okay Christ is risen again [Applause] well I'm Father Nathan Simeon of the Searchers of the Lost podcast and this is Our Lady of Wisdom it's our Ital Greek parish which we're hosting this event at so you're all very welcome it's good to see all of your faces out there for today's debate the question is the Orthodox Church the one holy Catholic and apostolic church it will be Denny or Ubie Petros's job to defend this claim that it is in fact the one holy Catholic and apostolic church it will be Alex Voice of Reason's job to be the pyist that term in ancient philosophy didn't simply mean a bad guy who yells at people it actually meant someone who is attacking the other position philosophically and so there's the proper terms for apologetics a palmist and an apologist and so it will be Alex's job to demonstrate that the Orthodox Church is not in fact the one holy Catholic and apostolic church keep your eye on that ball because that is the topic of today's debate the rules of the debate will be in following we'll start off by Ubie's presentation in opening 20 minutes followed by Alex 20 minutes then Ubie will be offered a chance of rebuttal voice of reason another 15 minutes we'll have a 10-minute break our bathrooms are found down the hall here okay if those those bathrooms are overcrowded you can also go through the church cross yourself as you walk through the church please take off your hats as you walk through the church the restrooms are found in the narthx that means in the very rear of the church okay you come back after 10 minutes and then we'll begin the cross examination again started by Ubie Petrus and then followed by voice of reason after that we get one hour open debate again we'll be starting with Ubie and finishing with voice okay after that I'm sure we will have a closing statement and that's going to be for both sides and then we're going to have another 10-minute break and then we'll have a oneh hour question and answer period if we go under and the presentations and time that is then it will carry over okay it will carry over into the what the final hour is that we what we did we agreed on open debate the open debate so we'll carry it over to the open debate so I'll be keeping track of that if you get hungry and you purchase food it's outside i think you can still purchase food through an application if you have your phone but if you get hungry we do we do have Philly cheese steaks outside awaiting you we also have a snack bar over here so please go ahead and grab that if you're getting hungry we have um t-shirts over here as well as um some pilgrimages that we're going to be doing one of the pilgrimages will be to the Holy Land in November and that will be um Voice of Reason Roots of Orthodox and I will be taking a group to the Holy Land and then if you're local from Vegas and you'd like to join me I'm also taking a group next June to do a Byzantine Italy tour and the the information is over there we al also have some t-shirts okay so check that out i also wanted to make sure you know maybe you don't know this I'm very very cheap and so I'm not paying either of our guys and this is what they do this is how they they well that's this is what Alex does to make his ends meet u Petrus is actually a local electrician so you can also ask him for that help but but if you want to be a kind and generous person I have a tip box over there okay if you write a check just put cash because what I'll do is I'll split whatever is given to these two fine gentlemen okay who have worked very hard for you and are getting nothing from Father Nathan okay outside of the tip box that you leave behind okay that covers all of the basics i want to just offer one introductory statement you might be wondering why a Byzantine Catholic priest would want to host such a debate that appears divisive well I will tell you why by using the words of both of our respective churches pope John Paul II and Utuminct says "By engaging in frank dialogue communities help one another to look at themselves together in the light of the apostolic tradition this leads them to ask themselves whether they are truly expressing in an adequate way all that the Holy Spirit has transmitted through the apostles." And that is what we're doing frank dialogue with one another dialogue also means debate from the great and holy council of 2016 the Orthodox Council on Pentecost we read the following the Orthodox Church which prays unceasingly for the union of all has always cultivated dialogue with those estranged from her those both far and near in particular she has played a leading role in the contemporary search for ways and means to restore the unity of those who believe in Christ and she has participated in the ecumenical movement from its outset and has contributed to its formation and further development this final line we can all agree Catholic or Orthodox is absolutely correct it is clear that in theological dialogues the common goal of all is the ultimate restoration of unity is faith and love and you might put that a different way okay it's truth and love we're searching for the truth and we're searching for love okay meaning union with God so that's the aim of our our debate and without further ado I'll ask both of our presenters to come say hello for a second before we begin our formal debate since uh since Denny is starting first why don't you introduce yourself first thank you so much for coming today anyone who's outside if you could ask them to hurry in we're good we're good okay good uh so first and foremost I want to thank all of you for purchasing tickets and reserving time from your schedules to come today i especially want to thank Father Nathan Adams for not only moderating today but taking on the tremendous responsibility of organizing this entire event it's a significant investment both in terms of time and cost i'd like to thank the bishop for allowing this to be held here a tremendous thank you to Deacon Stefan who kindly loaned us these two podiums it's very nice of him he drove all the way downtown to get them to Steve who has handled the audio and of course to the parishioners here for all of their hard work and sacrifices over the last two months to organize this especially this last week i'd also like to thank Dan Yova who created the amazing thumbnail he won out threequarters of the votes and uh to Randolph Media for hosting the live stream is it still morning time or we It's still morning time so good morning to everybody thank you all so much for being here on this amazing I what I would call a historic day i know that many of you I've already talked to and you said that you've that you're joining us from out of town out of state some of you drove long distances some of you flew long distances that means the world to me i know that it means the world to Denny and to the community here at Our Lady of Wisdom and of course I want to thank the great father Nathan Simeon for hosting this for moderating this he put so much care into this so much care he he has an amazing team a beautiful family an amazing team around him that was able to make this happen um there was so much hard work that that happened behind the scenes for for all of this to come together so thank you so much father and and to your wonderful community here for putting this together and I want to thank my wonderful opponent for today's debate Ubie Petus Denny he is so sharp he knows his stuff and I'm so honored to be able to be his interlocutor here uh today he is the best of the best so I hope that you guys enjoy an amazing debate thank you all for having me and thank you for everyone that's come up to me already to take pictures and say hello and uh after this we'll do a lot more of that so thank you all very much so that's I asked them to say hello to you so that they would both thank me in front of all of you guys that's that's what I was shooting for there so thanks guys you really you really pulled through for me u truly it was my my parishioners who have done just everything they met with me uh three times 15 volunteers pulled together 45 volunteers so they really they really did a lot of work um but I you know I probably didn't like hype up our speakers enough i just I assume that all of you do know who they are do all of you know who they are yeah that's why you're here yeah cuz you want a good debate okay so you know that you know that these guys are both world class apologists in their own right and so having them together is just it's really an incredible opportunity for all of us who are here okay just one quick question for you all i just I think it'd be interesting if we get a little bit of the demographics um for just out of interest how how many Orthodox Christians do we have here okay okay so we're looking at about one 120th yeah keep your hands high yeah you better represent if you're if you're the Orthodox here uh how about Catholics do we have Do we have any Catholics here okay okay all right let's Let's make sure to guard Denny when he walks when he walks out of the room oh I got your back Denny i got your back my friend how about Protestants we have any Protestants in the house okay we got a few of you guys any Okay the best beard in the house belongs to a Protestant oh yes do it very cool i'm sorry any any Aryans none of you guys joined us oh that's too bad okay and anybody just seeking they just want to know the truth they're here to learn about the truth okay great well welcome welcome thank you for joining us all right well you're tired of hearing from me i guarantee that let's let's begin um with Ubie Petros starting us off with the opening 20-minute debate real quickly is there anyone outside who needs to come in okay in the Nian Constantinopolitan Creed the church is described as one holy Catholic and apostolic giving rise to the phrase the four marks of the church this debate focuses on whether the Orthodox Church fulfills the definitions of that specifically one and Catholic and I want to begin with two quotations from the late Pope Benedict I 16th the first is from the work principles of Catholic theology quote "Rome must not require more from the east with respect to the doctrine of primacy than what had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium when Athanogorus designated him as a successor of St peter as a most esteemed among us as one who presides in charity this great church leader was expressing the ecclesial content of the doctrine of the primacy as it was known in the first millennium rome need not ask for more reunion could take place in this context if on the one hand the east would cease to oppose as heretical the developments that took place in the west in the second millennium and would accept the Catholic Church as legitimate and orthodox in the form she had acquired in the course of that development while on the other hand the west would recognize the church of the east as orthodox and legitimate in the form she has always had i want to repeat that she has always had notice that verb tense so for Pope Benedict the 16th it is the papal church that has developed not the Orthodox Church which has remained in the form we have now in addition to having been pope Benedict had been the head of the congregation for the doctrine of faith formerly known as the Inquisition so this is not a nobody this is not a random bishop of a titular sea this is someone who understood Roman Catholic theology better than really anyone else in an interview he is asked how communications of the Orthodox Church have gone and in his response he expresses sentiments similar to what he expressed in the previous quotation stating quote "These churches the Orthodox have an authentic doctrine but it is static it's petrified as it were they remain faithful to the tradition of the first Christian millennium but they reject later developments on the grounds that Catholics decided upon these developments without them for them questions of faith can only be decided by a real ecumenical council one which includes all Christians therefore they regard as invalid what Catholics have declared since the split so something that's static something that's petrified is the same as it always has been and that's how he describes our theology i want you to keep those statements in the back of your mind as I describe ecclesiological issues faced by the first millennium churches and as my interlocator rails against what he sees as divisions within the Orthodox Church what I need to prove in this debate is that the Orthodox Church is one and is Catholic in the same sense that the authors of the creed understood those terms in order to prove that I would like to focus on three historical examples the first is St cyprien of Carthage who wrote a short work entitled on the unity of the church he saw the church as a communion of local churches who were one via admitting one another to the eukarist the members united together via adhering to their one bishop in each city st cyprien died out of communion with Rome having been excommunicated by Pope St stefen the second is St st matiius of Antioch who also died out of communion with Rome he was there we go okay died out of communion with Rome he was supported by the majority of the east while his rival Polynus of Antioch was supported by Rome and Alexandria the three Capidosians St basil the Great St gregory the Theologian and St gregory Nissa were in communion with St malletius and were also in commune with Rome even though St matiius was never once in communion with Rome being considered a pretender to the sea of Antioch this internal schism was not healed until 418 a full 37 years after St matiius's death though it appears St matiius wanted communion with both Rome with Rome it was not granted to him despite sharing the same faith as Rome on screen you can see a map of what communion looked like it was a mess third during the so-called acacian schism St macedonius II of Constantinople St elas of Jerusalem and St favian II of Antioch these saints had Orthodox doctrine and apostolic succession but when they reached out to Rome requesting communion they were rejected because they would not reject blessed Aakius of Constantinople who had been excommunicated from uh by Rome there are numerous other examples but I wish to highlight these as they are well documented and occur early on further it cannot be argued that they died passively out of communion with Rome rather Rome outright rejected them from communion now the phrase one holy catholic and apostolic church is believed to have been added to the creed at the council of Constantinople 1 in 381 the bishop heading that council was none other than St matios of Antioch who was not in communion with Rome at all because Rome recognized Paulinus as the rightful bishop of Antioch in fact at that council there were numerous bishops who were in communion with St mleteius and also in communion with Rome such as St gregory the Theologian so if the authors of the creed intended one to mean all those in communion with Rome or not including internal schisms why would they do so at a council headed by someone who was not in communion with [Music] Rome why would they do so at a council headed by someone who was the reason for an internal schism they must have had a different understanding of what one meant further at the time they inserted the word Catholic into the creed the Roman Empire was probably about a quarter Christian with those being concentrated in the major cities even St john Chrysstm writing in the late 4th century thought Antioch was about half Christian keep in mind Antioch was the most Christian city in the empire with the notable exceptions of Ethiopia Armenia and Georgia very few Christians existed outside of the empire no Christians existed on four of the seven continents in fact until the late 15th century Christians existed as a majority on only one continent while being a visible minority on two others st st ignatius of Antioch first used the term Catholic to mean orthodox belief by the late 4th century St siriel of Jerusalem used it to denote geographic location correct dogma the members of the church coming from all ethnic and racial groups and from all classes it was simply one of four standards but when he wrote this no form of Christianity could fulfill a literal meaning of 1 three and four and Nian Christianity could only claim the second one so he was not using this in a comparative sense had he meant it this way in the terms of more widespread he would have had to have admitted that Aryanism fulfilled that definition better because it was more geographically widespread and had more adherence it is ironic that at the time that the term Catholic was added to the creed nine Christianity was dwarfed by Aryanism in much the same way the papal church is much larger than the orthodox church st vincent of Loren and St jerome remark on Aryanism that quote Aryan poison had infected not an insignificant portion of the church but almost the whole world later on he says again almost the whole world was overwhelmed by a ruthless tempest of unlooked for heresy and then we have the famous line from St jerome the whole world groaned and was astonished to find itself Aryan so much for Catholicity meaning geographical extent let us ignore the compounding factor that donatism was rampant in North Africa and focus purely on Aryanism was the church less Catholic because Aryanism was significantly larger was the church less Catholic because Aryanism had spread its tentacles not only throughout the empire but to the tribes in Northern Europe at the time of the schism between east and west the best information I can find indicates the east had about three times more bishops than the west did that make the Catholic Church or rather did that make the Orthodox Church more Catholic than the papal church in fact until the 14th century when it was massacred by the sociopathic Tamarlain the Assyrian Church of the East was actually far more geographically widespread than any other church so when the church fathers occasionally speak of the church as inhabiting the whole world they had a pretty low bar of both what inhabiting and world meant it appears they understood it to mean present in some form no matter how small in the Roman world and its immediate borders for the most part Petristic writers spoke of Catholicity in terms of comp Oh whoops i have on screen um for the most part Petristic Writers spoke of Catholicity in terms of completeness and dogma we see this in St vincent of Loren when he states quote that is truly and in the strictest sense Catholic which as the name itself and the reason of the thing declared comprehends all universally okay he's talking about dogma this is another example of what I argued in December in the debate I did on pints of Aquinus against Ibara you cannot simply assume terms meant in the 4th century what they were defined to mean in the 15th or the 17th or the 19th you have to view them through the lens of how history was acted out to see the context in which those terms were being used and to understand what those terms meant to those people and at that time anything else is simply anacronistic isogesis in other words reading your current ideas back into ancient texts and not letting them speak for themselves one of the various works I used to prepare for this debate is a work entitled Ancient Christian Doctrine Volume 5 edited by Angelo D betterardino professor of petroglyian Petristic Institute in Rome known as Augustinianum he was also at one time the president of the Augustinianum the series goes through the NY Constantinopolitan creed providing copious petristic commentary on key points and volume five covers the line under question today we believe in one holy Catholic apostolic church further one of the consulters for the series is the diminishing professor and archbishop Augustine Dinoya who is under secretary for the congregation for the doctrine of faith formerly known as the Inquisition so as you can see the editor of this volume and the writer the editor of of the series one of them um they're not random people they're highly trained highly trusted members of the Roman Catholic administration the Vatican and this is what they write about this the unity of the church was affirmed not only in rhetoric but in organization each local church was led by a bishop in communion with other bishops according to the principle of one bishop for one city and his territory unity was expressed by the celebration of the eukarist he continues on contact with other Christian communities serve to maintain and develop a consciousness of being a unity of many communities like a federation of churches for this reason discussion and communication and not imposition from above created real communion between the churches the foundation of unity is the same faith received from the church so we see the first ingredient of being one church that these various churches share one faith in the following quotations I've removed the names of the authors he provides to make the reading more smooth quote "But all the other churches that are in communion with one another are true and authentic meetings between the bishops contact through letters journeys and especially the sinods are the means by which coinia or communion is exercised between the churches the ancient church assigned a preeminent role to the criterion of historic apostolicity as an irrevocable and necessary criterion to centure the uni to centure the unity ecclesial communion of the one church of Christ here we see the second ingredient apostolic succession he then follows it with dozens of pages of petristic quotations on what creates unity and after reading all of them you come to the conclusion that apostolic succession combined with orthodox dogma are the ingredients for valid sacraments namely baptism and eucharist and it is the baptism we share and the eucharist we share that make the church one this is what St paul argues for in 1 Corinthians 10:17 this is also what we see St basil states as you can see them on screen because there's one bread we who are many are one body for we all partake of partake of the one bread st basil's liturgy and unite us all to one another who become partakers of the one bread and the cup and the communion of the one Holy Spirit this is why the celebrants at each liturgy commemorates a bishop who unites him to his equals and patriarchs commemorate one another all bishops who possess both apostolic succession and Orthodox dogma were obligated by the bonds of charity to admit one another to communion when they did not it was considered a crime against the unity of the church but it did not mean the church lacked unity only that those members lacked charity that is why it is called an internal schism both parties remain within the church due to their apostolic succession and orthodox dogma but are temporarily not commemorating one another that is the only way one can understand the situations of St cyprien of Carthage St matius of Antioch and the three figures from the acacian schism this unity is not an administrative model in which a single superb bishop overrules all other bishops at his whim that is a model that is more in common with the governmental systems of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party than the first millennium rather our communion is like that of adult siblings we are from the same mother and father and though they cannot force us to continue on as a family we decide to maintain our familial ties through regularly communicating visits exchanging gifts and caring for one another in times of need no one forces that from the top down we do it because we care about our ties because we have charity now a sibling may do something truly horrendous and be removed from the familial structure until amends are made sometimes two members of the family may not talk to one another at all times while they still speak to the other siblings thereby maintaining an imperfect unity with the hope of a future reunion because they are after all for better or for worse one family contrast this to the papal system in which there's a single normative C and only those who are in commune with that normative C are the true church this creates a system the end result of which is that only the pope is the true church try to square that with the Matian schism St cyprian or the Acacian schism you will fail now you don't see quotations from church fathers on what doesn't bring unity but you do see quotations on what does bring unity and when father Bardino compiled his floral not one of them says a church is one because it's under the pope this is conspicuously absent they allite site apostolic succession Orthodox dogma which allow for baptism and a valid eucharist which are in turn will create unity i'll close with this fantastic quotation from St augustine he says one loaf one body is what we being many are one loaf he said however many loaves may be placed there it's one loaf however many loaves there may be on Christ's altars throughout the world it's one loaf but what does it mean one loaf he explained very briefly one body is what we being many are there's one body of Christ about which the apostle says while addressing the church you are one body of Christ and individually members of it what you received is what you yourselves are thanks to the grace by which you have been redeemed you add your signature to this when you answer amen what you see here is the sacrament of unity but just as one loaf is made from a single grain from single grains collected together and somehow mixed in with each other into dough so in the same way the body of Christ is made one by the harmony of charity and what grains are for the body of Christ grapes are for his blood because wine too comes out from the press and what was separated one by one and many grapes flows together into a unity and becomes wine this both in the bread and the cup thus both in the bread and the cup there is mystery the sacrament of unity and so we see that despite the variety of liturgies despite the variety of means of receiving receiving converts in the first millennium despite the internal schisms oftentimes led by saints despite the limited geography of the church the church oftentimes dwarfed by rival heresies the first millennium church was one and was Catholic just as the creed expresses and just as the Orthodox Church is now if internal schisms and a variety of views on reception of converts disqualifies the Orthodox Church from being one and Catholic then let us also write off the entire first millennium and all of its saints if it was good enough for the undivided church why is it not good enough for my interlocator thank you [Applause] uh I'm not going to be using any visual aids for this part so just my voice is that okay with everybody just the voice just voice of reason thank you Denny very much and uh let me know father we can start the timer i'll begin when you begin i got I keep my own time because I'm very afraid of We good i don't I don't want to I don't want anyone to look into my personal business alex alex if you need more time don't worry about going over you're I appreciate it ub is a man another round of applause for Ubie by the way please thank you very much Ruby all right ready all right let's begin today Eastern Orthodoxy is finally in the hot seat all apostolic Christians believe that the church founded by Jesus Christ is visible and identifiable the visible church is identifiable by four marks one holy Catholic and apostolic these four marks or four pillars are essential in identifying the true church meaning that the true church must have all four of these marks if any Christian communion is missing even just one of those four we can conclude that that communion is not the true church of Jesus Christ the Eastern Orthodox Communion claims to be the one holy Catholic and apostolic church while it is one while it is uh holy and it is apostolic today I will demonstrate that the Eastern Orthodox Church is not one nor is it Catholic it is missing two of the four pillars and therefore it is not the true church let's begin with one jesus prayed for his church to be one in John 17 and St paul says there is only one body but what does it mean to be one in Acts 2:42 we read that the first Christians held steadfastly to the apostles teaching and fellowship to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers they were all united in matters of faith and worship st paul also tells us that the local leaders of the church have true authority while the book of acts shows that these local authorities were all united under one universal authority which was established by Christ in Matthew 16 Luke 22 and John 21 so Christians are united in matters of faith and worship under a common governance but is this what we see in the Eastern Orthodox Church they are they united in matters of faith worship and governance let's look at each of these when it comes to faith we find that the Eastern Orthodox Church has internal disagreement and is not united eastern Orthodox bishops do not agree with each other on essential doctrinal beliefs for example they do not have a defined cannon of scripture they cannot tell us how many books belong in the Bible some will say 73 others 76 or 81 some will even say only 66 why can't the Eastern Orthodox Church tell us how many books are inspired by God they only need to provide one number but the bishops cannot agree on what that one number is why aren't they one in this matter how do we identify who's right and who's wrong they are also not united in their sortiology some say that salvation can only be attained if one is a visible member of the Eastern Orthodox Communion and that there is no grace outside of it others say that there is grace outside of it and