which bishops were unjustly excommunicated by the pope. Saint Firmilian, developing his point of view, had then described Stephen as "an apostate of the communion of ecclesial unity". [57]
In the fifth century, African bishops wrote in a letter to the pope at the time that the latter was not entitled to overturn their judgments and that he had no jurisdiction over their lands. And far from thinking of appealing to the Pope of Rome for the holding of a court of appeal beyond the scope of the synodal councils, the African bishops chose the ecumenical council. In fact, it should be known that the famous phrase of St. Augustine, Roma locuta est, causa finata est (Rome spoke, so the cause is over) was only used to express a rejection of the authority of Pope Zosimus to judge a case. [58]
The Apostle St. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, called carnal the faithful who claimed to belong to a Church belonging to a man, for example to say that they were of Paul or Apollos.
1 Cor. 3:3-7- “For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.”
In fact, the Apostle to the Gentiles had reiterated what he had written to them earlier: except for one detail: he adds, Cephas, Peter, following Paul and Apollos.
1 Cor. 1:12-13- “Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?”
This sample of information is clearly a proof of a refusal of papal supremacy! Among the orthodox there is no one greater than the bishop/apostle. If Catholics do not like to learn all of this, it is because their entire perspective is guided by their conviction that it is obligatory to have a supreme leader, a pope, in the Church of Jesus Christ; that Jesus Christ wanted a pope when he established his Church. In all the works of the monks of MHFM, the argument is based on the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 16:18 in the sense of a promise of papal supremacy.
Mat. 16:18 - “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
The problem for the Dimond is that the Fathers of the Church are very numerous not to share their point of view at all. You will find in the links an excerpt giving more details, but to say it briefly eight Fathers think that the stone means all the Apostles. Sixteen Fathers say that Jesus was the Stone of this passage. Moreover Saint Paul calls Jesus the stone in 1 Cor. 10:4. [59]
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Twitter, Jay Dyer
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Those who wandered to Rome and more precisely to the Vatican must have felt embarrassed to have to defend a church that moralizes on sexuality and yet has many statues showing naked bodies in many of its monuments. A hint of hypocrisy should touch your nostrils. One didn’t have to wait for Vatican II to observe vitiated practices or pedophile attacks in the Vatican. In the 15th century, Pope Alexander VI felt compelled to write a bull of reform to curb the ways of cardinals who sexually abused young children. The worry is that he did not publish it. [60]
Richard Ibranyi is a former monk of MHFM [61] who, after having broken with them, went back to the 13th century to find antipopes. [62] Here you have another absurdity of the logical consequences of sedevacantism, but the motivation of Richard Ibranyi remains interesting to take into account with the chapter seen above. For Scholasticism is perceived by him as the responsible for apostasy. It is remarkable that it also remains a vehicle of diffusion for the erroneous doctrine of absolute divine simplicity; as we have seen previously. The method of the ancient monk of MHFM to go back in time to look for the deeds of popes to criticize, nevertheless allowed him to collect some information that others would prefer seeing hidden, to spare a lot of troublesome questions. For example, it is noteworthy that Pope Eugene IV commissioned the installation of a huge gateway to St. Peter's Basilica in 1445, where mythological figures stand alongside traditional ones. [63]
For the usual objection against orthodoxy, divorce and remarriage, one only has to read what Saint Basil thinks [64] and rethink the hypocrisy of the Vatican and consider the list of "pure men who are single for life" becoming frustrated and children abusers, or breakers of vows. As for the Filioque, you will be invited to read in the links an article on the subject. Before, know that Pope John VIII signed the document banning the Filioque. [65]
MHFM’s video on the Orthodox is seen in another light. Alongside what has been presented, the sedevacantist claims appear very weak and can only remain in the shadows; like the dark character of their authors. My arguments having been made, I would like to turn to an analysis of the behavior of the monks of MHFM and their supporters.
Endnotes:
[42] Peter Dimond, Refuting the Eastern “Orthodox”: https://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/catholicchurch/refuting-eastern-orthodox/
[43] Cit. Joe Heschmeyer, Answering Orthodox Objections About the Robber Council; July 15 2011: http://shamelesspopery.com/answering-orthodox-objections-about-the-robber-council/; Comments, Tikhon ; July 15, 2011, 9.19 pm and July 16, 2011, 5.47 am.