even salvation and others even go to the other extreme and believe in universalism that everyone will be saved in fact universal universalism is becoming more and more mainstream as a belief in Eastern Orthodoxy even though it's been condemned as a heresy by the church east and west as far back as the fifth century they're also not united in their understanding of the filioquay purgatory transubstantiation the immaculate conception the role of St peter the Apostle or the extent of the authority of the bishop of Rome before the great schism why aren't the Eastern Orthodox united in any of these doctrinal matters how do we identify who's right and who's wrong not only is their disunityity in doctrines of faith but they are also divided in their moral doctrines the Eastern Orthodox are not united on the question of the morality of artificial contraception some Orthodox bishops refuse to call it intrinsically immoral and therefore allow for its use while other bishops do call it intrinsically immoral and therefore say that it can never be used if this is a matter of morality which means that this can be harmful to souls why can't the Orthodox Church come to one agreement on this matter contraception is either immoral or it isn't and the true church of Jesus Christ should be able to tell us whether it is or not the Catholic Church promagated its own teaching on contraception in the 60s calling it intrinsically evil which means it's always a sin to use the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople Athanagoras I stated his full agreement with Pope Paul V 6 saying that he could not have spoken any other way why aren't the Orthodox bishops today in agreement on such an urgent issue why aren't they in agreement with the patriarch from the 60s why aren't they one how do you identify who is right and who is wrong a related issue is that of divorce and remarage the Bible and Christian tradition make it clear that divorce and remarage is impossible and that attempting to do such a thing is the sin of adultery many Orthodox bishops agree with this but most Orthodox bishops today actually allow for divorce and remarage up to three times if divorce and remarage is is adultery it can never be allowed so why do so many Orthodox bishops allow for it and even up to three times why three and only three times that seems like an arbitrary number so they can't say how many books are in the Bible but they can say up to how many times one can divorce and remarry they justify this by appealing to prudence but sin can never be prudent allowing for anything as a matter of prudence is only valid for those actions which are not objectively sinful but divorce and remarage is always objectively sinful matrimony isn't the only sacrament that has been desecrated for the sake of prudence they have done the same to the sacraments of initiation the Eastern Orthodox can't even identify valid sacraments outside of their own communion some bishops say that baptisms outside of the church are not valid others say that they are valid others say that only those in other apostolic communions are valid and still others say only those done with triple immersion they cannot agree they also can't agree about whether holy orders are valid in the other apostolic churches which also means that they can't agree on whether any of their other sacraments are valid the Eastern Orthodox Church can't tell us if the Catholics the Orientals or the Assyrians have a valid priesthood or a valid Eucharist or valid crisismatians or confessions or anointings of the sick some Orthodox bishops say they do but others say they don't this is related to their disunityity in sotiology why aren't they one in this matter how do we identify who's right and who's wrong and this leads to another enormous point of disagreement and disunityity within the Orthodox Church this is huge the reception of converts they can't agree on how to receive them i am a fully initiated Catholic if I wanted to become Eastern Orthodox there are three different ways that I can come into the church depending on which bishop receives me option A through reception of the Eucharist after I go to confession and make a profession of faith option B through crismation first or option C through baptism first even though I'm already baptized and crisismated these bishops can agree with each other on whether I actually am or not some will say I have both others will say I only have one and others will say I have none if I'm not baptized I am according to them a godless pagan but they can't agree with each other and it gets more complicated from here because if I'm received through option A there are bishops who would have received me through option B or C who will not allow me to receive the Eucharist in their churches if I come in through option B there are bishops who would have received me through option A that still won't let me receive the Eucharist they would say that my reception into Orthodoxy would not have been valid which means I would not be Orthodox at all and therefore can't receive the Eucharist even though the bishop who did receive me would give me communion and other bishops who agree with him would as well i personally know Orthodox priests who privately disagree with how their bishops tell them to receive converts so these priests out of obedience to their bishops will baptize and/or crisismate Christians whom these priests believe are already baptized and/or crisismated so in order to obey their bishops these Orthodox priests have to violate their own conscience and knowingly commit sacrilege orthodoxy is so divided that the bishops can't even agree on the validity of some of their own sacraments nor can they even tell us definitively if their converts are actually Orthodox or not which is why many of these converts are denied the Eucharist from bishops and priests who they are supposedly in communion with but if they're not united in their Eucharist then they are not one communion why aren't they one in this matter who's right and who's wrong speaking of Christians being denied the Eucharist how can the Eastern Orthodox Church be one in light of the schism between Gre the Greek church and Moscow the Russian Orthodox Church does not allow its leoty to receive the Eucharist from the Greek Orthodox Church and the Greeks are not allowed to receive from the Russian Orthodox Church moscow claims that Constantinople and Alexandria are in schism and in fact just a few years ago the Moscow patriarchet sent Russian bishops into Alexandria and set up a rival altar in opposition to the Greek patriarchet not only that but Moscow has even stolen many Alexandrian priests and even bishops by convincing them to break communion with the Greek patriarch Theodoro II and join the Moscow patriarchet so we have a rival altar stealing clergy and a parallel church they are not united in worship so who's right and who's wrong and all this break this break in worship is all because of an issue of a governance which the Eastern Orthodox are also not united in how is autophily granted the Orthodox Church can't give us a straight answer some say only an ecumenical council can grant this status but some say that the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople of Constantinople can do it on his own but we know that neither of these options work in practice because the Orthodox can't even convene a universal council and most of the autophilist churches within Orthodoxy achieve that status apart from and even in opposition to Constantinople in fact after the fall of the Byzantine Empire almost all of the churches that have since become autophilis did so not because of any church decree but because the states were automatically declaring the Orthodox churches within their own national boundaries autophilis and independent of any other patriarchy so these churches would even go into schism and just wait sometimes for decades until Constantinople would be forced to recognize their autophilis status because of political reasons autosephille in the Orthodox Church is about geopolitics and not about ecclesial rule in 1970 the Moscow patriarchet granted autophille to its churches in North America now known as the OCA but Constantinople has never recognized this status and claims that Moscow had no authority to grant them this status most churches side with Constantinople but according to the OCA the churches of Bulgaria Georgia and Poland do recognize their status moscow also granted autonomous status to the Orthodox churches of China and Japan neither of which Constantinople has recognized they claim to be united yet they are not one in governance after the fall of the USSR in 1991 Ukraine claimed yet Moscow immediately rejected it and Constantinople never recognized it ukraine wasn't even united in this because there were two different church bodies in that country claiming status but in October 2018 Constantinople finally announced that they would be granting to those two churches in Ukraine this would result in Moscow breaking full communion with Constantinople not allowing Russians to share in sacraments with Greeks this schism persists to this very day the disunityity and governance is what led to the disunityity in worship which we've already covered is this how the Christian church is supposed to operate imagine if the apostles stopped sharing in sacraments with each other because they couldn't be united in their governance of the church due to the petty political conflicts between empires kingdoms and countries we can't imagine that happening with the apostles but we are seeing it happen in Eastern Orthodoxy so how do you identify the Eastern Orthodox Church is the church identified with the Greeks or with the Russians who is the true church and who are the schismatics who has the four pillars who's right and who is wrong the issue of disunityity and governance within the Orthodox communion also exposes another fatal flaw for them they are not Catholic catholic means universal eastern Orthodoxy is not universal jesus Christ told his apostles to teach all nations but the problem in Orthodoxy is that the nations are divided the nations are so divided that the Orthodox churches within each nation identify themselves in name according to ethnicity nationality or language we have the Greek Orthodox Russian Orthodox Georgian Orthodox Serbian Bulgarian Romanian and Albanian Orthodox and so on and so forth and as most Orthodox inquirers who don't become Orthodox will tell you the main reason that they don't become Orthodox is because they don't fit into the particular ethnic group or culture of their local Orthodox parishes we have all heard the stories of visitors at Orthodox churches who are looked at with suspicion or even shunned and made to feel unwelcomed just because they're not the right ethnic group or nationality i actually personally know an amazing Greek Orthodox priest who is rejected by those he pastors because he's not ethnically Greek and his own congregation is always asking the bishop to remove this priest and to give them someone who is Greek i've even personally seen rivalries between priests because one is Greek and the other isn't does that sound like a universal church it isn't it's actually a group of individual national churches that are in loose communion with one another yet they frown upon any crossover or intermingling and we know that most of these churches even exist only because the state allows them to exist and many of them are actually used to further the political interests of the state the state knows that it's easier to control the people if you can control the churches they trick the people into thinking that their loyalty to God is directly tied to their loyalty to their nation in the '9s the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia Rokor accused the patriarchet of Moscow of being controlled by the Russian government and broke ties with them they reunited in the 2000s not because the two churches reconciled themselves but because Vladimir Putin paid Roor a visit even the name of the communion the Eastern Orthodox Church why specifically Eastern it refers to Eastern Europe which is what one thinks about when thinking of Orthodoxy orthodoxy is synonymous with Eastern Europe but not with Asia or Africa or not with the Americas or even with Western Europe it's not universal there are approximately 300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians in the entire world there are about 800 million Protestant Christians worldwide and almost 1.4 billion Catholic Christians the average Christian in the world is Catholic and Protestantism seems to be more universal than even Eastern Orthodoxy whose authority can only be as broad as the patriarchal or national level but not the universal level and when you're not universal you cannot be one which takes us all the way back to the disunityity in doctrine what happens when patriarchs disagree why hasn't the Eastern Orthodox Church been able to hold a universal council to solve any of these important issues why can't they even agree on how many ecumenical councils they have some say seven others say eight or nine and they don't all agree on how binding the Senate of Jerusalem of 1672 is after 100 years of preparation when they finally had what was supposed to be a panorid in Cree in 2016 at the very last minute onethird of the autophilis churches didn't even show up antioch Georgia Bulgaria Russia and the OCA all decided to stay home and to this day those churches don't accept the Senate as binding they don't accept it as panor it's no surprise that the Eastern Orthodox Church doesn't even have a universal catechism when they can't even agree on how many councils they have or which ones are even universally binding they can't even settle the calendar controversy when the majority of churches after World War I switched from the old Julian calendar to the new Catholic Gregorian calendar there was a schism in within Greece over it this led to the formation of the old calendarist or the true Orthodox Church this new and true Orthodox church quickly had an internal schism of their own when they couldn't agree with each other about the validity of the sacraments of the Orthodox Church of Greece one of those breakaway groups from the True Orthodox Church is called the Genuine Orthodox Church and they say that all of the other Orthodox churches have apostatized Who's right and who's wrong is the Macedonian Orthodox Church part of the church how about the Bellarusian Arosphilis Orthodox Church neither of which are recognized by any other Eastern churches who decides if these groups are Orthodox or not they claim that they are how reliable even is the Eastern Orthodox Church every single Eastern patriarchet has fallen into error and even heresy at one point or another if this church can and has so easily fallen into error why shouldn't we expect it to happen again and what will happen when it does which of them are in error right now today my opponent in this debate has a very difficult task ahead of him he has the burden of defending a position that history and present circumstances simply do not allow him to defend i have made exactly 20 points that he now has to contend with 11 of them are about doctrinal disunityity in both faith and morals two of them are about disunityity in worship between Greeks and Russians four of them about disunityity in governance and four of them are about the lack of universal authority my friend Ubie can win this debate in only one of three ways he can either go through each of these 20 points one by one and attempt to refute them all or he can reject the premise entirely and it sounds like he did in his opening statement and argue that the church of Jesus Christ does not need to have universal unity in matters of doctrine worship and governance and that the church is one and Catholic in other ways or he can just answer the simple question that I've asked repeatedly throughout this opening statement how do we identify who is right and who is wrong how do we identify which Eastern Orthodox Church is the true church they can't all be the one true church because they're not one so which one is true which one is universal which patriarchet or which metropolitan or which dascese has the four pillars which one is the one holy catholic and apostolic church of Jesus Christ today Eastern Orthodoxy has the burden of proof thank you okay at this point we're going to begin a 15minute rebuttal with Ubie and then we'll have another 15-minute rebuttal with Alex and then we will have a nice break is there anyone outside who needs to be let in what was absolutely conspicuous in that presentation that you gave was that you cited absolutely nothing official it was all just he says she says that was pathetic that was awful i I mean I expect that stuff from like Michael Loftton but you know oh you know some Orthodox done did say that and some Orthodox say done did said this but you know they ain't got no magisterium well okay so you need to actually site official documents so all right for example which documents are you citing to show how churches receive people you don't have any i've read them we receive people in the same way i've been Orthodox for 22 years i've never once had someone refuse me communion because I was received by cruismation never once and I've been to St anony's i've been all over the world so I think that's more so a fantasy or the person who told you that was maybe melodramatic as far as schisms let's say you said there's like old calendars well you guys have the SSPX you have set of a contant you have the SSP V you have all sorts of odd groups you have the Filipino National Tr you know the Brazilian National Church you have the Polish National Church which refers to uh Poland as fourth Rome no Scranton Pennsylvania's po uh fourth Rome um the canon of scripture we actually have a defined canon of scripture it is defined in the confession of Dosa um the numbering of the books is different because some churches consider certain books to be one or two but it's the same content with notable exceptions um on say it's like fourth Edris one church accepts and another dozen but no one's excommunicating each other over these and so you have to ask yourself if we use the first millennium as the standard was there unified cannon in the first millennium no there wasn't okay uh let's see not united in such teriology what are your official statements for saying that you don't have any uh on universalism i have yet to meet one person in person who's a universalist i mean David Bentley Hart goes on there and goes "Well you know some Orthodox say this." I'm think "Okay I need actual names we need we need stats contraception uh the Catholic Church had no stance on contraception till the 60s was the Catholic Church deficient until the 1960s because what I find with you guys is that you come up with a statement for something and then you expect us to immediately go okay we got to come up with a statement too but we're an independent church we don't think it's really something that needs to be dogmatized in the same way that you guys don't think that say the difference between essence and energies and toism and scodism needs to be dogmatized you don't think it's important to dogmatize whether or not Mary died i mean ex cathedral statement we still have no idea if Mary died or not before she was assumed to heaven like you made mention that why don't people agree with the Thanogorus uh because she's not an infallible autocrat by your standard we could simply bring up the examples of German bishops blessing sodomy which they've shown absolutely no slowing down with same with the Dutch bishops absolute mess divorce and remarage uh cannons of St basil the Great they allowed it i did a whole uh documentary on it i mean why was the Catholic Church in communion with a bunch of churches allowed for divorce and remarage if it was so bad i mean they were in communion for a thousand years like now it's just suddenly bad the other is why does it matter if sacraments outside of the church Why does it matter if there are sacraments outside of the church if we're receiving people the same way even when you read the cannons of St basil he doesn't He goes "Well some people receive this way some that way you know around here we do it this way let's see uh the Russians are allowed to receive from the Greek church it's a one-way schism the Constantinople did not reciprocate against Russia um you mentioned rival altars parallel church uh that sounds like when Latin missionaries came into Byzantine Catholic church land i mean just right away the first thing they did was they "Oh you're married priests." No no no you got to be celibate oh you have a beard oh no shave that off leaven bread forget it they set up rival altars throughout i have yet to see anyone disagree on the mother church being the source of autofili um the question is who the mother church is so the debate between Russia and Constantinople right now is who is a mother church of Ukraine and we see debates like that again in the in the first millennium i mean it's you look at how Jerusalem became a patriarchy you had to get the emperor involved they had to do with a jurisdictional dispute between um between one the bishops in what is now the patriarchet of Antioch and uh or Jerusalem and and Antioch and that was in you know first part of the first millennium as far as the apostles not getting along yeah we saw throughout the book of Acts they don't I mean we saw that Mark just abandons Paul we see St paul tell off St peter we see St peter fail miserably in that sense we see them dispute over whether or not believers need to be circumcised i mean they they did break communion it was it was fairly normal um I've been attending Greek parishes for I don't know how long about 22 years ago I converted i've never had issues with anyone i'll tell you where I did have issues though was I tried to attend a Marinite Catholic mass and they weren't very friendly it was you know like well you're not you're not Lebanese what are you doing here um I mean case in point I mean I drive by to get here I drive by a Greek church that has 95% English liturgies i drive by an OCA church that has all English liturgies um I drive by an Arab church that has about 90% English liturgies but I also drive by a Marinite church that has a Tagalogic liturgy an Arabic liturgy and an English one and a Spanish one i drive by a Korean Catholic church that has not a word of English it is completely Korean i mean by that standard it's like where would I fit in everyone agrees on how binding Jerusalem 1672 is they signed off on it we have the signatures if anyone wants to disagree with that we can point out Catholic bishops who disregard Vatican 2 we can point out Paul V 6th who referred to the first seven councils as ecumenical and all the others general councils of the West because here's the thing the Catholic Church has no actual official dogmatic list of what the ecumenical councils are there's no list there's also no official dogmatic list of who the popes were so how do you have a real ecumenical council if you don't know who the real pope is at Florence Eugene referred to Flor Pope Eugene referred to uh Florence as the ecumenical council it's not now how many of the ecumenical councils had full representation i can tell you right now that Nika did not have I mean they had a Spanish bishop from Rome or representing Rome supposedly the second ecumenical council began as a local council and it wasn't received into the west until I mean it's mentioned at Calcedon in the mid 400s and then really until the early 6th century it wasn't received ephesus a schism blew up during it it took a couple years to solve you also had Aakius of Boa who uh was in communion with both sides who fixed it at the fifth ecumenical council the pope was excommunicated had to come back and apologize and admit he was wrong at the sixth ecumenical council I think you actually did have full representation and at the seventh you only had two patriarchates there that the three others were priests whom the emperor summoned and said you know hey how about you you pretend to be these people which is why the fotine council right away one of the goals was to make sure that everyone accepted the seventh ecumenical council so by your standard the first millennium just keeps failing i mean like like you you would not do well in the first millennium church i mean you really wouldn't we have a universal catechism was formulated in 1642 at Yasi it's extremely boring though but I think you're overemphasizing what you consider the official catechism of the Catholic Church to be it is not magisterial it cites magisterial documents it's updated re regularly um you pointed out heretical patriarch patriarchs and bishops um there have been numerous heretical popes i mean we saw like you know vigilious and he's council excommunicated him he thought it was not acceptable to condemn people after death he was wrong we have an orius we have Pope St vitalian who endorsed monothealatism and monoergism for years until he finally turned around we have Pope Liberius also how do we know who the real Pope is one of the standards is he's accepted by everyone okay who anyway I'm done [Applause] 15 right 15 minutes all right starting starting now well I have to say I am very impressed very impressed but at the same time a little disappointed because Ubie my friend you did exactly exactly what I know you were going to do i knew that you were going to come out and say that I showed no sources don't worry my friends i have my laptop plug plugged in i'm about to show you all the sources that say everything that I said in my opening statement and you did the other thing that I was really hoping you wouldn't do but you you my you wasted your time because you have spent your entire rebuttal and actually a big portion of your opening statement debating Catholicism u we're not here to debate Catholicism we're debating Eastern Orthodoxy these people paid good money because the ticket said is the Eastern Orthodox Church the one holy Catholic and apostolic church and you have not proved that yet ubie as a matter of fact it looked like Ubie did actually take one of the three options that I gave him i said that he you know there was one of three ways he could attempt to win this debate and it looks like the option that he chose is to basically say that the true church of Jesus Christ doesn't need to be united in matters of faith worship or governance so according to my friend Ubie the true church doesn't need to but to to be united in any of those things in his opening statement he brought up uh the Pope Benedict quote about east and and west about petri primacy ubie actually contradicted himself because he was pointing out again arguing against Catholicism even though we're not here to argue Catholicism he said that um uh that Pope Benedict said that the church the eastern churches don't need to accept anything more than what they accepted in the east but that contradicted the point that he was making trying to say that the Catholic Church now uh is trying to enforce things that were not believed in the first millennium so which is it Ubie are you correct or is Pope Benedict correct because uh according to the pope the quote that you read Pope Benedict isn't trying to force anything on the Eastern churches from uh from after the first millennium um he mentioned development in the west not the east he said that the Eastern Orthodox Church is petrified if that's how he wants to describe it okay he mentioned Cyprien of Carthage you know what's so interesting about Cyprien of Carthage the baptism controversy about if we should rebaptize those who get baptized outside of the church if we should rebaptize that was actually settled during the time of St cyprien the reason St cyprien was excommunicated was because he was saying that you should rebaptize but then the North African councils which the Eastern Orthodox Church accepts those North African councils said that St cyprien was wrong and yeah he also mentioned the senate of Jerusalem in 1672 canon 15 of that senate says that you do not rebaptize converts but many of the Eastern Orthodox churches do so who's right the Eastern Orthodox churches of today that the majority of them do rebaptize or the Senate of Jerusalem 1672 oh he brought up uh St mitius of Antioch and the Malaysian schism the thing that he left out is that the Malian schism actually wasn't a schism they weren't in schism from Rome the Malian schism was an internal conflict within the church of Antioch over who was the correct bishop but when you look at the two guys that were claiming to be the correct bishop Paulinus and Mitius guess who they both appealed to they both appealed to the pope and they said the pope is going to straighten this out and what he said about Mitius not being in communion with with the pope that's not true not a single Orthodox uh scholar would ever say that and quite frankly you would be I'd like to see your sources on that um and then he brought up uh uh the occasion schism the occasion schism is that unfortunate event in history where all of the Eastern Orthodox Christians became monophysites they became monophysites for about a good what was it 50 years would be they were monophysites they all fell into heresy and who had to bail them out of monophysism the pope it's called the formula of Hermisdas who received them back into the Orthodox church into the true Orthodox church because they fell into monopysism um Constantinople one not in communion with Rome that's weird because Pope uh Pope um Demises had liates there at that Constantinople one so what do you mean that they weren't in communion he had liates there um that uh Aryanism is more geographically widespread so according to me that would mean that Aryanism is more universal than Orthodox Christianity well paganism was more universally widespread than uh Orthodox Christianity during the time of the apostles does that mean that Christianity was wrong because the Christian church started with just 12 guys and a few other guys um let's see and the arguments that he was giving about unity about being united in the Eucharist well that would include all of the other apostolic churches uh he said that baptism and Eucharist make the church one and by saying that he's actually just conceded the debate saying that baptism and Eucharist make the church one ubie you now have to pick who is Orthodox is it Greek is it the Greeks or is it the Russians because as you've already uh pointed out you conceded the Russians do not allow uh for their people to receive the Eucharist from the Greeks so if baptism and and communion makes you one he has to pick who's one he has to decide who's in and who's out according to his own standards he's going to have to pick a side um let's see oh and then again he said imperfect unity and then he contrasted that with the papal schism we're not arguing Catholicism um he said that nowhere does it say in the sources that he had that the church is one because it's under the pope we're not arguing Catholicism he mentioned again one loaf again let me just bring up the schism between Constantinople and Russia they don't share in the one loaf um he had his uh his um despite discourse where he was saying despite all of these things in the first despite all of these things in the first millennia they were still united well the reason that they maintained the unity in the first millennium with all of these issues is because they actually were able to get together to hold an ecumenical council to fix these issues which is something the Eastern Orthodox Church hasn't been able to do since the great schism so u and he conceded that they don't need they don't need to be united in those three ways so I don't know how much time I have left i'd like to plug in my computer so that I can show you guys all of the Is that it oh no i still got I still got some time uh so I could show you guys all of the great sources um let me read the ones that I have printed out here first though because he uh so he Okay so first of all he brought up the schisms and Catholicism right we're not debating Catholicism he brought up uh the uh confession of Dosytheus what's interesting is that the confession of Dosytheus teaches quite a few things that most Orthodox today do not actually hold to like the confession of Dosytheus i have it let me see i have it right here the confession of do of dosiththeia says uh oh is it well is it really universally binding because canon 15 of that council says that converts are not to be rebaptized canon 16 teaches that babies who are not baptized are subject to eternal punishment for the sin of their parents which most Orthodox reject canon 17 teaches transubstantiation calling it metoios in Greek which most of orthodoxy today also rejects and canon 18 teaches purgatory and even goes as far as to say that purgatory happens in hell which most Orthodox also reject uh maybe this is why Metropolitan Kalisto Square said in his 2015 book that the councils that that council's statements of faith have in part been received but in part set aside or corrected there's a good source for you bud uh what else do we have so uh he is he brought up um no canon in the first millennium well it's interesting because the North African code the same code that actually said that uh St cyprien of Carthage was incorrect in his understanding of rebaptism they actually did codify the cannon at the councils of Hippo and Carthage in 393 and 397 and those councils were actually uh were uh accepted by the Eastern Orthodox Church and Ubie is correct that 1672 the senate of Jerusalem actually does uh have the same cannon that those councils have that the Catholic cannon has the only problem is that the fileric catechism from Moscow from 1830 that catechism explicitly says and I have I have it here don't worry me explicitly says that those seven books are not scripture that they don't belong in the bible they have the protestant cannon um so uh he said the question is about who is the mother church well Ubie when is the Eastern Orthodox Church going to decide who is the mother church is it going to be Constantinople is it going to be Moscow who is the mother church because Moscow claims to be the mother church claims to be third Rome they said that Constantinople lost its place as New Rome and now Constant Constantinople is third Rome ubie in this debate my friend I'm afraid that you're not going to have to decide between the Greeks and the Russians if you have any chance of winning um he brought up Latin missionaries we're not debating the Catholic Church um he brought up Oh he also said that the apostles were not unified he brought up all of the problems the personal conflicts that the apostles had that we read about in the Bible he literally threw the apostles under the bus and said that they are not unified but they were actually united in matters of faith doctrine and governance according to the Bible so according to Ume if you have personal disputes that also means that you're not unified he just said the apostles are not unified that is crazy um he talked about the Marinite Catholic Mass and how he tried going there one time and that he was met with an icy reception ubie I'm so sorry that you went to a Catholic church and they said "Oh look that's Ubie Petrus the guy that for 20 years has been trying to disprove Catholicism that's kind of weird so I'm sorry you got an icy reception Ubie it's just it's it's the probably the line of work that you chose but we can talk about that during the cross exam don't worry." Oh okay so uh languages in liturgies uh he said "Where would he fit in?" Well I happen to recall that he listed all of these churches that do the liturgy in English ruby speaks English he's been speaking English during this debate so I think you would fit in any of the in any of those um he brought up Catholic bishops who disagreed with Vatican 2 we're not abating Catholicism he brought he said that there's no list of popes we're not debating Catholicism um he said that uh the pope said that Florence would be the authentical council you know who agreed all of the Eastern Orthodox bishops who said "Yeah this will be the Aumenical Council." And then they went back home to Eastern Europe and there was a revolution and there was uh riots in the streets because of it so they said "No never mind." They had all signed it and then they uh they said "No never mind take our signatures off of that." Um uh he said that uh Pope Agilius was excommunicated in Constantinople 2 are you sure Ubie because Constantinople 2 did remove Vgilius from the dipics but when the that council was actually officially published the official acts of that council do not have vigil Pope's removal from the dictics which I know which I already know you you know Ubie and as a matter of fact the only reason Constantinople 2 is actually a binding ecumenical council was because Pope Agilius ratified it himself and when he didn't he didn't even mention the council by name so he only let Constantinople too be binding uh because he because because he had the authority to do it which is why the emperor had to kidnap Pope Julius from Rome drag him all the way to Constantinople to force him to ratify the council even though he could have had the patriarch of Constantinople in that very city do it he could have had Alexandria do it or Antioch or Jerusalem because the Roman emperor Justinian who was a monophysite by the way um he actually had all of the patriarchs in his back pocket cuz he put him there he was literally removing and putting in patriarchs why did he feel the need to have to go and drag the pope from Rome all the way to Constantinople to make him sign Constantinople too interesting if the pope But we're not debating Catholicism guys let's keep going um uh he says that uh something about the universal catechism of uh 1642 i already brought up the filerret catechism from the Russian Orthodox Church from 1830 which explicitly contradicts almost everything that was taught in the cate of Jerusalem in 1672 about like what books belong in the Bible that don't belong in the Bible um about like you know transubstantiation and all these things the Phil Red Catechism 1840 ubie I think you might have to tell all the any Russians in the audience any anybody that goes to the Russian Orthodox shirts that they may not be Orthodox i don't know um he talked about heretical popes uh we're not debating the papacy he asked who's the real pope and we are not debating the papacy let's talk really quick while I have time let's talk a little bit about um I don't know if he even touched oh about universalism he said he's never met a universalism well uh Metropolitan uh Metropolitan Halerion in 2008 the Russian Orthodox uh scholar Bishop uh in his presentation at the first world apostolic congress of divine mercy held in Rome in 2008 he said this he argued that God's mercy is so great that he does not condemn sinners to everlasting punishment and he said that the orthodox understanding of hell corresponds roughly to the Roman Catholic notion of purgatory it's a metropolitan that said that uh Dr david Benley Hart which Ubie mentioned there's also father Aiden Kimbo from eclectic orthodoxy there's the arch priest Sergius Bul uh Bul Bulgakov there's uh Paul Evokimov St sophroni the Arch of Mandrite Lazarus and Metropolitan Kalistos Wear who said in uh in the inner kingdom the collected works volume one Crestwood New York uh 2000 there's the the the citation for you Ubie he said "Dare we hope for the salvation of all?" And a lot of scholars actually will say that "Yeah Metropolitan Kalisto Square was actually a universalist." Um should we talk about contraception i don't it will be I don't even think Ubie touched on that i don't think he wanted to talk about contraception because that's a hot button issue that he didn't even want to that he didn't want to bring up um but let's talk about contraception because um so there are many Greek Orthodox churches that say let me actually plug this finally in so you guys can see some sources that I had and I know how to do this they taught me how to do this before we started i think I got it i think I checked this out is it working is it Is it working did I do it right did I break it did it Did it not work they're not working help me you young boy you know how to help me please please hurry there's not the clock is running hurry hurry hurry hurry i'm sweating all right all right woo get out of here thank you all right i love this guy right here he's a man bishop Timothy Kalisto Wear said in his book The Orthodox Church concerning contraceptives and other forms of birth control differing opinions exist within the Orthodox Church in the past birth control was in general strongly condemned but today a less strict view is coming to prevail not only in the west but in traditional Orthodox countries many Orthodox theologians and spiritual fathers consider that the responsible use of contraception within marriage is not in itself sinful and we also see here um right here uh Mayendorf one of the greatest Eastern Orthodox uh scholars in the game mayandorf he said this straight condemnation of birth control h well um so it says that it never where it in red where it says never claiming universal validity one question which actually requires a personal act of conscience these are forms of birth control which will be acceptable and even unavoidable for certain couples and um he says the question of birth control it's acceptable form can only be solved by individual Christian couples so the this uh scholar right here says that the church of Jesus Christ isn't able to solve this issue for you it's up to your yourselves you can keep going no no we got to respect we got to respect the time few more minutes what does the audience want few more minutes do the What do the audience want you want the voice of reason to keep going you probably want Ubie to get to Oh wait we have a break after this don't we all right okay cool cool all right excellent thank you Ubie ubie's a man another round of applause for Ubie really quick cuz he's Thank you thank you so if you um so in that same book from Timothy Kalisto's wear there's a it came out in 1968 um and I'm I'm not really good with technology i know I have it somewhere here i'll see if I can find it but um in 1968 uh in that book the Orthodox Church he he says in the first print that uh contraception I have it here watch let me read it it's it's but well I lost it i I I'll I'll put it up here in a minute i can do it during the the hourlong thing but in the first edition of that 1968 he actually says that contraception is forbidden and then when it was reprinted uh in the 80s it went back to like a like a more moderate stance well there's some you know speculation about whether it can be permitted or not and then in 1994 I believe which is when the latest uh version of that book came out it says that it's pretty much allowed so if Eastern Orthodoxy is the true church how do we identify it and why is it that um you know like uh Kalistos where Metropolitan uh has gone back on what the Orthodox Church has taught um so there's so much more that I could get into but I think I covered everything that will be brought up thank you for the extra [Applause] time okay everybody we are about to get started again let's make those closing statements with each other we now will begin a 15-minute cross examination from both sides then we'll have an open debate for 1 hour and then we'll have five minute closing statements from from each side okay so once again how are our how are these guys doing by the way we're doing good we're doing good so So in that regard I want to remind you we have a tip box for them okay it's located right over there i need it you can give him the money i don't I don't need tips all right come on tips are nice and we all enjoy those those things so we appreciate it we'll get Alex a bus back home tips are nice smiles are nice all right well without further ado uh we'll start with Uie Petrus who will give us the start with the 15-minute cross- examination okay there we go all right let me uh set my timer here is there anyone outside who needs to come in okay it's 15 minutes okay Alex would you agree that internal schisms such as the current one between Constantinople and Moscow or in the past ones between Antioch and Jerusalem or the ecumenical patriarch and Bulgaria or between Roore and the Moscow patriarchy are a common feature of the Orthodox Church and that something from the Catholic perspective makes the Orthodox Church fail the litmus test of Rome is the question is do these schisms make the Orthodox church does it invalidate it do let me I think I know what you what you the answer is the answer is no these schisms in orthodoxy do not invalidate orthodoxy no does it invalidate whether or not the church is one by the Catholic standard well which is the standard you're using which is why I attack it if Eastern Orthodoxy is true it wouldn't violate it but you have to identify which one is the true church so if people break away from the true church of Jesus Christ people are going to do that because we have free will and we're sinners but the true church of Jesus Christ should always be able to identify itself so So in the case of say like oh I don't like Jerusalem and Antioch splitting uh everyone else is still in communion with one another so you have an imperfect schism you have an internal schism is what we call it so do you see that as invalidating the claims of the Orthodox Church to be one to you're talking about the Eastern Orthodox Church yes do you see that schisms like that internal schisms where you have one two parties not in communion right but they're in communion with everyone else do you see that as invalidating a claim to be one it does if the true church can't be identified okay so okay so if I were just to say I mean how how you're then pausing a situation where how do I phrase this okay well I'll move on hey maybe if I if I clarify if Jerusalem and Antioch go into schism with each other we should be able to identify who's actually in schism and who's Orthodox but but you can't because for again you cannot because they're in communion with everyone else because they're in communion with So Antioch is in communion with everyone else jerusalem is in communion with everyone else but these two are not com uh commemorating each other does that in your view fail the test of one uh no because it would mean that either one or the other would be in communion with the universal church but they're both not in communion with the universal church it depends on who's in schism and who's not no no no but let me phrase this another way so let's say you and I are not talking to each other right you and I are each talking to everyone in this room right okay now remove that from you and I let's say I'm Jerusalem and you're Constantinople i'm Jerusalem okay well no it's concentr can I be Antioch i'll be Antioch no well I'm the Arabic speaker so okay you're Antioch i'll be Jerusalem okay you can be Jerusalem i like Jerusalem they have patriarch well they're very corrupt so [Music] um I walked into that one wait are you saying the Church of Jesus Christ can be corrupt just kidding yeah so um I mean would you see that as as hindering the oneness of the church uh uh no because they're both in that body is the situation they're both in communion with everyone else they're not commun commemorating one another so this is the same situation with Moscow and Constantinople right now right so one of those two right cuz the way that communion works it's not enough to just be in communion with the visible head you have to be in communion with everyone that is in communion with the visible head so even if let's say I'm not the visible head and Antioch isn't the visible head maybe someone in this audience is the visible head i can't say I'm going to be in communion with the visible head but I'm not going to be in communion with Antioch if I'm not in communion with Antioch but then I'm not in communion with the visible head either but then the question is the question remains who came out of communion did Jerusalem go into schism or did Antioch go into schism why are they not in communion with each other who left communion or who excommunicated who and how do you identify who is in the church and who is okay so so again so again they are both in communion with everyone else this is a purely internal schism so this would be a situation like say if the dascese of I don't know Dallas Texas just stops well let's say that let's say the uh uh the church the Catholic Church in Canada stops commemorating the Catholic Church in America but they're both in communion with everyone else would that would that damage the unity of the Catholic Church it would be an imperfect communion okay all right thank you mhm so uh would you agree that the statement that the Catholic Church does not suffer from internal schisms like the Orthodox Church is that correct that the Catholic Church does not suffer maternal schisms correct the Catholic Church does not suffer the Fotian schism was partially motivated by a territorial dispute between Constantinople and Rome concerning jurisdiction over Bulgaria does a Roman Catholic Church have anything similar to that today anything similar to what now to the Fotian schism and which was largely over territorial dispute over Bulgaria do you have anything in the Catholic Church where for example two different churches within the Catholic Church get into a territorial dispute and break communion do you have anything like that now yeah but we're not debating the Catholic Church no no no but do you no well well we're debating the standard you've set the standard as a Catholic church i now disregarding that i'm telling you why that standard doesn't work so do you do you see anything like that in the Catholic Church today where where people leave the Catholic Church yeah but No that's not No that's not what I But I said "Would you agree with the statement that the Catholic Church does not suffer from internal schisms?" Internal schism oh I'm sorry Mr i apologize no the Foteen schism was partially motivated by a territorial dispute between Constantinople and Rome concerning jurisdiction over Bulgaria does the Roman Catholic Church have any similar situation like that today over land not that I know of okay same question can you think of anything similar to that within the Orthodox church today similar over territory well for example like I mentioned in my opening statement the autophily of the OCA is something that Constantinople has never recognized um and again the Auto the Bellarusian Autophilis Orthodox Church the um is it the Macedonian Orthodox Church these are all uh bodies that claim to be Orthodox but no no I'm asking about schisms over territory schisms over territory so like say like Ukraine I hope yeah okay uh in the fifth century Pope St bonafice entered into a protracted dispute with the church of Constantinople over control of the Balkans it finally resulted in the emperors handing control of the Balkans to the church of Constantinople who then refused to return it to Rome mhm this culminated at the seventh ecumenical council when the pope in his letter requested that the church of Constantinople return control of the Byzantine right parishes in southern Italy and the Balkans to Rome but the council simply ignored it can you think of anything similar like that in the Catholic Church today or is that a problem the Catholic Church just doesn't have now no the Catholic Church doesn't know that problem all right oh wait i'm sorry no you're right they do like what well we're not debating the Catholic Church no I'm asking I'm asking no I'm asking cuz I'm I'm attacking your standard right now so we are debating your standard and you don't want to because you realize if we debate this Oh hold on wait i'm the one interrupting because I'm asking you oh you're right you're right interrupt yeah thank you no we're attacking your standard right now because you're judging the Orthodox Church by the standards of the Catholic Church i'm pointing out to you exactly why that standard is absolute nonsense okay so what is it in the Catholic Church today that coaleses or is similar to the situation of Pope St bonafice and the church of or uh uh uh Pope St bonafice getting into an argument with the church of Constantinople over territory i don't know okay uh same situation can you think of anything similar to that now in the Orthodox church over territory ukraine okay there you go can you think of anything like the Malletian schism within the Catholic Church today over who is the ordinary of a particular to territory i'm sure it happens more often than we think re really where i don't know you don't have examples okay can you think of anything like that within the Orthodox church today over who is the ordinary of a particular territory okay there you go are you aware that internal schisms are a common occurrence in the first millennium schisms in the first millennium yeah and we can always identify who's if a church is a true is if a church is true to the first millennium ecclesiology would it have the same ecclesiological problems as a first millennium church if the church is true to the I'm sorry can you say one more time if a church is true to the first millennium ecclesiology wouldn't it have the same ecclesiological problems as a first millennium what do you mean by problems oh I don't know what I've just been asking you about for the last like 8 minutes i've just been asking you about internal schisms so if internal schisms are a normal part of the first millennium church right if a church is true to the first millennium why wouldn't they have internal schisms oh okay i understand the question uh yes schisms are a reality of the church but it can always be identified okay so in other words the Catholic Church doesn't have the same problems as a first millennium church well actually in terms of ecclesiology because you just spent the last several questions you just admitted that the Catholic Church doesn't have these problems anymore you then admitted that the first millennium church did you then admitted the Orthodox Church does yeah so so you have just seated that the Catholic Church does not have the same ecclesiological problems as the first millennium church but the Orthodox Church does no actually in the Catholic church any ecclesial ecclesiological problems that they have can be solved in the same way they were solved in the first millennium because in the first millennium you can identify who the orthodox church was and that's the Catholic church if the German bishops are teaching the stuff that they're teaching the SSPX ecumenical council identifical council who is a true church vigilious or the bishops who uh uh removed his name from the diptica the the true church is anyone that was in communion with vigilious someone who was excommunicated he wasn't his name was no he he his name was removed that's excommunication they're no longer communicating with that person if you do not communicate with a person communion they are excommunicated Okay so it you are saying that someone who was removed from communion who then later had to admit that they were wrong that you had to be in communion with them to be in the true church well actually he didn't admit that he was wrong no he did in the letter in the letter to Uticius in the letter to Uticius which is in the acts of the council he admits that he was wrong he says he was led aside by Satan and then he cites St augustine saying this is the example of someone admit they were wrong so again if someone has been excommunicated if a can a pope be excommunicated in the Catholic Church today nope okay so you don't have the problems of the first millennium church all right next question so if a church is let's see were the Gallagans and Fonians part of the one holy catholic and apostolic church prior to Vatican 1 who know the Gans gallicans the Gans were they part of the church before Vatican 1 yeah i don't know you don't know what about the Fabonians say it again the Fabronians i don't know who these people are okay uh the the Gallicans were about one quarter of Catholicism everything under the French crown was Gallican uhhuh okay was there a uniform method of receiving converts in the first millennium a uniform method of receiving converts what are they converting to from from anything from anything from any schismatic group from any let's just say schismatic group let's let's just say uh I don't know from say Novationism oh from Novationism it depends if their baptisms were valid or not okay so was there a like Okay was there a uniform way of receiving people was it I mean because the way you're look making it out to be is that the first millennium would have just immediately baptized everyone were there different standards between different churches because when I read the cannons of St basil and baptism he goes "Well some people do it this way some people do it that way." Mhm it depends on what the situation is and who's being who's being brought back into the church it depends on if they had already received a valid baptism or not because I'm sure as you know and you'll admit that there were different ways of doing it but it wasn't because the church didn't have a uniform standard it's because some people's baptisms outside of the Orthodox Church were valid and others weren't so they had Why did Pope Why did Pope St stefan accept Gnostic and Marcianite baptisms gnostic and Marcianite baptisms i don't know if that would be the case but if that's the case he did st cyprian goes after him for it st stefan the standard was not Staint Stefan because he accepted Morenite agnostic baptisms uhhuh yeah if he did it would have been because he determined that they had a valid baptism because they use proper form and matter really that's the only reason he would have accepted it okay so you think that there were Gnostic and Marcianite baptisms that had proper form and matter say that again you think that there were Marcianite Gnostic baptisms at proper form and matter uh maybe there were if they baptized with water in the name of the Father Son Holy Spirit i can guarantee you none of them were um I'm sorry i would like to see a source for that just kidding bro i'll dig it up during the It's a letter of St cypran of Carthage um let's see these are for my subscribers on Patreon they have questions oh boy if Roman Catholicism theoretically became outsized by another Christian group would you still view it as the true church if Roman Catholicism was what now became outsized outsized by another Christian group would you still view it as a true church yeah okay so even though it wasn't the largest even though it wasn't geographically spread throughout the world because it would have the other pillars as well okay so you only need three of the four not four of the four as you argue it would have all four but it doesn't mean that there was other non-atholic groups that could be bigger but I would like to point out that Catholicism is the largest uh religion in the world and we're not debating Catholicism today i'm still waiting we're debating no we're debating the standard that you've set uhhuh uhhuh and you don't want to debate that standard because it's an embarrassment for you that's why that's why you keep detracting from it one minute okay one minute next