[44] Wikipedia, Second Council of Ephesus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Council_of_Ephesus
[45] MHFM released a video the same day I finished what you’re reading: vaticancatholic, Eastern "Orthodoxy's" Fatal Flaw On Bishops & Ecumenical Councils; March 29, 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_35whxfeY2I . Their main argument with the Council of Florence fails because a bishop had opposed all the heresies that were said and refused to sign: St. Mark of Ephesus – that’s why he became a saint, for that matter. For more details, here is an article: http://saintandrewgoc.org/home/2014/1/20/saint-mark-of-ephesus-and-the-false-council-in-florence.html If MHFM seems so sure of them in their film, and they continue to object, it’s because of their restricted presuppositions of papal supremacy. They only see Mat. 16:18 depending on this, by omitting the evidence at disposal refuting their erroneous opinion, and that is how all their theories flow. To criticize the presence of Bishop St. Mark of Ephesus in Florence opposing the decisions of the council, would be for an Orthodox to criticize Saint Athanasius during the Arian crisis where almost all the bishops were Arian heretics (denying the divinity of Jesus). Two days after Peter Dimond's video, Jay Dyer made a live speech as a kind of response to MHFM: Jay Dyer, Papal Circularity, Ecumenical Councils & Created Grace; March 31, 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQoPiv91Cmk . I have noted several points refuting the Dimond, who have a bad conception of orthodox ecclesiology: The orthodox pentarchy is not a sort of magic council determining that something will be infallibly true or false (1h46m). The argument of the Dimond in their video loses all its weight, without even having to answer point by point to their statements because MHFM is refuted in the core. On the theme of the councils, Jay Dyer quotes the orthodox liturgy: "We agree with the Fathers and the holy teachers when they agree with Revelation". (1h57m40s). When a Roman Catholic asks an Orthodox the question of what is true or false in a council, it is the same dilemma for the Roman to know how a pope can be orthodox or heretical (2h07m). The existence of synodal councils, not signed by the pope centuries before the first ecumenical council, proves orthodoxy. For a council to be true, this does not depend on the number of bishops present. A lot of people can be wrong without this exterminating the Church (2h11m35s). So how do you know if it's true? Because it's true [it does not reject or contradict Revelation] (2h13m35s). Peter Dimond says that the Catholic Orthodox Church would have “defected” but it is he who should have already tried to answer the arguments of John Pontrello who uses the same term to advance his thesis of the Church of Rome having defected.
[46] Vatican Catholique, The Bible Proves The Papacy; Dec. 17, 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KV6PXSODgE; 14m.
[47] Jay Dyer, Frankfurt School Habermas, Papal Dialectics & Reflection on the Debate; Feb. 12 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8ZAC-4CdfM ; 19m30s.
[48] Encyclical Letter Unam Sanctam of Pope Boniface VIII; Nov. 18, 1302: http://www.papalencyclicals.net/bon08/b8unam.htm
[49] Dyer, Habermas ; 14m55s.
[50] Abbot Guetté, The Papacy, cit. Orthodox Christian Information Center, The False Decretals of Isidore, Cornerstone of the Papacy, Endnotes: http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/decretals.aspx
[51] Jay Dyer makes this point in a debate : Jay Dyer, Jay Dyer Debates Nick Fuentes of America First Media - Roman Catholicism Vs Orthodoxy; Feb. 18, 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5TrGzQ8woQ ; 44m.
[52] Dyer, Habermas ; 17m25s.
[53] Ibid ; 20 m30s.
[54] Dyer, Debates Nick ; 39m30s
[55] John Pontrello, A Rebuttal of Roman Catholic Claims of Superiority and Infallibility of the Pope: https://www.thesedevacantistdelusion.com/rebuttal-of-roman-catholic-claims.
[56] Ibid.
[57] Pontrello, A Rebuttal.
[58] Ibid.
[59] Jesus Is Lord, The Bible Disproves the Papacy ; July 9, 2017: https://papacyrefuted.blogspot.com/2017/07/this-is-response-to-book-bible-proves.html. Note that the author tried many times to propose a debate to MHFM, without success. See for example Aspect21, vaticancatholic.com Too Cowardly to Debate ; July 9, 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyUgEwWyOBE
[60] Richard Ibranyi, The Desecration of Catholic Places ; March 2014: http://www.johnthebaptist.us/jbw_english/documents/books/rjmi/br61_desecration_of_catholic_places.pdf ; p. 31-32.
[61] 23rd Street, Richard Ibranyi – On the MHFM : http://www.23rdstreet.com/richard_ibrayni/index.aspx
[62] MLR Productions, The Anti-Church Fathers and the Hellenization of Christianity; Jan. 30, 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm5H4pLfe2M
[63] Ibranyi, op. cit., p. 232-233.
[64] Allusion in Mgr Athenagoras Peckstad, Marriage, Divorce And Remarriage In The Orthodox Church: Economia And Pastoral Guidance; 2005: http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/liturgics/athenagoras_remarriage.htm; chapter 7 : “The Holy Basil the Great, for example, referred not to a rule but to usage, as far as this problem was concerned. Speaking concerning the man who had been cheated by his wife, he declares that the man is “pardonable” (to be excused) should he remarry.”
[65] Dyer, Debates Nick; 45m10s.