question at the time of the schism the number of bishops and overall Christian population of the east was much larger in the Latin West easing the size argument wouldn't this make the church of the east much larger i'm sorry say it again how can we say that the church the papal church was the true church had it fit the your definition of Catholic if it was only one quarter of of the schism between east and west because we identify the church with its head so so then size is not an issue at all and universal so geographic size numbers and then geographic location is not important universality means that it is present in all parts of the world and Catholicism is present is a Catholic church present in North Korea uh no it's not catholic church is a Catholic church present in Antarctica no not in Antarctica because there's an Orthodox church in each of those countries all right good really good everybody give it up for [Applause] Ubie got me with the Antarctica one that's those penguins are you ready brother whenever you're ready take your time we're good we're ready 15 minutes right okay we'll begin um so for these questions I just want to know what the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches okay question number one is the use of contraception objectively sinful uh no is remor is rem uh So what about all the churches that teach that it is objectively sinful i need to see official statements on that sure I'll I'll send them to you um but if there are churches if there if there are churches that teach uh that contraception is uh indeed intrinsically evil and simple are those churches in schism no it just means the issue isn't settled so they're not Oh so the issue isn't settled in orthodoxy it's not an issue that needs to be settled so the issue of contra the morality of contraception is an issue that doesn't need to be settled okay uh remarage after divorce objectively sinful no no well depending on the circumstances St basil allows it in certain circumstances oh we'll get into that in a little bit is marriage Okay um so this evening after this debate we're going to be celebrating the divine liturgy in this Catholic Church will that be a valid Eucharist uh I don't know and I don't care you don't know and you don't care does the Does the Eastern Orthodox Church have anything to say about it uh officially we just receive people in a certain way and when I say and that's not what I asked you i asked you if the Eucharist that we're going to be celebrating today tonight if that's a valid Eucharist uh well again when I say and if you're not able if you don't know what the answer is you could just say you don't know what the answer is well I could answer go ahead would you like Okay um when I say I don't care I mean in the sense that it doesn't matter to me whether or not it is because one I'm not in that church too if we receive and really quick and I'm going to be able to interrupt you cuz it's my cross- examination time i didn't ask you if you cared or not i asked you what the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches there's no subtle teaching on it doesn't matter because we receive people along certain lines i didn't ask you about reception i just asked you about the sacraments outside of I explained to you why it doesn't matter why why it doesn't matter okay interesting if we baptize everyone it doesn't matter what background they come from if we were crisismate every other Christian it doesn't matter what bapt they come from i didn't ask you about what background they came from i just asked you if the Eucharist that we're celebrating tonight is going to be valid it's a simple yes or no question just based on what the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches not your opinion what does your church your communion teach about the Eucharist that we're going to celebrate tonight uh I'd have to look it up on You'd have to look it up okay let's move on what about What about Chrismation is the Chrismation valid of who of the here in the Catholic Church well I Well I can answer all of your questions on valid sacraments or not so are the sacraments outside of Orthodoxy valid or not um I don't know and it doesn't matter you don't know and it doesn't matter so do you mean the Eastern Orthodox Church doesn't know the eth Eastern Orthodox Church has made various decisions about how to receive people and do they contradict with each other uh they may or may not they may or may not so does that mean they're not united well they're not in the reception of convers they're no more united they're no more disunited than the first millennium i didn't ask you about the first millennium i ask you about the church today is the Eastern Orthodox Church today united in how they receive converts yes or no uh yeah are they Are you sure absolutely 100% sure okay so then when one bishop receives me through uh through only receiving the Eucharist and then another bishop receives me through only crisismation and then a third bishop receives me through uh through baptism why is it that they can't agree with each other over whether my uh sacraments if my baptism was valid or not half of the bishops will say my baptism as a Catholic is valid the other half will say it's not why can't they all give me a straight answer about whether I'm baptized or not because if I'm not baptized I'm a godless pagan according to them so can't they be able to identify who's godless pagans and who is it uh the reason is that none of them would receive refuse communion to you based on how you were received no bishop that I'm aware does that those who pull we'll pull up the it's it's my crossexam we'll get into that we got we only got a little bit of time um let's see um so are the Greeks part of the Eastern Orthodox Church of course how about the Russians of course are the Greeks and Russians in communion uh well the Greeks are in communion with the Russians but not the other way around then how can they both be part of the Eastern Orthodox Church when they're not in communion the same way that you and I may not talk to each other but we'll talk to everyone else in this room so because we can because we talk to each other because So okay so then the question is who's the visible head then who do I need to be united with in order to know who do we need to be united with in order to know that we're part of the true church those who have apostolic succession and correct dogma okay so Catholics orientals and Assyrians are all part of the true church uh they don't have correct dogma but you just said apostolic succession and correct dogma oh and how do you identify correct dogma could it be with the four pillars you can identify correct dogma based on the decisions of all those churches who are communing beforehand simultaneous or agreeing not simultaneously but agreeing on what dogma and the Eastern Orthodox Church doesn't agree on what dogmas no we agree on dogmas actually so why does the senate of Jerusalem 1672 say that it's the 73 book canon of scripture but the ferret catechism of Moscow of 1830 says that it's a 66 book candidate of scripture because the the matter of the canon is not dogmatic because it's not dogmatic so the Eastern Orthodox Church can't tell us what belongs in the Bible and what doesn't it's not dogmatic we agree on the core so the answer is no the Eastern Orthodox Church can't tell us what belongs in the Bible and what doesn't okay let's move on well we we have it in the Confession of Dosus it's only two books and it says that it's 73 books but the Russians say that it's only 66 of them are inspired let's move on because Moscow also says let's move on cuz we don't have that much time we can talk about it during our open uh dialogue but um Moscow says that Constantinople and Alexandria are in schism is Moscow correct i'm sorry could you ask again please uh Moscow says that Constantinople and Alexandria are in schism is Moscow correct i don't believe so no you don't believe they're correct so then Moscow is wrong moscow is wrong on that okay so then does that mean that Moscow in excommunicating Constantinople and Alexandria does that mean that they separated themselves from the church well no because they're still united imperfectly and indirectly how are they united imperfectly and indirectly is it because of Antioch uh because they're in communion with everyone else because they're in communion with everybody else so how do you know which bishop you need to be united to because we don't have a normative head it's those with apostolic succession correct dogma those with apostolic succession and correct so so uh let's say that I that I excommunicate everybody that I don't like and I'm just in in in let's say Antioch for example because Antioch claims to be in communion with both Moscow and with Constantinople as long as we all have one bishop that we all have in common can we say we're all one true church even if the rest of the bishops don't talk to each other but we're all united to Antioch so are we still one church are you referring to one in the sense that the framers of the Nian Constantinopolitan Creed intended the term did you ask me a question this is my cross- examination ask me ask me ask me ask me oh is it was it a clarifying question cuz my question was my question was is this a clown show are you serious hold on no it's it's a good question my question is Antioch claims to be in communion with everybody right i understood your question then I asked you do you mean one in the terms that the first council of Nika and Constantinople intended the term one do you mean one in that sense or do you mean one in the sense that medieval canonists in the west framed it in the way that the church has always intended one to mean like what the Bible teaches one in worship in doctrine and governance that's what the Bible teaches i I don't know what you mean by those terms i mean there's one in worship in Catholic versus marinite so so worship mean uh worship just means that you can receive the Eucharist at each other's churches can uh can um uh Greeks receive the Eucharist in Russian churches or and vice versa uh for the most part actually the Russian bishops will give it yeah for the most part Russian bishops will do that even though the patriarchet officially says no so now are you saying that those Russian bishops are disobeying their own patriarch um I think that honestly they are and I think that the situation between the Greeks and the Russians is absolutely tragic but I don't think it's anything outside of the norm of the first millennium so how okay so you were saying that the church of Jesus Christ in the very beginning for the all the all the time that they were always to be disunited in matters of worship doctrine and governance and that's fine and that that's still true unity just because they all had somebody in common that they were talking to well you said that they ought to be or that they could be that they that they were the question is were they even if they were all just because they had one bishop in common well just because we're all in communion with Antioch we can consider ourselves one church even though Moscow is setting up a rival patriarchet in Alexandria that's not a schism if your question is if they could be the answer is yes if your question is ought they to be the answer is no my question is are they i want to know who's in the Orthodox Church and who isn't everyone Everyone is in communion with I mean everyone is everyone has apostolic succession correct dogma it's a sin against charity not to commemorate people who have those two and and uh and you would agree that Moscow doesn't commemorate Constantinople or Alexandria even though Moscow Constantin Constantinople and Alexandria have apostolic succession and according to you they have correct dogma but Moscow doesn't commemorate them so so so are they one church even though they don't commemorate each other they are one church so Moscow can say Alexandria and Constantinople are in schism i'm not in communion with him and you say that's still one church yes okay all right let's move on um let's see who can grant autophily i'm sorry who can grant autophily it's the mother church is typically and who's the mother church the one that founded that church the one that founded that church so does that mean that Russia was able to grant autophily to the OCA uh yeah in that case yeah there were so Russia's correct about that the thing though is that you you have to it's initiated by one group and then proclaimed by all can you show me where the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that whoever found found founded that territory that they have that they're the mother church of that territory uh yes actually it's in the preconciliary documents to create 2016 it's called granting autonomy it touches on autocuff okay would that be from the council of cree yes it would oh did you know that Antioch isn't in didn't accept the council of cree and neither did four other patriarchets uh they didn't reject it they actually signed off actually they they did reject it no they they signed off on the pre-conciliary documents actually that's not true but Yes I read them right before I got here they signed off on them we we can get into that antioch and actually not just Antioch but four other patriarch it said that the council of Cree was indeed not binding and that's kind of awkward because you just said that because everyone is a communion with Antioch that must mean that we're all one church but then you also just said that Cree is binding but Antioch doesn't accept so Antioch is out of the church i faith that cre was binding i said that everyone signed a priest is universally binding no it's not universally binding only those documents that everyone has agreed to are universally binding oh so the only universal the only universally binding documents are the ones that everybody agrees upon eventually that's how we decide dogma is that Oh so it's just about uh uh consensus well it's just about the Vincent so it's a democracy the church of Jesus Christ is a democracy you just vote on it all the bishops do do you realize cuz you said it yourself in your opening statement that there were more Aryans in the early church than there were Orthodox Christians so does that mean that if they had gotten together to figure it out all of the Aryans would have voted for Aryanism and Aryanism would have been Orthodox Christianity because they had because the church is not a democracy if Wait a second the church is not a democracy you just said that whoever accepts them everyone that accepts them that that's how we identify Orthodox but now you're saying it's not a democracy no that's not what I said which is it that's not what I said and honest right now which is it what it is is all those churches when they all agree together that's what it forms it's not a democracy so when they all agree together and what if one disagrees like or what if five disagree about cre well then it's just held off until one oh so then it's not so what if just one disagrees well it's just held off so then you can't identify what is orthodox and what isn't unless everybody agrees on it and one person in comm all those churches that were in communion prior to formulating agreement so Ubie is this the reason that the Eastern Orthodox Church hasn't been able to have an ecumenical council in the last since the great schism because they can't agree with each other on what is and what isn't or maybe we just don't think there's important issues to So you think in the last thousand years there have not been any important issues in over a thousand years that the Eastern Orthodox Church has had to address in a thousand years we had seven ecumenical councils in the first 700 years of Christianity one every hundred years but in a thousand years there haven't been any issues that the Eastern Orthodox Church needs to address thank you thank you we got to move on because we don't have much time is purgatory an orthodox doctrine as I mean is purgatory an orthodox doctrine in some Well you could say that like there are views similar to it of postmortem purification yeah so you would say that the council of Jerusalem taught it right and is the council of Jerusalem 1672 binding it's been accepted by everyone anyone who denies it is not so why do so many Orthodox reject purgatory nowadays um because so many Catholics accept homosexual marriage and contraception you just said that Eastern Orthodox reject purgatory because Catholics accept No that's not what I said what say it again please cuz my heart stopped say it again you said it again please i misheard you say it again please say it again you said that some Orthodox reject purgatory and then you tried to use that to write off a binding council and I said "Well if that's a standard why don't we just write off Catholic morality?" Oh we're not debating Catholicism in this debate how funny that you keep bringing that up and you can't stay on topic my question was Hold on a second we're not pretend that I'm not Catholic ubie pretend I'm not a Catholic i want Pretend that I'm an Eastern Orthodox hold on a second my Hold on hold on you're just using the wrong Hold on a second i pretend that I'm an Eastern Orthodox inquirer and I'm trying to make sense of Eastern Orthodoxy and I'm asking you these questions cuz I wanted to make it make sense you said that Jerusalem 1672 is a binding council cuz everyone agreed upon it which I agree with you by the way it's true but now uh there are bishops today that say that it's not binding and they actually disregard the cannons of that council my question to you is if it's binding and they reject it does that mean that they're not part of the universal church um what I think is funny just one moment is that you can you answer the question yeah just hold on a second here okay go ahead take your time take your time you said there's no canon in the Orthodox church and you admit Jerusalem accepted one and then you're like yeah Jerusalem is a binding council so you just So so then you just admit So that's another contradiction you said that the the cannon of scripture isn't a matter of dogma but Jerusalem 1672 which told us that those six seven books do belong in the Bible uh you are saying that that's binding so which is it is the minimum a matter of dogma or no sets let me but again let me go back to the question all of Hold on hold on hold on all of those bishops that rejected Jerusalem 1672 and reject purgatory and transubstantiation and the canon of scripture and they reject all of these things those bishops have rejected a council that was agreed upon by everybody the only time it's ever happened in history when they could agree on something are they part of the church or not cuz now they're rejecting what this council teaches if they Well it's formal and informal heres heretics so they're heretics sorry formal so you're saying that all of the bishops that reject what the 1672 taught they're all informal heritage normally if there are bishops who say like I mean you're just like taking an article and go no we just can't accept this you know we say like okay all right yeah yeah one second let me get the food out of here are you guys having fun ubie is it hot in here or is it just me uh I'm actually cold right now you're cold but I'm always cold so Oh man i'm That's why I moved to Las Vegas thank you so much Father thank you so much Father Nathan thank you Father yeah whenever You ready cross let's get it on all right okay i have a question for you Alex right away uh wait let me let us know do we have I think we have an extra four minutes on it too right we have an extra oh so nice thank you it was only four and a half when I stopped early so I appreciate the extra one they spoil us around here yeah so a question for you can dogma be set as a minimum can dogma be set as a minimum what do you mean by that so could you say that X is dogma but you can believe something beyond that as long as it doesn't contradict X yeah okay and you can do the same with practices correct oh yeah okay so that's a situation with the canon and the Orthodox Church in Jerusalem 1672 that's that is a situation of the canon and the Orthodox Church in Jerusalem 1672 it sets a minimum because the books under dispute and they're not even under dispute it's two specifically and I forget their names i think it's fourth Mcabes and right third or fourth third yeah now as for the canon in the can in the uh uh catechism of St ferrett um it has to do with whether or not the books are I mean I think they use different terms more so as I've researched it they don't reject those books it's not like Protestantism where they go no these are just completely unacceptable for actually the the the catechism the same for the I can pull it up i have it here well I I I know i'm I'm asking when it describes the books what is the meaning of that term how did they It says that they don't belong in the Old Testament that's what it says can you get the actual quotation yeah yeah well let me let me find it really quick i have it right because Russian Bibles have those word those books in them so and that's another question is so we have Russian Bibles that do have the Deuteronal books in there but they have a a catechism that says that those books don't belong in there so So so can you get the actual quotation sure yeah let me see i I want to I want to see it saying these don't belong in here sure so for candidate of scripture so the fileric catechism uh it's going to be points 31 through 35 let me pull it up really quick and we can show it on the screen the Filer Catechism i have it right here one second points 31 through 35 please bear with me what a great sandwich by the way really great did you guys enjoy your sandwiches yeah it's pretty good let's give it for the the cooks our compliments to the chefs sure so 31 through 35 so so let me How do I share this again uh oh wait i think I know how to do it okay i think I figured it out watch out you have a cord behind it so right here i hope everybody can see it uh can I Are we good can Can you just read it because it's counting down sure yeah so the Philipp catechism starting in point 31 it it's a question and answer format as as you're aware so the question 31 says uh how many books were in the old testament and then they quote sir of Jerusalem St antonius the great St john Damascus reckoned them 22 agreeing therein with the Jews who so reckoned them in the original Hebrew so Aanis um oh this is just a citation um so it says only the ones that are in the Hebrew that's the 66 book canon we keep reading on it says "Why should we attend to the reckoning of the Hebrews because as the Apostle Paul says unto there were committed the oracles of God." And by the way these are all Protestant arguments um because the Russians were heavily influenced by by Calvinism um and then if you go down to 34 uh why is there no notice taken in this enumeration of the books of the Old Testament of the books of the wisdom of the son of Sierak and of certain others and it says right there because they do not exist in Hebrew how are we to regard these last named books and he says Athanasius the great says that they have been appointed of the fathers to be read by proelites who are preparing for admission uh into the church so right here when the question asks how many books are in the in the old testament it says in 31 it says the 202 canon which you know corresponds to the 66 books that protestants have in their old testament and then it goes on to say they explicitly ask about those other books and they say they don't belong that they're not Hebrew uh because it asks how many of the books are in the Old Testament it says those and then it says uh it says why do we how why should we attend to the reckoning of the Hebrews because they have the oracles of God and then it says specifically uh in 34 how are we to not uh the sorry I need to zoom in on this the books of the Old Testament specifically of wisdom uh of and the son of Sierak and of certain others and it just says it basically the question is why aren't they in the Bible and it says because they do not exist in the Hebrew and it says how do we regard them and it says people that are coming into the church can read them and that's it okay so it's different levels of canonicity is what it is and that's the same thing in the Greek tradition as well okay so there's different levels of canonicity so the question what I want to know is has the Eastern Orthodox Church ever answered the question are they inspired or not well that depends on what's meant by inspired meaning that they're of divine origin well I mean that they're that that literally the Holy Spirit wrote these books how many books did the Holy Spirit write that's the question i don't think that the church has ever gotten into whether or not something was dictated from the mouth of the Holy Spirit to writers i don't I don't think that that level of precision is involved i think it's I the question in the east is always whether or not they can be read in church and so Father Nathan by that standards that's what canon means what can be allowed in church correct so Father Nathan's church by that standard has a larger cannon than your church that's actually not true the cannons of if you actually read the Eastern Catholic catechisms that's actually not true the Eastern Catholic Catechisms actually teach that the 73 books that the Catholic Church has always held to that the 73 books are the only inspired books now you're right there is a difference between inspiration and canonicity all inspired books are canonical but not all canonical books you missed what I was saying because the definition of canon in the east is what can be read in the churches but the question that we want to know is what are what is inspired because you will admit that in the early church there were books that were read in the early church that are no longer read today in any of our churches right you mean like Hermas like Hermas and Clement and uh you know the dedicay and although there are some Orthodox groups that do have those books in their cannon such as who but the question is who who has that in the cannon so uh there for example the uh Orthodox Christians of North Africa there are Orthodox Christians in North Africa that have those books in their cannon really who they do the Orthodox Christians of North Africa in the Alexandria patriarch in Ethiopia and Aritria well Ethiopia is a monophasite church okay yeah it's not Eastern Byzantine church are there any Greek Orthodox Christians in Northeast Africa uh if there are well there are but they don't follow the Ethiopian cannon they follow the they follow the Alexandrian cannon which is the uh which is the uh one at Jerusalem okay so then all those books in that cannon are they considered divinely inspired or not divinely inspired in some way i mean the question again is do they belong are can they be read in church mhm so the books that father Nathan can read at church is much larger than the books that say a Latin right Catholic can read in the church but the question is of inspiration no the question in the east is what can be read in the church again okay so again you resent the fact that I keep arguing against a standard that you're setting up you say "We're not talking about Catholicism we're talking about Well Hold on can I say Sure yeah yeah go ahead you say we're not talking about Catholicism we're talking about Orthodoxy." Right but then you don't want your standard critiqued i'm critiquing your standard to point out why it's not a good standard okay so then tell me what standard can you use what standard can the Eastern Orthodox Church use to let us know what books belong in the Bible and don't belong in the Bible the same one I've told you multiple times and so then you admit that there are different uh lists different collections um in the Eastern Orthodox Church some have 73 some 76 um of books that can and cannot be read the actual text is only about two books so they're not united in the canon eastern Orthodoxy is not united in the canon over two books that I don't think are even lurgically read anymore so Eastern Orthodoxy is not united in the canon over just two books no we're united in the core books okay so so but Moscow would say that those core books are only 66 no because they said that there are other books that can be read there's still there those are in Russian Bibles mhm that are published by the patriarchy but they but they say that only the 66 books are the books that could be considered divinely inspired but maybe let's move well again you're missing the point there's what can be allowed in the church read in the church that's a separate question from divine inspiration it's not one that really even matters why can certain books be read in certain churches and not others because they have correct dogma because they have correct dogma okay the church judges the Bible not the other way around am I correct the church say it again the church judges the Bible not the other way around correct the church judges the Bible is that the question the church The church put it together correct church approved it correct so when when it was so when it when the church put the Bible together you agreed as the Eastern Orthodox that they accept the North African code right of the North African councils of the late uh fourth centur uh fourth and fifth centuries well you you're assuming that by accept we mean that it's a binding rule as opposed to something that can be used it's accepted via Trulo which accepted hundred and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cannons many of them are contradictory so there's hundreds of different cannons in Eastern Orthodoxy that contradict each other no that's not what I said you just said that council I said there are hundreds of cannons some of which contradict one i'm sorry you mean the the cannons of the council not the cannons of scripture so for example okay that was my fault sorry so so for example Trulo they accept the cannon of uh North Africa which by the way was always being re it was always being renewed and edited it was not a consistent thing so they accepted that from I think the year 419 they accepted you know Leodysia and much others you have to understand that cannons are broken down in terms of canonical literature not talking about the canon of the Bible they're broken down into those that are say pastoral those are for administrative purposes uh you know ones are pastoral can be used by the bishop at his discretion so for example even though up to three marriages are allowed in the Orthodox church most bishops are going to be very very very hesitant to give anyone more than two and they're also going to want to know exactly what happened with the first one for example in a case with adultery the bishop is not going to grant someone who committed adultery a second marriage mhm they're probably going to grant it to the innocent spouse which by the way the Catholic Church is finally coming around to the Catholic Church is coming around to what we're not debating the Catholic Church but it's okay you don't got to Oh shoot i accidentally got um I think I knocked my microphone i apologize oh some water on it we had a wardrobe malfunction you come up are we good well we had a water bottle malfunction okay um can you still hear me all right Jonathan so what what do you make of the uh medieval like candidates and scholars um that say that so for example like there's a father Patrick Viscuso he's an orthodox professor of canon law at the antio house of studies I have this book and he the book the orthodox canon law in that book he says that the later bizant this is about divorce and remarage he says that the later byzantine canonical sources that discuss the grounds of divorce and remarage were based not on the new testament but on the legislative work of the byzantine emperor Justinian the great and then he says um he documents how the three of the most renowned medieval Eastern Orthodox canisters John Zenorus Theodore Bosamon and Alexios Aristenos all treated Emperor Justinian civil code as a valid canonical interpretation of St basil the Great's very odd allowance of remarage after divorce so these scholars say that uh it's actually the Justinian code that the Eastern Orthodox are following not anything that comes from the New Testament uh no I don't agree with that that analysis that's that's what the scholars say though i I know but education was all Are the scholars wrong when they say that are you okay that Alex is up on the screen or not oh yeah is that okay well you can have I was just reading yeah they can read what I'm reading yeah if you want me to turn it off I'll turn it off um are the scholars wrong are those uh the names of what zonautus and the others well they were wrong about a lot of things they were wrong about the sardan cannons so they're wrong uh in saying that the Eastern Orthodox Church all of these great and these are like the most renowned scholars of the medieval time and Eastern Orthodoxy it was a really sad time say that again i mean saying like this was like the greatest scholars of the medieval evil time was like these are the greatest scholars of you know it's like being the nicest guy in prison huh yeah yeah no it's it's like saying it's like saying the smartest guy in the ghetto i mean it's just Well there's some smart people i come from the ghetto what are you talking about no you don't you come from Santa Fe albuquerque what are you talking about santa Fe is Albuquerque that bad i've never been there street anyway um anyway okay so these candidates were incorrect about divorce and remarage right um I mean I would have to see their specific remarks on it because I made a documentary about divorce and remarage called divorce and remarage in the I think in the church fathers I want to say it's about 2 hours long it's up for free on my channel you can watch it and I go through all of the evidence right so so Zenora's so he says this is a quote from him where he says that Basil he states that these things prevail according to the ecclesiastical custom of the time uh and from the novel emp uh the novel of the emperor Justinian promugated later concerning the dissolution of marriage which is situated in book 28 title 7 of the basilica and the following is reckoned amongst the causes by which it is permissible for women to dissolve marriage so if the husband lies with another woman in the same house or city and after being warned on the part of the wife he does not desist from sexual intercourse with that woman it is permitted for wives to dissolve marriage on account of jealousy so so Zenoris is saying that the cannons of Justinian say that you can get divorced just if you're if you're jealous and then Balsamman says that um that when when St basil was asked about what ought to happen to the spouses if one of them might enter another marriage or even fornicate uh that he made a reply from a various writing and the custom held at the time but since novel 117 of Justinian situated in title 7 of book 28 all but transformed everything in such a cannon so these scholars are saying that Justinian's code the civil imperial law is what was superimposed onto uh canon of St basil the great and that that was the interpret the hermeneutic interpretive key of that cannon and that is what allowed for divorce and remarage so it started with the emperor Justinian so if I recall correctly St basil states that the man if he is cheated on he might divorce and remarry but the woman and he cites the local custom of the time he states he doesn't think it's fair but he goes this is just the custom so and then Justinian is now saying you can get divorced and remarried whether you're a man or a woman you can initiate a divorce or initiate a marriage and the point the reason that we we're going through all of this is to show that your own Eastern Orthodox scholars are saying that this is something that comes from the Roman civil law not from the ecclesial law is Justinian a saint justinian is indeed a saint so a saint said that women could remarry and saints are not infallible saints can be an error on many things okay but a saint said that oh wait st justinian is a saint for you guys he's a saint but well no he's a business father Nathan is St justinian a saint in your church yeah he is well here's the thing though actually no justinian is No Justinian is not a saint in the Eastern Catholic churches either really he's No Justinian isn't a saint no Justinian um Justinian was a monophysite and he was Theodora he was not he was a monophosite no his wife Theodora and Theodora is also a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church what is your evidence that he was a monoposite she was a monophysite say it again okay well we can set aside Theodora what is your evidence that St justinian was a monophosite so um Justinian towards the end of his life he was actually uh had favoritism towards the monophysicites and scholars say that the reason Justinian wanted Constantinople 2 to get ratified so bad was because we know that Constantinople too was once again reiterating the condemnation on historianism so he was against notorianism but the reason he wanted to get ratified so bad was to bring the uh the monophysites back in because he was actually favorable to monophysite uh theology so was there anything in the second council of Constantinople that was actually monophysite well it was well because it was actually going against uh notorianism not mono monophysitism because what Justinian was trying to do was he was trying to reconcile the calc so is there anything is there anything in the second council constant uh no because if there had been so then what is your evidence what is your evidence then that Justinian was a monophysite because I think what's happening is you're confusing the fact that as he got older he became scenile and he indulged in something known as aphartodosetism when he was scenile mhm okay now I don't know what bizarre things I'm going to indulge in theologically if I live long enough to be scenile some would argue I'm already scenile but uh I hope that people don't judge me based on what I decide to do as someone who's scenile i I don't think it's charitable too no and I would agree but we can always we can go back to the again to the beginning is that the Justinian's code which he promagated when he was in senile uh that Justinian's code um is what the Eastern Orthodox Church actually appeals to in order to uh justify their teaching on divorce and remarage roman civil law not anything from the old I I made a whole documentary on we we appeal on various other cannons as well i mean anyone here who watch the documentary the the only cannon is canon 9 from Basil and canon Basil's canon 9 doesn't say what the Eastern Orthodox Church Jesus did in terms in terms of whether or not a woman who was cheated on could remarry in that specific instance uhhuh it says that now you do see you do see from the west you see I believe it's St theodore of Canterbury he actually allows it uhhuh and that's presism he actually allows women to remarry he allows women to remarry yeah he allows women to remarry st theater of Canterbury if I recall correctly oh okay um you also have a situation for example I'll give you example I want to say it was uh oh I forget the name of the pope but it's in a documentary um he told uh oh what was the name of the missionary to the Germans he said if a wife cannot fulfill conjugal obligations that the husband might remarry even while the wife is alive that was from a pope you have sinnels from Rome I believe in the 800s even allowing for remarage after divorce uhhuh one one second i'm trying to pull something up um so really quick I want to know um so what is the standard for ecumenical council for universal council can you define ecumenical because there's there's a historical meaning to that you're right i don't like the word ecumenical because we know that it means imperial just a universally binding council what is the standard for universally binding counsel the standard is that everyone who's in communion prior to the definition accepts it and remains in communion after prior to what definition the definition they decide to promulgate the the definition that was said to promugate the council so let's say a council is called and there's 10 churches there let's say eight of them accept it and two don't well that's not really a binding decision is it because if it if it's based on consensus you have to have the consensus so you have to have a Okay so you're saying that you have to have a consensus of the uh entire church in order for a council to be uh binding but you would admit that a lot of our ecumenical councils from the first millennium didn't have a consensus right yeah and they weren't binding councils until they did so they weren't binding councils until they did so are you saying that the council of Calcedon wasn't a binding council until they got a Greek patriarch in in Alexandria well they had a Greek patriarch in Alexandria during Calcidon St proarius and but you would meet that the Greeks I'm sorry the um the Alexandrian Christians who rejected calcidon they were there and they rejected it and we you know they they're the oriental orthodox church now most of Egypt most of Egypt was not monophysites until about the Islamic conquest but but but still it remains that calcedon was a council that not everybody agreed upon one patriarchet disagreed about calcedon yet is still universally disagreed on So Alexandria Alex accepted it they had it i mean up until the Islamic conquest I think they entered what the Muslims entered Alexandria in what 641 I think so until prior to that do you realize that in the mid6th century there were only four or five monophysite bishops out of a syninnol of 100 bishops but according to your standard though just with those four or five just with those four or five standard you're saying of the you're you're saying that if there's even one that doesn't that's not universal i didn't say that if there's even one bishop in a sinnod a sinnod is decided just like in the Roman Catholic Church it is overwhelming majority mhm and so in most cases a patriarch will not vote against a sinod because they can depose him and so even in the case of the Armenians Mhm all three Catholic of the Armenians accepted it the inheritor of the Armenian church the Armenian Caledonian church is actually the Georgians but you would admit that Alexander Deioscarus did not init Calcidon he rejected Calcidon and that's why they excommunicated him and that's now known as No they excommunicate him because they summoned him to a council three times and he refused to come it's in the actual consilia are are you saying that Yascer has actually accepted Calida i'm saying it doesn't matter because they summoned him three times hold on you you just said that there needs to be consensus but then when I bring out an instance where there isn't consensus and a patriarch disagrees you said that now it doesn't matter so in the apostolic can in the apostolic cans does it say that if a cleric is summoned three times after the third time the council may depose them for non-attendance does it say that mhm okay that is the condition under which was deposed the council then went on to formulate a definition without him because he broke the cannons and was deposed canonically that's why because he wasn't part of the church he was no longer known he was deposed because he wouldn't show up even though they kept summoning him and so at that point he wasn't part of the church not at all he was a deposed cleric okay so So I mean he might be as a layman but he was no longer the patriarch he's no longer a bishop he was no longer a priest who can who can depose patriarchs now well the situation in Bulgaria and I want to say was it 95 or '98 I forget they had a situation where you had rival patriarchs and so you had the ecumenical patriarch summoned an ecumenical council well so-called ecumenical uh it was an imperial but uh all of the patriarchates came together they decided who the lawful patriarch was they decided in favor of Maxim and they went home and they it was done so when you say that we can't handle a council we can't call one for say a thousand years we called one in the '9s we had the polyomite council the polyomite councils so first of all the one in the '9s was that universally binding every single patriarchy accepted it they all showed up they all voted in favor of maxim so in the '90s they had a universally binding council and and you mentioned Constantinople 5 right so Constantinople 5 is that's a universally binding council well the series of councils known as the polyomite councils okay i mean how could they not be when we commemorate them during Lent no well I actually agree with you but here's the the the problem so Constant Constantinople 5 which is actually a collection of three senates right 1341 1347 and 1351 which taught polyism but the thing that Eastern Orthodox always failed to bring up is that there was actually another senate that was held in 1345 in which the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople actually condemned and excommunicated Gregory Palamas as well as Palamos's disciple Isidor Bukiras but two years later a supporter of Palamas John uh Kakunes became the emperor there you go thank you and he called the cinnid um of 1347 in which he deposed the patriarch of Constantinople John the 14th and he replaced him with is uh with Isidor Bukiras who was the exact guy that John the 14th had just excommunicated two years before so what we see here the reason that the that Constantinople 5 the polyomite cinnids are considered binding on Eastern Orthodoxy is because a polyomite emperor put in a polyomite patriarch and together they enforced polyomism onto the entire church and it's exactly like what happened with the code of Justinian that allowed for divorce and remarage um in the imperial law you could say that the polyomite councils were enforced through the imperial power and that would be the only venate St greg Palamas as a saint say that again do you venerate him as a saint i sure do do you celebrate his memory in the council memory okay so in other words the emperor was unright to do it it was theologically correct but here's the problem because on the one hand you're criticizing how they did it but then you're like "Oh yeah he's a saint it's a theology is perfectly acceptable but beware." I'm talking about the the canotical implications of you're saying that an emperor is able to uh just remove a patriarch that he doesn't like and put in a patriarch that he does like well legally they can do that but that doesn't make dogma what makes dogma is all of what makes dogma is again all of the patriarchates agreeing and and by the way let me just say that um saying that Gregory Apollamus is a saint what that means all that means is that he's in heaven it doesn't necessarily mean for us that he was right in every single thing that he taught is my grandma a saint say that again is my grandma a saint is your grandma a saint is she Is your grandma dead yeah she Well I hope she's a saint brother yeah I I hope so i mean so saint just means you're you're in heaven you're in heaven right okay you think you think your grandma was infallible oh she's a wonderful lady oh okay all right we'll leave it we'll leave it at that well speaking of I'm glad you brought that up and not not your grandmother rest in peace um but um speak you know we're talking about Palamas so okay so you as an Eastern Orthodox you actually um so you you would say you know constant Constantinople one the ecumenical council of Constantinople one that is a um a binding council right it's binding on your conscience well I mean yes is it dogmatic okay at this point right cuz it was accepted at Calcidon uh well the the Western church they didn't explicitly accept it until the early 500s okay so you would say something about Constantinople 2 and three right it's dogmatically binding for all Orthodox once all of the patriarchates accept it there's no choice and then Constantinople 4 as well uh yeah once all of the patriarchates accept it there's no choice okay did all the patriarchets except 8 so your Constantinople is Constantinople 869 did what so Constantinople 869 right that's the one that about it and you believe that that's a dogmatically binding uh council no if I recall correctly I'm trying to think back because I read the council consiliary acts of 869 a while ago but I'm trying not to delve too deep into it until Price comes out with the 879 acts right if I recall correctly it wasn't accepted by all of the patriarchets so Constantinople 4 wasn't accepted by all the patriarchs 869 869 so the reason I'm asking is and the reason is that even father Richard Price who translated it he doesn't think that Rome ever accepted Constantinople 869 so so so that so that's why I'm asking because if Rome didn't didn't accept it like father Richard Price says and but we have many orthodoxs that say that they call that the uh the eighth or ethical 869 or 87 86 869 is the one that was abregated i'm talking the the the it's called the ethcumenical council by some orthodox constant constant before 4 yeah 879 879 yes what about it so you consider 879 constant before to be an ecumenical council it's a binding council yeah it's a binding universal everyone's accepted that it's 869 that Rome Father Price thinks Rome didn't accept it i mean the first session had 12 bishops okay so then what okay well again we're not debating Catholicism but Okay so no mentioning 12 bishops is not Catholicism right so you accept from everything from Constantinople one to Constantinople 5 i know this might be a little awkward that I would like to direct your attention towards the screen um there's something that I wanted to show you give me one second um I wanted to see there's two quotes that I have that I'd like to show you um there's two quotes that I don't know if you're able to see it on the screen so there's two quotes side by side i I know it's super awkward because the the I I mean maybe I could just read them to you sure read them okay there's two quotes side by side so one quote says basically it's saying um Well who are they from first off well I'll get to that but there's a reason that I'm going to get to that because I there's something that I want to Yeah go ahead i'm losing patience here okay you go me too if anyone However if however anyone calls if however anyone you know yeah you're reading it and the audience is reading it too capture the Nitro we do not call So so when you read these all I'm going to ask you Ubie the question for you is with these quotes all I want to know is um are these quotes um orthodox or are there heterodox well I would have to know because this is dealing with the trinity I would have to know which language are translated from because means different things in each petristic uh situation so in Greek for example it's ita and that refers to something that sort of that that hypoatically generates another hypoatic hypothesis whereas in Latin causa just means anything that's involved so the first quote would you say that that was uh was that orthodox or was that heterodox the first quote what language does it translate from i don't know it's from Greek it's from Greek okay because it it was originally written in Greek so the question the question that I have for you is this the first quote orthodox or heterodox can you read the quotes out loud sure yeah yeah so basically uh the the the part that is the most uh important is uh where it says uh for one is direct so it's talking about the uh about the trinity right about the procession of the Holy Spirit it says for one is directly from the first cause and another by that which is uh directly from by that which is directly from the first cause so it's saying the father begets the son and then the holy spirit comes from the son so that's the first quote i mean again I I I literally have to look at it in Greek and last to see if it's cor translated correctly i mean for one is directly from because what happened is that you get translations from Greek done by people who have an axe to grind and they start to import in Latin terminology so for one is directly from the first cause another by that which is directly from the first cause yeah so you've been Eastern Orthodox for 20 years so just what you know as an orthodox is the first quote orthodox or is it heterodox that part in red i I need to see it in the original language you need to see it in the original do you read Greek yes you read Greek and you can see absolutely so do you uh No I don't i don't read Greek that's why I'm showing it to you in English cuz I don't read Greek um the audience do you read Greek we have a we have an English speaking audience so I think we should stick to English but just just uh taking that at face value would you say that that quote is an orthodox quote or a heterodox quote just at face value just what what I presented here on this on the screen what would you say or if if you want to maybe read the second quote and I'll read it out loud for the audience too maybe maybe the second quote might be easier because the second quote the relevant part I'll start talking about this one out oh did it go out hold on sorry about that i unplugged it let me reshare let me reshare it okay so the second quote the relevant part it's talking about the same thing it says um because so in the red where it says because of this the spirit is mentioned after the son of the father because we are not able to pronounce both of them at the same time with our tongue just as they came forth from the father so what would you say about that quote is that orthodox that's from one of the three capidosians i believe the second one is from the capidosians i think so i'm not really into trinitarian thought in terms of like the Filioqua debate okay all right that's not that's not your It's not my wheelhouse i'm more into history but I mean okay i would something like that i would have to look at the whole work and then look at the language but would you based on just what it says there in English would you be comfortable in saying that one is orthodox and one is heterodox or they're both orthodox both heterodox what would you say well again I'd have to say it in the original language you would have to see it in the original language yeah so would you agree that they contradict each other based on what you said because basically one is basic because you brought up the filioquay it seems like one is teaching the filioquay but another one is saying no another one is so one of them teaches a hypoatic procession yes one is teaching a hypoatic procession of the Holy Spirit think it's in the first one so let's see so maybe read it again tell me what you if if that is orthodox or not orthodox and you might want to read the entire quote from the top so that you can and again bear with us guys this is important it's it's important to this to this debate for those of you who love filioquay and all that and both Ubie and I admit that neither of us are that that's not really our expertise about you know uh the filioquay but both of us do know enough that we'd be able to to tell if one is orthodox or one is heterodox distinguish from another I believe that is one is a first cause another is a cause and again as that which is of a cause we recognize another distinction that one is directly from the first cause and another by that which is strictly from the first cause when we got in the binds um I mean the first one honestly whoever's dealing with it is dealing with it in terms of Aristotleian logic just speaking about causes and various causes so that could really be I mean anyone from I mean whenever I mean and then the second one first would seem to be a son the second one though seems to be more so from the capidosians but I'm not seeing anything about a a hypothatic filioquay in it i don't see anything saying that the spirit proceeds from the the father and the son as from one cause which is a hallmark of the filioquay you know so it so it says so that the attribute of being only in the first quote the attribute of being only begotten abides without doubt in the sun and the interposition of the son while it guards his attribute of being only begotten does not shut out the spirit from his relation by way or of nature to the father and then in the second one it says so if you look at the the yellow quotes right it's almost saying the exact same thing but they're coming to different conclusions the yellow quote in the second one says so when the sun is placed directly with the father he preserves his his own only begottenness without hindering the spirit from being from the father by procession so they actually they both come to the same conclusion that about the procession uh of the spirit but they both take different routes to get there because the first quote says that it's from the father uh and the son together and the second quote says that the holy spirit the son and the holy spirit proceed from the father at the same time and that's why he says in the quote that we can't pronounce the name of the son and of the spirit with our tongues at the same time so basically what he's saying is that the son and the holy spirit are both like the second person of the holy trinity at the same time that come down together would you say that that's orthodox or is that heterodox well I don't think that's what he's saying because your position in order to prove a hyposatic filioquay you have to say that the spirit proceeds from the son and the father as from one source so so saying that both of them are involved we can agree with that we we call it the energetic filioquay or energetic procession so you have to be very precise in what you mean and I don't think that those quotations are necessarily precise enough and on top of it I mean to be entirely honest with you again I'm I'm not necessarily interested in the filio way i mean not that I don't think it's important no no right in terms of like it's not an area that I study heavily so I would for something like that I would go defer to someone like say Perry Robinson okay so he's an actual metaphysicist so you would say one second i have a question for you st max confessor so you're aware of his letter to Marinus about the filioquay yes okay do you think that's an orthodox statement on the filioquay the letter of orthodox as in like little o orthodox or like orthodox as in eastern orthodox oh little o little o yeah I would say it's orthodox so you say that it's a correct expression of the Roman Catholic teaching on the filioquay yeah I haven't read it in a while but yeah from what I remember from it why did the Latins reject it at Florence well as you know because it was prop proposed by the Greeks and Latin go no this isn't good no so So as you know the reason that they were very uh hesitant to accept anything at that council is because they knew that they had forgeries among them and they just weren't sure if that would have if that was the Greeks proposed it the Greeks proposed it as a bridge of union they could have taken the formula the Greeks took that formula and at Florence they go "No this isn't good enough this for this formula is faulty." Right and they they say that the reason they that they didn't if if that was the one that they rejected because we're not too sure what it was that they actually rejected no no we're quite sure we're quite sure because the Greeks came and they go if we word it this way is this acceptable form of union and the Latins at Florence said "No." So again the debate is about whether it was authentic or not no the debate because it didn't to them to them the Greeks took it and said "Okay let's take the language from this the theology from this put it here is this something that can bridge the gap?" Mhm so it totally removes whether it's authentic or not it's purely the theology itself but you would say that the Eastern Orthodox bishops still signed off on whatever the decision was at the beginning right for what and at Florence no the Eastern Orthodox bishops didn't accept Florence when it first happened well there were 32 bishops there 30 30 of them accepted it right and then you have hundreds of other bishops back home and then those councils there when they went back to it because a leate because here's the thing does the signature of a legate is that binding upon the person who sent them is the signature of a legit binding upon the person who empowers them the signature of a leot binding upon the person who empowers them uh no okay because all of those bishops there were legit mhm so you're what you're saying is these legots accepted it therefore the people who sent them and empowered them are bound by the legots decisions that's your whole argument on Florence mhm that the leg that the leg signed off and then they went back and then they re done the you no your argument hinges on a legit binding the person who empowers them as opposed to the person empowering them having to affirm the legit's decision to so because a leg decision is typically just a rain check i don't know if you guys are are old enough to remember what a rain check is it's Yeah okay yeah see I see some ladies there who look very young but you know you remember it yeah you you go "Well I'm going to put money down on this and if I don't come by back by a certain time I don't get it." It's like sort of like a minor down payment well that's what a legit decision is now if you argue if you argue that leate's decision does indeed bind the person who sent them you have to accept that Nicholas Pope Nicholas accepted the deposition of Ignatius because his legates accepted it now Nicholas didn't he didn't back up the decision of the legates at all in fact one of them you just you know hushed away and the other he hushed away for a bit and then they I want to say you got a I want to say you got a bishop brick somewhere in Italy probably somewhere nice with air conditioning but I know I want to take my shirt off too it's hot well I'm actually kind of cold right now oh man you're crazy so the uh and really quick just to make sure for the audience cuz I don't want to lose the audience remember how we said that we don't want to get too in the weeds for the audience we want to keep it How's the audience feeling are we too in the weeds you guys want us to get back into Are we okay is the audience all right are we can we Okay just making sure maybe we need to get back to What are we debating again Ubie we're debating the Eastern Orthodox Church is the one holy Catholic Apostolic Church so let's get back to that let's let's discuss that okay um Okay so according to the Eastern Orthodox Church hey what's that noise back there all right i got Oh man i'm surprised at how many women there are here today there's quite a few i mean [Applause] I I didn't know there were this many women who were interested in church history which is very heartwarming because most of our parishes are just absolute boys clubs so yeah how much time do we have father another 25 or 23 all right okay so what do you want to talk about um let's talk about the thesis of the debate make your best case for why the Eastern Orthodox Church is one and Catholic because it follows a standard of the first millennium and what is that that standard is that you are one because of apostolic succession and correct dogma which then are the ingredients for baptism a valid baptism valid Eucharist which are the uh the the unifying factors as discussed okay so you're saying that correct dogma is how you identify the four pillars with apostolic succession you have to have both it's like a mother and a father well apostolic succession is one of the pillars right apostolic so you're So the way that it works is that you find the church with the four pillars to be able to identify what is dogma but you are saying that the church with the correct dogma is the church with the four pillars and in a way I'm tracking with you because I'll agree the church with the four pillars is going to have the correct dogma but the question that I'm asking is the question that I kept asking in my opening statement how do you identify that church how do you identify it how do you know which church has correct dogma well for one you can look at St sonas of Leons talks about this the Gnostics ask him the same question he goes you go to those churches that were founded by the bishops and can I read this quotation from you you like but I think the audience would absolutely adore hearing it they seem like the kind of people who like great Petristic quotations i agree yeah oh no i have it right here i'm sorry so okay these are several from St erinos of Leon and they're actually going to answer all your questions so this is from against heresies 5:20 and then one but the path of those belonging to the church circumscribes the whole world as possessing the church tradition from the apostles and allows us to see that the faith of all is one and the same since all receive one in the same God the father and all believe in the same dispensation regarding the incarnation of the son of God and are attentive to the same gift of the spirit and are conversant with the same commandments and preserve the same form of ecclesiastical constitution and expect the same advent of the Lord and await the same salvation of the complete person that is of the soul and body and undoubtedly the preaching of the church is true and steadfast in which one in the same way of salvation is shown throughout the whole world for to it is entrusted the light of God therefore the wisdom of God by means of which it saves all wisdom what that is declared in its going forth it speaks faithfully in the streets is preached on the tops of the walls and speaks continually in the gate of the city for the church preaches a truth elsewhere it is a sevenbranched candlestick that bears a light of Christ now he goes on later on I believe it's in book 110 um he early on he says as I have already observed the church having received this preaching and this faith although scattered throughout the whole world yet as if occupying but one house carefully preserves it so also believes these points of doctrine just as if she had but one soul and one in the same heart and she proclaims them and teaches them and hands them down with perfect harmony as if she possessed only one mouth for although the languages of the world are dissimilar yet the import of the tradition is one and the same for the churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different nor do those in Spain or in Gaul nor do those in the east nor those in Egypt nor those in Libya he goes through all of these okay he goes "Nor will any one of the rulers of the churches however rightly gifted he may be in point of eloquence teach doctrine differently from these." Uh he goes on and on and then he says and this is a much shorter quotation that was from uh book 1102 this is from against heresies 341 suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us should we not have recourse to the most ancient church [Music] as plural with which the apostles held constant intercourse and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question for how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left us writings would it not be necessary in that case to follow the course of the tradition which they handed down to those to whom they did commit the churches so St nice of Leon his standard is those churches that were founded by the apostles which geographic area had more churches founded by the apostles the east or the west the east okay and again we're not admitting Catholicism but I I'm just not going to say it because then I'm going to look like a hypocrite for not saying it there's something that Senas of Leon says in that quote if you just keep reading that and we're not we're not going to get into it if you want to have a He says that he want he goes you have to agree with this church and it's not created which church which church which church oh he talks about the church of Rome which you have to agree with and then he says veneer but it's not clear that he says agree he says all Christian churches in the world need to be in agreement with No he says it means like to come to to move towards but then he follows it by pointing out that you can go to any apostolic and get that because in the mind that agrees with the church of Rome no because in his mind no church founded by an apostle could disagree with another church founded by an apostle that was his entire method but then what happens when patriarchs do disagree like when Antioch and Jerusalem disagree or when uh you know Antioch and and uh Constantinople disagree or when Constantinople and Alexandria disagree what happens when Asians what happens when Christians in Asia Minor say they want to celebrate Easter on the 14th of Nissan and the Pope goes I'm going to excommunicate you what did St nathan what did St do he pointed out to him that celebrating Easter on the 14th of Nisa was a human apostolic tradition given to them by John and then pope said okay cool and he didn't excommunicate them that's all that happened well it says says he tried to say that again use says that that uh uh Victor tried to excommunicate right he sent out letters he stopped because St arena said "Hey just so you know the Apostle John was using this calendar." So there was a dispute and we see that St he didn't side with Ram he side with the Asian church he apostolicity what he did was he pointed out a fact that the pope wasn't aware of and that's what stopped him from excommunicating no he had to because St anaeus went in his in his uh in his back and forth with the pope he never said "You don't have the authority to excommunicate another apostolic church he didn't say that he just told him hey just so you know there celebrate a 14th of Nissan because the apostle John was using that." He also never said he also never said that anyone couldn't excuse anyone any bishop can separate from their life right but again Saresy St of Leon did say that he even went out of his way to uh trace all of the apostles or I'm sorry all of the bishops of Rome from Peter to the present day the first 13 was it and he said everyone needs to be in agreement with the church of Rome but again we're not debating but he says that he says that about all apostolic churches uh so but again so but he doesn't say that every Christian church in the world needs to be in agreement with any other church he says that because he's the bishop of Leon so he could have given his own apostolic succession like his own line of this was the first bishop of Leon who was ordained by this guy who was ordained by this apostle and I'm in that in in that seat right now you have to agree with me he said that he went out of his way to give all of the bishops of Rome not of Leon why does he say Rome why does he Rome because he says it's the most famous church because he's because he's Catholic serene was Catholic what's No what's the reason that he gives What's the exact reason he gives because because of Peter he goes it's your name will be Petrus is Latin for where Peter is st st a says the reason why he chooses Rama is because it's the most famous church because what he said it's because it was where Peter was he said it was the church of St peter and he also mentioned St paul but he says every Christian church in the world needs to be in agreement with the church of Rome because it's why is it the most famous church because it was the church where Peter died Peter and Paul but again again no no how do you how do you then square that with this suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us should we not have recourse to the most ancient churches churches right with which the apostles held constant intercourse and learned from them what is certain and clear he speaks of all the churches that the apostles founded as being able to determine what certain and clear way in regard to the present question for how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left his writings so the problem that you have is you are trying to take an unclear statement from him from the word it's veneer it's conven if I recall correctly the word agree is like a fourth or fifth meaning of that Latin verbs are incredibly unclear so it's it's not really clear what he means by like is it agree is it come with is it like coincide with we don't know but we do know absolutely without a doubt what he means here and he states that all apostolic churches are a resource for those to find out what is certain and clear so so you're saying so the and that's by the way against heresies 34 right yes yeah absolutely so you read that church that quote twice and you kept putting emphasis every time you said church is instead of church when you put the emphasis on church is are you maybe implying or insinuating that these churches were not united you wouldn't say that right they were united i'm implying that's a federation of churches just as uh better the professor from the So then it goes back to my my my question today in the Eastern Orthodox Church when patriarchs disagree what happens uh they sort it out amongst themselves they sort it out amongst themselves okay if they can't sort it out amongst themselves what happens they always do they all what they always do well they haven't yet with Moscow and Constantinople and Alexandria so 5 years in something like that it's well we've had other schisms that uh you know in the early church as well that were able to be solved right away with an ecumenical council why haven't they been able to such as what which ones were solved by an ecumenical council oh let's go down the line so what schisms were solved by an ecumenical council yeah um so shoot we're going to go through all so we have so so na one and and can you can you define what you mean by healed or solved where the schismatics came back into the church okay right mhm um so so nice did the Aryans come back into the church right away or was it centuries later was centuries later it was after Constantinople one no it was long after that you had Germanic tribes that were Aryan okay what about at Constantinople one so that one how many people were actually Numatu Makoy well that wasn't even that wasn't ecumenical until until 451 okay so it wasn't accepted as ecumenical until long after the situation solved itself okay what about the situation of uh the council of Ephesus did that heal the notorian schism so did did it did it heal the notorian schism cuz I I know there's still notorians around today so it at Calcidon you have monopysism that still exists 1600 years later then you have Constantinople 2 tried to handle the situation of monophysism again it brought some of them back in you still have the only one I can think of that solved it and it was I wouldn't even say it solved it because Amarinites were monothealites until the crusades and no I don't believe they were in communion with Rome the whole time that is the only one that hundreds of years later about 500 400 years later or so you could say that solved it then you have iconoclasm well we still have Protestants today so that's still there mhm none of these councils actually solved any of these major schisms now you might say these aren't schisms these are heresies so So right so to clarify my language what I meant to say is that the councils are able to tell us who's right and who's wrong and what orthodoxy is so when patriarchs disagree with each other on matters of doctrine or matters of worship or matter meaning that they won't give each other the Eucharist or matters of of governance right you would say that like in the early church um if they held an ecumenical council it would maybe not solve the schism because everyone has free will and they don't have to obey the ecumenical councils but it would at least be able to identify what the orthodox position is and what the heretical position is right if everyone cons if all of the the patriarchets all the the all the members of the federation of churches agree they all agree and when was the last time so when was the last time that happened in a way where the councils are still being observed to this day because creed and even 1672 the council of Yazi and uh uh all of these sides that Orthodox will claim are universally binding we have evidence of so many bishops that actually don't hold to all of them to to hold the teaching so you have a bishop that denies some aspect of the council of Jerusalem 1672 who who is it and what do they say so So the council of Jerusalem in 1672 watch I have it right here the council of Jerusalem in 1672 let me pull it up really quick i have it right here for you right here for you one second let me find it for univers universal councils sure so I have so so Kalisto where on the senate of Jerusalem in 1672 in the Orthodox church an introduction to Eastern Orthodox Christian a book that he had to have published by an independent publisher because his own church wouldn't publish it so his own church wouldn't publish the book own church wouldn't publish it okay so Kalisto he was a titular bishop okay so so this is good because now we're getting somewhere because you're helping me identify what is um orthodoxy and what isn't so would you say that Kalisto's book about the Orthodox Church that it's not orthodox it's published by Penguin it's published so be okay so because it's published by Penguin it's not Well he couldn't get it published by an Orthodox publisher okay so then do we identify what is orthodox and what isn't orthodox based on who publishes books well I don't know if like say the pope comes out and goes you know this is a dogma versus say Billy Bob in a trailer somewhere in upstate New York i I think you can make a pretty clear definition so let me let me simplify the question how do we know that Kalisto was wrong in his book then according to you you say he was wrong in rejecting 1672 and he's a metropolitan well for one you would have to actually see Well for one his his uh his church itself signed off on the Council of Jerusalem 1672 it's endorsed it repeatedly in fact it was a standard that they used for accepting in the nonjurers and you're right and I agree with you it was they accept it now the question is how do we know that Kisto is wrong because of the history of his church they have repeatedly accepted it now he's trying to separate from it now I think I think what is trying to say is that some of the language some people don't find helpful that is not a problem of the church that was a problem of the people who don't find it helpful who often times have heavy baggage but you're but now you're saying that Kalisto's wear is now in the wrong metropolitan Kalisto's wear was for him to reject the count because what he said is that uh that it's not fully binding and that it even he even says in the quote that certain parts of it have been corrected oh you have issues like I I wouldn't say correct I'd say clarified well he said corrected though that's what he says in which edition he says that it had been corrected the one that I have here was I just had it hold on it was so it's Do you have it on you by any chance i know you have a lot of books on you but it's page 196 the third edition i I don't I don't typically recommend that book i don't So the the third most parishes don't yeah so the third edition it's not in my parish bookstore for a good reason so so the third edition on page 196 he says that there are aspects of that council that had to later be corrected well okay so in the case of the Nian Creed do you know how many versions of that were floating around right there was a lot of versions so yeah they corrected it there was an Armenian version that had all sorts of interpolations so then so you saying that because we know that there's when you say the nine creed do you mean after Constantinople one yeah i mean no I mean Nika Nika one so So nobody uses the creed from Nika anymore because we use the N you know Constantinopolitan creed well some of us do right and well I know what you mean by that that's a low blow just I know what you mean i know what you mean you guys don't say the filio at your parish do you no we don't okay but we but but the eastern catechism says that the filioquay is orthodox uh theologically but well we don't have this isn't a filioquay debate um but anyway so the point is that metropolitan um you know Kalistos where in the third of edition of his book said that that council had been had to be corrected so would you say that he is the one that is now he is an error for saying that right i think he's mistaken on that square had a lot of odd opinions on his own okay there's a reason there's a reason why he was a titular bishop okay so then you don't accept this book because it was published by Penguin no no i I just don't think that it's it's not something public it's not binding you would say that it's not binding no it's not something that would have what you would call an impremature in the hill okay but so other bishops that would reject for example like transubstantiation no bishop rejects transubstantiation there are so there are bishops that actually do say so there are bishops who say that we don't believe that there are bishops that say that transubstantiation goes too far and so far enough that it goes into error and you're right that 1672 who are these bishops okay so I know bishops personally that have told me that I can't say their names cuz I told them that they told me it off the record but I'm saying so if a bishop Well hold on that's that's not something an honest source is not something you can say you're right you're right i shouldn't have brought that up but just generally that's why I was speaking generally just generally speaking if an Orthodox bishop or even a priest were to say transubstantiation is is an error then we know that we can identify that that priest is wrong right are they talking about like the entire scholastic framework around it or are they talking about the bread and the wine become the body and blood of Christ it changes substance there are some clerics that just say that it's just not orthodox and they don't qualify it very much well then we can't quote them they just go "Well I don't know why." I mean that's not an opinion i mean that's an opinion not an actual like No I'm misphrasing that they need to explain why what it is my pro my here's my situation that I find or no sorry I'm sorry the situation I find is this you find people who get hung up on certain language in the confession of blessed right mhm that's their problem not ours so would you say like for example like in canon 18 where it says that um it it says right here in canon 18 that the canon 18 teaches purgatory and it even goes as far as to say that purgatory happens in hell in candidate 18 well isn't that St augustine says that purgatory is on the uh uh purgatory is in the realm of hell so so so would you say can you read the actual quotation sure so let me pull up the confession of citius candidate 18 how much time do we have father i just want to make sure four minutes so I got to do this quick confession of let me pull it up really quick and I guess we'll have to end on this because there's an entire framework around purgatory that we don't necessarily have that has to do with indulgences we do believe in a post-mortem purification and and you see that in things like the toll houses sure so so so it says "The souls." Okay now I can read it the souls of those involved in mortal sins which have not departed in despair but while still living in the body though without bringing forth any fruits of repentance have repented by pouring forth tears by kneeling while watching in prayers by afflicting themselves by relieving the poor and finally by showing forth by their works their love towards God and their neighbor and which the Catholic Church has from the beginning rightly called satisfaction uh depart into Hades and there endure the punishment due to the sins they have committed but they are aware of their future release from there and are delivered by the supreme goodness through the prayers of the priests and the good works which the relatives of each do for their departed especially the unbloody sacrifice benefiting the uh the most with which each offers particularly for his relatives that have fallen asleep and which the Catholic and apostolic church offers daily for all the like of course it is understood that we do not know the time of their release we know and believe that there is deliverance for such from their dire condition and that before the common resurrection and judgment but when we know not so the relevant quote here is where it says that they descend into Hades to be punished right uh well Hades is just not heaven i mean yeah so every priest has to believe that and I'll tell you why they do memorial services they commemorate people at the liturgy so if you have a priest who doesn't accept that there's massive problems elsewhere okay so then you can say that Eastern Orthodox should stop saying that they that they reject purgatory uh well it depends on what you define purgatory as if that's your definition of purgatory then sure then we don't know if that's your definition of purgatory sure so just a postmortem a postmortem purification or sanctification yeah so then we're good ethiopian I mean the monophosites US the Syrians so you heard it from Abby Petrus all you Eastern Orthodox stop saying that you reject purgatory if that is your understanding if that is if that is what you mean and that that does match with the Catholic understanding of it how much time father do we 30 seconds what do you want to say in a minute and 30 seconds one last shot for you to prove that the Eastern Orthodox Church is the one Holy Catholic and apostolic church what that they're united oh that's right yeah they're united in doctrine worship and governance at least prove to me that they're one why are he dead what does the audience think it's you're It's not fair for me to ask the audience but Yeah they're like 90% Catholic i mean maybe 95 i told Father Nathan you're going to get hardly any or But if we get even one No yeah but according to your to your idea right Ubie if we get even one Catholic that says that I lost then that means that it's not binding right what what the other ones say if even one if it's not a consensus then it's not binding on anybody well you'd have to you'd have to group them like you'd get the tall ones the fat ones the skinny ones oh my gosh they'd be different churches you're really making enemies for yourself ones the young ones you'd have to and then if one of those groups say like the fat ones didn't accept you that would be a problem 30 seconds 30 seconds can we throw it on to the Q&A and I can perhaps use the L can you guys So we'll talk about Okay so just just 30 seconds so I think Are you guys ready for the Q&A i think we're ready for it oh we got closing statements too oh can we uh take a break and then do that okay I'll stop right there i mean like like a two minute break so So basically I want you guys to do your closing statements because I have to go service and we've gone over Oh welcome [Music] so what do you want to do with Bish you guys can keep going as long as you're I say give me give me two minutes and then we can come back do like a quick closing statement i I haven't even written one quick and then from there Jonathan and Anthony can handle the Q&A situation and we'll just set an an alarm account a countdown for 1 hour does it sound Can you uh raise your hands if you have questions that you that you want to ask does anyone have questions that they So if you have a question go talk to Jonathan Anthony and they will coordinate or no who is it who's handling the Q&A sorry i'm sorry can you stand up it's this guy handling the Q&A so go talk to him by the way yeah we have a lot of people q&a just keep it keep it on topic please the comments to a minimum you want to have a question and not load questions and not two or three questions you want to have one question and you got to tell which guy you want to answer yeah there we go i won't be here for that so I'm trusting you and also the big guys in the back the rule is you come up you state who the question is for okay and then you ask it one question per person you get to the back of the line if you don't Okay yes all right i set the alarm we got 59 minutes and 32 seconds 59 minutes okay we're probably not going to use all of it right but here let's let's start it over all right we have a full 60 oh my gosh a full 60 okay hi uh my question is for Alex Voice of Reason uh you mentioned that the Eastern Orthodox Church hasn't summoned a council recognized as ecumenical in centuries and that this challenges it claimed to be the one holy catholic and apostolic church i was wondering how you would respond to the historical reality that in the first millennium the bishop of Rome did not convene ecumenical councils either they were called by Roman emperors not the pope the pope participated through legates and often ratified the decisions but he didn't initiate or govern govern those ga uh gatherings in fact as Roman Catholic Bishop Christopher Butler acknowledged during his ecu uh ecumenical work around Vatican 2 the absence of the Eastern churches at Vatican 1 and two calls into question their universal or ecumenical nature suggesting these may be local councils rather than ecumenical with that in mind I'm curious if the pope didn't call ecumenical councils for the first thousand years and if the Orthodox critique is that true councils require the whole church's participation how does the lack of new ecumenical councils by the Orthodox without an emperor or a united Christendom invalidate their ecclesiology so the Catholic position is that the pope doesn't have to convene a council nor does a pope even have to be at a council all a pope has to do is ratify the council so other bishops could even get together hold a council and if the pope wants to ratify it he can make it universally binding uh so the pope doesn't have to be uh involved in every single last detail and even in the early church we know that uh the council of calcedon was called at the of Leo pope Leo um and also I believe was it na 2 that the pope he asked the emperor to convene it too and the reason that ecumenical councils had to be convened by emperors is just because in the in the ancient Roman Empire there was no separation between church and state there was a distinction so the imperium the state had to also uh you know ratify something if it was going to be accepted by the imperium um so yeah so the pope doesn't have to convene or even be at a council all he has to do like in the first millennium was ratify him and I would also point out that you know even in ICO1 uh you know which happened in the east the uh the head of that council was the pope's uh the pope's representative uh St hosius of Cordoba he was the one that was running the show because the pope told him to so really good question thank you hello awesome debate first of all by the way um so my question is for Ubie Petrus so under your model of what the true orthodox church is then how can I or what is a good reason by using your model to abide by the orthodox church and not the orientalists under the eyes of a Christian discerning the two during Calcidon and after its completion can can you repeat that again there's a lot of feedback am I here sorry and let me let me apologize to you be the reason that I kept saying what what when we were doing the our questions is the same reason I'm having a really hard time hearing up here i have I also have very poor hearing as an echo it's hard yeah so by using your model why should I accept the Orthodox church and not the orientalists under the eyes of a Christian at the time of Calcidon by using your model so if you you're talking about the monophasites so correct me if I'm wrong why should you go why should you side with Calcidon and not with say the monophysites if you were living at the time of Calcedon yeah pretty much yeah okay so the reason is that even the mon what are now the monophysite hierarchies they accepted it early on there's an excellent book on this entitled The Rise of Monopysism by friend Fr and he describes that the monoposite hierarchies were effectively just people similar to a situation like say Lev and the Catholic Church where they just break off and they go on ordination sprees jacob Baradus founded the entire Syriak or almost the entire Syriak church ordained tens of thousands supposedly people you have one bishop in Egypt who ordained 72 bishops they were down to four or five monophasites in Egypt the overwhelming majority of those synods were were calcedonian um you know even at I can't remember which emperor it was but uh after Calcedon he pulled the bishops on it,600 bishops and only one very very local senod said they didn't accept calcedon so the monophasites were really like a a late fifth century breakaway movement who went on ordination sprees now the question is why did they become semi-large and the answer is because the Muslims invaded and then made favor them because you know the role job of most invaders is to stoke or ferment you know dissension so you can divide and conquer did that answer it for you okay my question is for uh Ubie oh okay surprised there's more Catholics here um in the cross- examination you try to prove how the Orthodox Church is the same as the church in the first millennium by appealing to internal disputes or schism territorial disputes etc and how to receive converts but you conveniently left out that the first millennium church was able to resolve these issues by several appeals to Rome and by holding ecumenical councils since your church does not appeal to Rome and hasn't had an ecumenical council since the first millennia then your church actually doesn't look like the first millennium church it may look like it in terms of the chaos and disagreement but not in its ability to resolve conflicts uh you your claim that the church is one in Catholic by stating that you share in one Eucharist and one baptism with your other churches but Protestants can make a similar claim by saying they share spiritual communion or shared beliefs across denominations even without a central authority so my question is what concretely distinguishes the Orthodox claim to Catholicity and unity from Protestantism's decentralized communion of believers because the spiritual communion that Protestants have is it's not a communion of dogma whatsoever they have totally different dogmas that's one two you state that the first millennium church was able to appeal to Rome can you tell me some instances that you think that Rome appealing to Rome solved schisms yes absolutely i pulled some up here um if you'd love me to look because I can tell you right now the majority of the time it was the emperor that solved it yeah um well we can you know I don't know if you'll count this as one but Pope St clement intervention in Corinth we could look at poem St julius with Aryan controversy well hold on a second what about Pope St clement i did a video on that uh his intervention in the letter uh first clement well we we don't know what actually happened there well we can go to other ones if that's fine okay what's the next one uh P St julius the 1st was the Aryan controversy that that didn't solve it because they had to call the council of Sardica to solve it and get the emperors involved uh Pope St leo the Great Council of Calcedon well that created a schism and it was the emperors that then ended up having to enforce Calcedon and and even the situation at Calcidon it created more issues over canon 28 and they didn't appeal i mean some people appealed to Rome to have like depositions overturned but you have to understand Leo begged the emperor not to have another council he begged him not to and the emperor went and did it anyway but even if you were to say that the maybe the pope's appeals didn't work out the way you like them to or that they didn't even work at all is still the other leg which is the ecumenical councils which your church has still not been able to call any well we had the polyomite councils we've had Jerusalem 1672 we've had lots of them i mean we had one what was it 1995 or 1998 the one in Bulgaria we can get together and solve things when we want the question is that what's important to you guys what you think needs dogmatic decisions we don't necessarily think they do i mean case in point what's correct tomism Scottism polyomism the Catholic Church goes "All of them are fine." We go "No it's only polyomism." See thank you guys both for being here um appreciate it the intellectual profound level of discussion is is amazing oh thank you as a a Catholic and uh speaking on behalf of the entire Christian population one of the things that is the great atrocity of Christianity is division sorry who is the scholar question director oh for both of you oh okay and the the question getting to that is what can be done to unify Christ's church more this is a problem christ loves every single one of his followers and we have profound division and I can only imagine how sad that makes our perfect God and so the question is for all Christians what can be done to unify us and I know that that's not geared specific to this debate but it's definitely a big part of the spirit of it first so what I would say is the only way uh that the divisions can be solved is when you know all Christians realize that you can't have Jesus apart from his church and that if you're going to really follow Jesus according to how he's calling all of us to follow him you follow him by following his church because the theology of the church is that the church is actually the continuation of the incarnation in the world so Jesus Christ remains with us here in the world through his church so we have to be united to that church and we have to follow that church to know objectively speaking that we are indeed following Jesus the problem with all the division is that there are many Christians of all different stripes and denominations that run around and they claim to follow Jesus but they're all following him in a different way so the question is well how do we how do you know objectively that you truly are following Jesus and the step one in that is to find the true church and then once you figure out what that true church is find the true church then you'll you'll be you know on your way and it all comes from I want to follow Jesus according to how he wants me to follow him not how I feel like following him not what I think is right it's what is the objective standard of how to follow Christ and I think that's you know that's the first step and we can only get through there through education so that people realize that I think that Christians need to um they need better theology of the church of what the church actually is on a very practical level what each person can do I I mean you should just be a Christian fast pray uh you know give alms attend services because the thing is is that caring about the divisions amongst others is really uh it's a distraction from caring about the divisions within yourself and your own issues of the passions and if you heal yourself you're or not heal yourself but if you allow yourself to be healed through the means that say the Orthodox Church is a fasting prayer okay you're going to be much more effective in that but the goal shouldn't necessarily be to try and heal whole communions it should be to heal yourself or to allow yourself to be healed that's why I think but all that's really above my pay grade because I'm I'm just a peeon of a layman you know I mean it's Well uh somebody Well no there was a priest here earlier where did he go he went to go celebrate that Eucharist and you're not sure if they're valid or not but it's just kidding all right uh hello you guys uh thank you for the great debate i really appreciate it uh this question is for Ubie um so my question is with the admission of Pope Leo I 14th uh the topic of reunification is highlighted once again um it says uh excuse me knowing that the west has papal authority to lead the charge who would lead the charge in reunification for the east if their oneness or unification isn't totally clear uh well you know you're dealing with a federation of churches that's what you're dealing with so I mean ideally it would be the patriarch of Constantinople but ultimately let's say were it to happen which I'm convinced it never will i'm not I'm not convinced monophysitism and everyone else will ever come or not i know they're not actual monophysites i know that they they're radical they're cerillians but the oriental communion that will never heal the eastern western thing will never heal none of these will um the thing with Moscow and the E and the EP I think that'll probably heal probably i don't know let each of the patriarchs die and new ones come in and they'll heal so uh I would say the ecumenical patriarch would lead it the problem is you're dealing with a federation of churches and so one of those quotations from Pope Benedict I think it's the second one he talks about this you're dealing with a federation of churches and so it's our it's our that's our strength right there you can't just come in and strongarm everyone you you could not come into the Orthodox church and strongwarm it into a novous order of Byzantine liturgy no one could do that so things develop very slowly very slowly in very superficial ways so I'm sorry I can't really answer your question more than that this is for Ubie u as a quick procedural matter since you during the discussion uttered a lie about a trailer in upstate New York oh the Diamond Brothers do you do you choose ad homonyms and cowardice or would you commit to publicly debate brother Peter on Eastern Orthodox issues oh man I'd love to okay yeah if he can come here he can come out and we can debate him or it could be live right oh yeah live live stream live streamed well I don't really like Oh so you're putting Why why a condition like that um because I like inerson debates more i mean was I not talking about this before the debate okay so and you're not just making that excuse because you think that's unlikely that they would agree to that no because uh I put a video out and poor free Where's Poorfree oh he's not here uh he would be able to vouch for this i put it out on my Patreon i stated I'm really only interested in I'm really only interested in in-person debates they're more entertaining you get way better views on them way better views i don't I don't find the experience of what's effectively a Zoom conversation question yeah one person one question okay so if that's my one question so you're just to clarify your answer you won't under any circumstance debate them live on online online on live stream i'm not doing live stream debates i'm simply doing the in person ones sorry that was ridiculous this question is for Ubie oh wow can we get some questions for Alex here i So I'm kind of a shy person so in Matthew 16:18 Jesus promised Peter that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church considering that the Eastern Orthodox generally believe that the Catholics don't have a valid priesthood and the Orthodox patriarchs just congratulated Pope Leo on his appointment and acknowledge him as the successor of Peter how do you reconcile the blame contradiction from the Eastern Orthodox to the promise Christ made in Matthew 16:18 the gates of hell prevail against the Catholic Church if their priesthood is now invalid so you're assuming that Matthew 16:18 is about [Music] Rome you you have to first prove that because that that is used in ecu that's used in the sixth ecumenical ecumenical council to refer to Constantinople like the actual empire can I have a water by chance i have it open for you oh thanks thanks you're a sweetheart got you brother thank you anything for you my question is for Ubie ubie if you're I I trust uh as a Catholic that the Pope would not lead us into error with when it comes to faith and morals uh with that in mind would you trust the patriarch of your church if he came back into communion with Rome would you trust him and follow his lead it's a great question yeah i mean if I was in his if I was under him yeah I'd have to you know I mean if if you just there's a certain line i mean if he said all of the sudden like there's a fourth member of the Trinity you'd have to No like okay this is ridiculous but we have to really base our I should rephrase that actually if there was a consensus among the churches yeah I would have to I would have to humble myself to that but bishops can do crazy weird stuff i got a question for Alex actually oh my goodness well I'm honored is practice beyond or outside of doctrine sacraments and tradition a necessary or sufficient condition for ecclesial unity for example does the dispute between Russia and Greece compromise true unity in the Orthodox Church brother you're going to have That was I'm kind of slow and that was a little too fast for me you say it one more i'm so sorry you say it one more time is practice beyond or outside of doctrine doctrine sacraments and tradition a necessary or sufficient condition for ecclesial unity for example does the dispute between Russia and Greece compromise true unity in the Orthodox Church so to answer you the first question um no in the Catholic Church u what makes you united is that you're united in doctrine worship and governance but the worship it doesn't mean that everyone has to be a western Latinright Christian or that everyone has to pray the rosary or that everyone has to do this um practices are natural organic developments that uh devotionals that actually you know form over time so the beauty in the Catholic Church is that in the Catholic Church the Catholic Church isn't just the Latin right it's the Latin right the Byzantine right the Alexandrian right uh the Armenian right and the Syriak right so all of the genuine authentic uh ancient expressions of Christianity are all represented in the Catholic Church so you know here we're going to celebrate the liturgy of St john Chrysstumm and the Catholic Church down the street you know is going to you know celebrate a uh you know um a Roman liturgy but the Romans can come here and receive the Eucharist and the the the Italo Greek Byzantines can go over there and receive the Eucharist because we're united in worship we're united in the reception of the Eucharist even if we have different different rights so if uh so with Constantinople and Moscow um you know that's mostly over an issue of um of governance and I would even say that you know the cool thing about because a lot of people think that the Catholic Church that the pope is supposed to be like a dictator that the pope just runs everything but that's actually not how so a lot of people don't even know that here in in the United States there are 12 bishops there's 12 dascese at least at least a dozen dascese in the United States where the bishop actually gives baptism confirm permission confirmation baptism and confirmation to infants at the same time which is a practice that was always it was an ancient practice and that's because the pope says that the bishops as the custodians of the mysteries the custodians of the sacraments they have true authentic authority to administer the sacraments according to how they see um so there's actually a lot of freedom in the Catholic Church because we're as long as we're united in doctrine governance worship um there's freedom in in all other in all other matters um with Moscow and Constantinople because that's an issue of of governance um that's why you have to be you have to be united in governance and if there's a dispute there the question is again like I kept saying in the opening statement who's right and who's wrong i hope that answers your question and if it doesn't I'll try again it's good okay thank you so my question is actually from you for UB again um by the way I'm a I'm a Marinite Catholic oh or are you Lebanese i'm not Lebanese nor do I speak Syriak and my priest is from Lebanon so if you're ever looking for a more welcoming environment I'm sorry that you had a terrible experience no this is this is No no when you when you see him does your priest say things like I have no idea he doesn't speak the language he doesn't know he doesn't know what that man says we love to have you over you you listen to Lebanese people and they'll start counting in French and then switch over to this sort of you know very cute sounding Arabic and then randomly throw in French words and then English and so it's like it's like oh okay so I had a question about the Council of Florence you briefly touched on it um but maybe I'm looking for some clarification if the Council of Florence was a valid ecumenical council freely attended theologically thorough and signed by the Eastern bishops on what ecclesial ecclesiological basis can be later overturned by popular election and does this not imply that the authority of the church resides more in a in retrospective consensus than in the teaching office of their bishops in the council okay so I'm that was a very good question but that was very very good so the issue with the council of Florence that we have is you had 32 bishops from the entire east were sent to Florence some of them were uh legots of Antioch some of Alexandria some of Jerusalem etc you had 30 of those 32 sign off now as a discussion went about legates legates themselves they cannot bind the person who sent them because they have authority because the person who sent them has power right so legate is simply putting a rain check on something it's it's not even really a down payment it's say "Hey we want this we'll be back for it." So they had to wait for the home sinnance to actually sign off on it and I mean at the end of the day you probably had 10% of the bishops even if you said those bishops didn't reag on it maybe I have to look at how many bishops there were in in you know the 1440 or so uh or 1439 but I I assume you maybe 10% of the bishops ever even signed off in Florence now you do have the situation where after the council and the patriarchet of Constantinople they tried to enforce it and when Constantinople fell the last liturgy that was celebrating Haga Sophia was a Byzantine Catholic service you know so uh it is based on consensus of the bishops does that answer it thank you by the way was I correct about there being a Tagalog service or was it Spanish at the Marinite church is it a is there a service that's in Tagalog or is it in Spanish i only Oh oh I'm talking about the one okay okay i'm all right because I drive by it regularly and and you know sorry well thank you so much for coming out that's really nice of you i appreciate that hello guys hello Ubie alex nice seeing you guys again thank you guys for coming and for all the people here I thank you guys i think we're very thankful for the event very edifying raifications [Applause] my question is for Alex to keep it uh his uh tippy toes you know more on his toes rather than newbie um I'm unorthodox i recently converted last year i was debating between East and Rome uh coming from a Protestant background I guess my question but just to give you context um and although a lot of people are flocking towards um the apostolic churches you know the orientals the Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy um one thing I found and many other people found was that while there is spirituality in the Roman Catholic tradition churches and or the audience as well uh systemically you know within theology is more consistent within orthodoxy once you look into it in my home opinion and many others think likewise as well um and also there's a spiritual decay uh within Protestant churches but not only there but to some extent within the Catholic churches as well because of the modernization because of liberation in the west now the question is because of that why is it that some people are flocking from even Rome towards east maybe not hugely but still people are going there either for the spiritual nourishment or holistically more and also for this the theology for example like Dr joshua Siwad if I'm not Suadi Suadaji thank you he just he's an ex Catholic uh philosopher who just went there and he's he knows the Catholic faith very well mhm and so because of people like him and other you know layman people um why is it that you Alex think that that's the case here in the west due to the state of the the church in the west here sure so let me let me just start off by saying that Jasu Saji has actually been uh um I don't want to say condemned but a lot of Eastern Orthodox theologians don't claim him they because they say that he basically teaches he has a heretical view of the trinity um so they're they're they he became Orthodox but even the Orthodox are like very nervous about him um but um so I think that in the west because and this is something that you know we see in the west is that in the west things that are foreign are very sexy and they the east anything that's eastern that's foreign it's like sexy so they want to go there cuz they they find it to be sexy right that's like really really what it comes down to like oh this is different this is uh you know u exotic they like exoticness but what I would say is that the theology of Byzantine Christianity the liturgies of Byzantine Christianity you know um pretty much everything about Byzantine Christianity that you find in Eastern Orthodoxy you have it right here in this this is a Catholic church i don't know if you've been in there you're welcome to join you're going to think you're in an Orthodox church because everything that you can find in in in Eastern Orthodoxy everything the everything that you find and that you love in Eastern Orthodoxy you also have it in the Catholic Church in the Eastern rights but you also have the universal magisterium that is able to um basically answer all of the questions that Eastern Orthodoxy isn't able to answer um and um and yeah I and I you know what I think it's valid if you're a Westerner but you feel called maybe to the Eastern tradition there's nothing wrong with that you know I'm I'm a Westerner that I was called to the Byzantine tradition i'm a Roman Catholic that you know uh practices as a Byzantine um there's nothing wrong with that you know and that's the beauty in in the Catholic Church is that you can do that you could be a Roman Catholic and you could go to a bis to a Byzantine Catholic church and everything is fine and you know but um like with the other apostolic churches let's say you're a Byzantine and in the Eastern Orthodox and you really want to experience the the uh Syriak liturgies you don't have that in Eastern Orthodoxy but you have it in Catholicism or if you want to experience the liturgy of St isaac of Armenia you don't have that in Eastern Orthodoxy but you have it in Catholicism um everything that is good about Christianity that is ancient that is authentic that is beautiful including the theology you can you can be a Catholic and Palamas St gregory Palamus can be your guy and you can love Palamos and you can and you can you know you know Father Nathan Simeon is a Catholic priest and Palamus is his guy so everything that you're looking for we have it here we have it here and and the thing is that most Westerners don't know they don't know about the Eastern rights of the Catholic Church and I really believe that if they knew they wouldn't have to go through the process of of leaving the Catholic Church and then going to to the to Eastern Orthodoxy they could literally just you know if if there's one close by go to the Byzantine Catholic Church down the street if there's one down the street and go there and and and you'll be happy and you're able to walk in on day one without announcing yourself without having to talk to the pastor or anything and you can go and you can receive the Eucharist and you're good cuz we're united in worship united in doctrine united in governance but the cool thing in the Catholic Church is that there's different theologies that you can hold to that don't contradict each other that are all fall under the doctrine that that is binding so always remember that theology isn't binding in itself doctrine is what's binding so you're bound to the doctrine but the theology is how we understand how we think about the doctrine and the beauty of the Christian faith is that the westerners have a way of thinking the easterners have a way of thinking you know the Syriaks have a way of thinking but the cool thing is that they have all of these different ways of thinking that lead you to the same doctrine that's what you're looking for is doctrine thank you very much that's a great question question for Ubie mhm under your concocted standard that the most recent thousand years of Christianity must track the first thousand years of Christianity does it not give you any pause whatsoever that the Orthodox haven't been able to convoke an ecumenical council in the last thousand years when seven such councils were convoked in the first thousand or that the Orthodox have been in a form of subjugation for the last 500 years uh under Islamic conquest the Zar Peter communism etc while the Catholic Church engaged in widespread evangelization in the first thousand and second thousand years is [Music] uh okay thank you so uh could you rephrase the first part of it you said so correct me if I'm wrong you said would it give me pause that the Orthodox Church has not been able to call an ecumenical council in the second thousand years while it did in the first is correct okay that was an aspect of it yeah does it give you pause to think that I've answered that question five or six times during this debate and you weren't paying attention i I don't think you're answering the question because what did I say happened what did I say happened in Bulgaria what 95 or '98 it's an ecumenical council what were the Polyomite councils ecumenical council was Jerusalem 1672 was a binding council on us okay now two as far as evangelization goes I mean can you name one country that converted to Catholicism and it wasn't like under an imperial Catholic power i mean that condition doesn't matter but the entire new world Mexico etc America all converted to Catholicism no if you look at the DNA studies even Mexico is only about half native the rest is European it was population transfers it's the same with North America north America is hardly any native it's I mean it's almost all population transfers that's how North America converted okay so it spread just via population transfer is that your in North America i mean who are the gigantic native populations in North America who converted to Catholic again Central American you have a mix well okay well in about half what is your background what are you irish German Italian italian okay what are you what are you native how what percent 35% okay what about Okay what about you okay what about you guys on average in Mexico the DNA is about half European i mean what percentage what percentage of Americans are actually native and and like like US Americans and Canadians there's very few well I mean there's almost all population transfers even look at Argentina argentina is all European there's no natives there anymore right here we in our own Catholic church has gone from being a dascese to a large arch dascese because we've had such an influx of people coming here who want and joining the Catholic church becoming Catholics and so there are a lot of people newly finding the Catholic church Catholic Church don't become Catholic if they weren't cradle Catholics raised that way oh I see what you mean catholic just because they're Italian or or Mexican or Filipino what percentage of Catholics in America are converts versus they were born into it it's almost all of them are born into it catholic oh yeah there's that dictate because of their genetics well I don't think you should follow anything because of your genetics my point was is that the majority he he he said North America South America they converted i said it was a population exchange that was my point well congratulations Yeah speaking of that I'm on evangelical just trying to figure things out here so uh this is for voice of reason it's kind of like flipping the topic I guess so hope you forgive me here but what do you think makes the Catholic Church and I know this you could talk about this for for hours but like a one and two minute answer the universal Catholic Apostolic Church i know that wasn't the top of the debate but yeah what do I think makes uh the Catholic church that uh because we see clearly from scripture and from tradition that Jesus Christ established the church with one particular uh with with one head there's a church with one head the first one was Peter the apostle and the unique successions of Peter the apostle always had that authority of the one head and the ecumenical councils of Ephesus Calcedon Constantinople 3 and na 2 they all teach that that the the bishop of Rome the unique successor of Peter is the head of the Christian church um so the reason that I'm Catholic is because the Catholic church can identify its head no other church can identify its head and when I read the Bible when I read the New Testament I see like I mentioned in my opening statement that even the local authorities were all united under one universal head who is the universal pastor so to speak of the church because in the New Testament it was Peter and if the apostles were all receiving divine revelation and they needed a head they needed one guy of out of the 12 they needed one guy to be in charge of the other guys then how much more so do their successors the bishops the bishops need one guy to be the head of all of them and that's exactly what the Catholic Church uh that's exactly what the ecclesiology of the Catholic Church is it matches the New Testament thank you so much for the great question hey guys what just want to say uh uh thank you guys both for being here um thank you for coming yeah I'm a I'm an Orthodox and I'm not here this is more like for my son he wants me to ask a question to Ubie oh right on man he's outside watching he's outside watching he's outside watching and he I think he's just interested in the whole YouTube thing the whole uh Oh how could you not i know i know so this question Mickey this is for you this is for Ubie tell him that I have a question say I'm outside watching my question is quote "If you do something bad in the beginning of your life that is bad enough to go to hell can you redeem yourself?" Well of course you can of course i mean why would God want to see his creation destroyed and part of becoming a more forgiving part of learning to forgive yourself for things that you've done is having children because there's nothing your children could ever do that you wouldn't forgive them and love them for there's things they could do that would break your heart sure but there's not you would never stop loving your children and when you have children you start to understand you get a glimpse of how God views us because we're not just creations we're not just a you know a nice rosemary bush outside or you know a chandelier we're God's children and so in the same way that we will always love our children we will always do whatever it takes to bring them home and to heal them and to see them in in good health that we give our lives for them so God will do the same with us and so something like that you should really go to your parish priest or a priest whom you feel very comfortable with and tell him you know what is it you know if if there is something I mean just for anyone but you should always always remember that the temporary sting of embarrassment is nothing compared to the love of God st isaac the Syrian says "All of humanity's sins are like a handful of dust thrown into the ocean of God's mercy." Thank you that was beautiful that was beautiful well I just plagiarize people with excellent answers i do the same thing brother i do the same thing i rip everybody off all right uh so this question is um yet another question for Ubie okay [Music] um if Matthew 16:18 is not about Rome if Matthew 16:18 is not about uh you know Peter being the rock what is it about like what is what is the meaning it's the establishment of the episcopacy okay so so St cyprian of Carthage has this great line where he takes that and he go he describes as the establishment of the episcopacy okay sorry I didn't mean to interrupt there's more to the question yeah i was just going to say so like because like what is the meaning of you know you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church well Peter is the archetype of bishops all bishops have the petri pet ministry and so what I tend to find is a problem within or what I see as an issue within how it is thought of within Catholicism and I think that this is differentiated in fact I know it's more or less differentiated on the official level is there's a difference between the role of Peter the lineage of Peter and the death place of Peter the death place of Peter is Rome the lineage of Peter is Rome it's Alexandria it's Antioch it's Jopa it's Cesaria Philippi it's all these different cities even Corinth lays a claim to being uh uh founded by St peter and then you have the role of St peter what was the role of St peter it's the episcopacy that's why the bishop holds the keys so early on in the first millennium the term of of the power of the keys was to bind and to loose sins and that's a job of the bishop the bishop is the true priest so a parish priest a deacon they just participate in the bishop's priesthood that's all the bishop is the true priest that's why the word that's used in the septilogent for the high priest it's only used by petristic authors for bishops no one else because each parish each each bishop is the high priest it's it's temples coming together that's what it is because where can you give the where could you give the sacrifice in the Old Testament it was in the temple okay where can you give the bloodless sacrifice it's in the church building now you will say "Okay but Father Nathan celebrated liturgy in there." Okay all right sure but early on only the bishop celebrated the liturgy the priest just assisted him in fa if he couldn't do it they would do it or they they take out the Eucharist to people wherever available so it was the bishop doing it in the church it was one church one bishop one church building so that church building was the temple that that bishop there was the high priest the high priest was Peter peter is the high priest in the the uh New Testament the difference is that each dascese is a temple it's not located it's not limited to just one place like the Jews thought it's throughout the world hey I'm I'm Catholic but my question is actually for Alex so I was wondering if doctrinal unity is so important why does the church not settle seemingly very important and distinctive issues like the essence energy distinction so actually um the Catholic Church actually says that there is a form of polymism that you can actually hold to that isn't heretical and um if there isn't um cuz as we see and would agree with this that usually whenever the church has to come together to actually define something or to settle an issue the issue is always settled um if it is indeed a heresy and a lot of people are believing in it then the church says we need to do something here to to solve this heresy but uh like the essence and energies distinction and the uh poly polyomism u the church actually says that it actually it would be considered orthodox a version of it there is a version of polyism that if you take it to its logical conclusion it can actually lead to problems with uh uh basically you come to the conclusion of two gods but if you take more of a I guess a moderate polyism um uh it's actually completely orthodox and uh again it's the theology but that theology of polyism is in line with the doctrine um of the trinity um and again if you were to ask like the average like Catholic like Roman Catholic hey tell me about the essence and energies distinction they have no idea what you're talking about so uh the reason that the church hasn't uh said anything about it having to either condemn it or or affirm it even though it has actually affirmed a version of it is just because not enough people you know it's not it's not a pressing issue uh uh to have to um and and that's it yeah but but again the church has said that yeah there's a version of polyamus that you can deal hold to and you know the Catholic church venerates St gregory Palmas here you know in the Byzantine church we venerate St gregory Palmas so um but let's say that all of a sudden you had an influx of all of these you know Catholics whether Byzantine Catholics or Roman Catholics that started holding to that more extreme version of polyomism with essence energies distinction uh that would lead to the problem of two gods then the church is going to step in and say "Hey hold on." Because that's what the church does it puts the guard rails it says you can only go up to to this far if you go up this far you're still within orthodoxy but if you go above now you're now you're in heterodoxy you're going into heresy so So that's why Yeah thank you thank you so much great question uh my question is for Yubi u first off I want to say thank you for representing Orthodoxy thank you for coming out here you came out from Victorville we had a very nice discussion at lunch you're a very nice young man yeah uh thank you um earlier you you said purgatory wasn't completely false um can you I'm sorry earlier you said purgatory by a certain definition isn't false can you clarify which definition of purgatory isn't false which one isn't or is uh isn't false or which isn't false and which is false so the one that isn't false is the one when he read the confession of St dos or sorry blessed doius that's a version that we can agree with anything that falls outside of that uh would have to be examined for whether it would be in our view correct or not i do think I mean you have for example I don't believe this is ever a dogma of the Catholic church but you you did have a belief that there were actual physical fires in purgatory that was something that was held uh by many Catholic theologians around the time of Leon uh second Leon uh I believe when the orthodox were there it's 1274 I think so that would be a false version but if it can agree I mean keep in mind purgatory just means like a purging a purifying so I mean we do believe that when people die that they can go through a purification Yeah no problem thank you uh my question is for Ubie uh Ubie so you mentioned uh someone else's question how in the Americas uh most uh converts they're converted they're uh not native um oh mo mo mo mo most of the population is not converted like actual natives of the west most of the Catholics in the country are not converted from say these native groups that came across a barian straight right in the in the Americas uh but in Mexico in uh 1531 we had our lady of Guadalupe um during that time we had 8 to 10 million uh indigenous Mexicans convert which uh after um smallox came the total population of natives were 8 to 10 million um so that was about 90 to 100% of uh Mexicans that converted to uh Catholicism so I'm wondering uh what what do you think of uh apparitions of the blessed virgin Mary that's an area that I I keep meaning to get into and I just haven't i really haven't um it's even as a Roman Catholic I I was not particularly interested in the apparitions i will say interestingly enough is that the Catholic Church as far as I know they don't dogmatize that the apparition occurred they simply dogmatize that it was reported that this is what happened it was reported that this happened from what I understand I'm willing to be corrected on that um but I mean in terms of like what you said about um the conversion of the natives I I've wondered about this and I was thinking about this on the way here because I knew someone would bring it up by the way that's extremely nice suit it's really nice thank you um uh but I I wonder how many of those people came into it thinking that they could preserve their pagan religion because you know that the Guadalupe image it it's set up to look like an Aztec goddess from what I understand it's an area I don't really not interested in so I wonder how many people came into it thinking well we can preserve the Aztec religion and then their their ancestors you know just sort of ended up going into actual like Catholicism so to say yeah so so the tunic uh it's on a cactus tunic uh there's no brush strokes on it um Yeah and in the eyes there's an image of what occurred and Right right uh under magnification so within that tunic um you know there's there's a serpent being stepped on which um shows that uh within the Aztec uh religion the serpent god is is being stepped on which has connections to Catholicism right which uh has uh connections to Christianity as well with uh with sin with Satan you know being overcome uh so that was that distinction there is your family Mexican which part of Mexico um so it's kind of funny my family's also from New Mexico so a lot of a lot of um New Mexican families um mine included i don't know about yours but uh they've been in New Mexico since New Mexico was part of Mexico so it's wow far back my my brother the reason I asked my brother-in-law and my sister's husband is from Mutualan okay yeah nice so thank you no problem thank you uh this is for Alex i have a quick question i'm gonna look at the camera so it good for the video i have to look at the camera no so it can be clips if you don't mind could I while you're handling this if I'm going to run to the Uh yeah yeah yeah go ahead in a moment wait you're asking the question i'm going to ask a question it's your question yeah yeah yeah yeah or does someone send you this question or is it yours it's my personal question are you going into the business for yourself okay all right so Alex what the heck alex so Alex what's your opinion on Mormonism what's my opinion on Mormonism um well that that we're not we were discussing Catholicism in this debate definitely not Mormonism but um Mormons are very nice people very very nice very sweet kind people and I think that they would make amazing Catholics they would be wonderful beautiful Catholics cuz boy do they know how to make babies and just populate the world and I think I think uh I think that us Catholics can can learn from them about the joys of uh you know I think they would be great Catholics if if they abandon all of their heresies but God bless him pray for him sure you hold it hey Alex hey brother thanks for join or for coming doing this thank you so much for being here the the question was for both we'll see if makes it back but I'll answer first and then Okay sounds good um so is it based off of the definition of uh Catholicity so he was saying how when the split occurred in 1054 the east was larger in number today Catholic is larger in number but it seems like what I usually hear about the definition of Catholicity is we're greater in number so that would mean it it did kind of switch from one to the other so I I want a clarification on um the definition that you would give and why it's consistent with both and I actually went the same for Ubie i'll say that again if you sorry about that sure and the way that Catholicity has always been understood by you know the church by the church fathers is Catholicity means that the gospel made it to all known parts of the world and so it doesn't necessarily mean that there's going to be a Christian majority in every single you know province or country or whatever it is it just means that the gospel of Jesus Christ is known and that his church is there somewhere um in the inhabited world so he got me with that Antarctica line but Antarctica is not inhabited so it doesn't count but wherever there are people in the wherever there are people in the world the Christian the gospel is there and the church of Jesus Christ is there and and the only Christian communion that can say that is the Catholic Church only the Catholic Church can say that they are in you know almost every single country with the exception of maybe and they they used to be they used to be in uh in you know Korea before the what happened with the split with North and South but the Catholic Church is very strong in South Korea um you know so and if you could clarify that the so why wouldn't the East have been more Catholic during the split it would be the question was for both so it's a it's a I'm Orthodox by the way or new newly baptized former Protestant uh congratulations thank you uh it's a definition definition of Catholicity it see it seems like like today's uh Catholics will point to we have greater in number we are more Catholic we're more universal um and you pointed out well at if I understand the argument correctly that in the split in 1054 that the cath or that the the eastern side was greater in number and so you know no I don't think any side would say well we were and now you are or we are now and you used to be if I I would take so I'm curious on a definition of clarification from from both sides hopefully that makes sense thank you already go ahead uh oh to about what apostolic about Catholicity about how Catholicity is understood as far as like because because I said in my opening statement about like the numbers right and now that I you know I could have ordered it better and said that Catholicism is Catholic Catholic Christianity was what reached the in the entire known world and inhabited world but how would you understand Catholicity from the Orthodox perspective well I mean there's within the Petristic Writers there's it's a variety of definitions of what it means but they seem to think of it in terms of it lacks nothing once in a while you'll see someone say like "Well it's in the whole world." Which for them I mean like in the 400s Christianity was in the whole world no um but it's all relative to to the situation I think and so a lot of these I mean I don't want to say that like St serial of Jerusalem was being disingenuous when he said it was throughout the whole world i don't think he was i think he just I mean sort of that like flare that they would use when they would speak like you know everyone knows that it's like no no not everyone knows that you you follow what I mean they make a lot of absolute statements it's always this way everyone knows you know so I think that's what he was probably getting at in terms of like the geographic because he gives four he gives four definitions of what four standards of Catholicity right so it's amongst all races of people it's amongst all classes of people uh I want to say the dogma misses nothing and it's spread throughout the world but at the time that he said that it wasn't spread throughout the world at all I mean that was in the late 300s it was really quite sparse you know so I'm actually really interested in this uh the topic of the debate is right the is the Orthodox church the one holy catholic apostolic church is this for me or for him for both of you actually okay yeah and so um you you were talking about how the first millennium church it looks the same as the second right and so um the question for you and then I have a question for him real quick question for you is since and I'm sorry I'm not that well versed in orthodoxy i'm sorry if this is a stupid question that's fine no I mean the fact that you've one the fact that you came here today I'm very thankful for two thank you for coming and then the fact that you have come and asked questions is very humbling i'm always humbled when people ask me questions because I'm just kind of like who am I you know I'm just a guy who likes history Latin and Costco pizza um so you know I mean but pizza is Italian so you're closer to Rome than you thought you know I Oh man he got you there buddy forgotten you're there i I was there a while ago i was there a while ago and I'd forgotten how great the hot dogs were those are Frankfurters that's that's Protestant right oh man no I mean the the I mean you're really universal you're asking excellent questions and I I mean you you say them very articulately and so yeah thank you for coming so my question is for you since the Orthodox Church teaches that a council only becomes ecumenical when it is received by the whole church or by consensus wouldn't the continued rejection of Orthodox councils by the bishop of Rome who historically was part of the consensus i'm having a hard time hearing could you could you read a little louder yeah since the Orthodox Church teaches that a council only becomes ecumenical when it is received by the whole church wouldn't the continued rejection of Orthodox councils by the bishop of Rome who historically was part of that consensus mean that or orthodoxy by its own criteria can no longer hold a truly ecumenical council oo this is an excellent question i was waiting for someone to ask something like this okay so the question is who left who right right so the bishop of Rome at a certain point just goes look guys you accept this or else and we're like "Huh?" It's like "Peace out i'm out of here." Okay now if you follow the Catholic view it's that the entire East rejected the Pope that's not how we look at it we look as a pope rejected us so if you're a spouse in a marriage look at it this way if you're in a marriage and say the spouse and and god forbid this happens to you but like you know well let's let's give a better example say a board meeting let's say one board member goes "You know what you guys can either do this you can vote on this or else you're you're no longer on the board so to say well they don't have a right to do that they remove themselves from it and then everyone who's left on that board is like "Hey uh Bob just left like where's Bob going?" And then Bob goes and starts up you know all right I'm assigning new board members here and there so the situation is again who left who i mean we weren't the ones that made the demands early on in the Gregorian reforms which by the way that's that's a great book by uh uh how h before the Gregorian reforms that's an excellent book yeah really it's about that thick you can get PDFs of it if because it's about 40 bucks but it's very good and he leads up to what brought in the Gregorian reforms and points out just how radically things changed in the 8 900s you also have a very nice suit thank you where did you get Where did you Are you from Las Vegas uh Kansas City born and raised but I live in Las Vegas okay well which part of Las Vegas do you live in up north near Summerland oh okay i live way down south yeah not too far i'm really impressed with one how many of you are still here and how many of you came dressed very nicely appreciate that well thank you i appreciate you i don't have a question for you though i have a question for Voice of Reason sure yes thank you i thought you were coming for me as well no not this he's coming for me again coming for me actually so Alex yes sir i think as I understand your argument one one of your main themes is about being able to identify the true church right and you're leveling that argument pushing that forward against the Eastern Orthodox saying you can't really identify identify that and I'm I'm wondering how you can really maintain that type of argument when uh Joseph Ratzinger and Dominus Yus specifically taught that the Eastern Orthodox was a true particular church right so how do you reconcile that seeming your argument seems to contradict itself so actually what the uh Catholic Church has always taught about the Eastern Orthodox churches is that they begin because we believe that they are apostolic they have apostolic succession because of that they have valid sacraments so you can consider them holy the Catholic Church has always said that all of the not just the Eastern Orthodox but the Orientals and the Assyrians um that uh they are true local churches they are churches on the local level but none of them none of those communions can uh call themselves the universal church they're only churches on the local level that have separated themselves from uh the universal church because if we were to just all of a sudden say "Oh they no longer have sacraments they no longer have holy orders they no longer have then we would be an issue because that would mess with our sacramental theology because the sacramental theology is that the sacraments leave an indelible mark on your soul." So because I'm baptized the Catholic Church cannot ever take away my baptism the Catholic Church can never say you're no longer baptized in the same way a priest that is a validly ordained priest the Catholic Church can never take his priesthood away he remains a priesthood forever according to the order of Melkisedc but if they choose to uh exercise their priesthood apart from the unity of the universal church they are exercising their priesthood now validly because it's an ontological reality um they're exercising the priesthood validly but illicitly because they're doing it outside of Christ Church um so they are validly uh and illicitly celebrating something that can only listen be celebrated within the unity of the universal church um so the best that they could ever be would be local churches but thank God that over the last thousand years since these schisms have occurred um as I'm sure as you know all of the Eastern Oriental and Assyrian churches they all have Catholic counterparts so slowly but surely these schisms are being field are being healed and local orthodox churches are coming back into communion with the universal church this church is a great example a great example of it it was an Eastern Orthodox church that came back you know into communion with the Catholic Church and now they're part of the universal church once again and what makes you part of the universal church because you can identify it is when when you are united to the head and who is the head the unique successor of the apostle St peter who died in Rome and therefore discharged the fullness of his authority in Rome and all of his successors in Rome have that unique uh uh or his unique successors and they have that charrorism that he had to be the head and the head figure of unity for all of the other successors of the other apostles we we just hit the one hour mark uh what do you say yeah we just take That was a fantastic question my friend god bless you great question how you doing gentlemen hello hello how are you doing glad to have you here on behalf of Father Nathan I'm very happy to have you here and to our community and we enjoyed your whole day there's just two simple questions I'd like to ask you all right after Constantine recognized the church what was it called after Constantine recognized the church what was it called yes like was it called the Orthodox Church was it called the Catholic Church what was it what was the name he gave these people christians and Well if I you mind if I answer it first sure sure so uh even if you even read in the when I read the confession of Dosius even the Eastern Orthodox Church to this day they call themselves the Catholic Church so Catholic even though the word is an adjective that just means universal um it was used as a uh as a noun going back as early as you know signations of Antioch in the year 107 um so it was always called the Catholic Church it was always called the Orthodox Church um but Catholic is mostly what it was called like I said both communions the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church claimed call themselves the Catholic Church and and so do the Orientals and the Assyrians as well yeah the Assyrians yeah yeah right yeah thank you no thank you so much yeah great question douglas is that it thank you any any parting words so thank you guys all so much for coming it's been absolutely fabulous having you here um anyone who wants to get a hold of me you can just go to the uh you can find me on Twitter which is Ubie Petrus uh you can find me on Facebook as well um I have a Patreon where I have videos posted all my new material goes behind that and I raise money in order to do it uh I am taking a flight tonight so if you come to St john the Baptist Church uh looking for me you will not find me there in the morning i'll be at another parish but the week after that I will be there so thank you so much [Applause] and I have nowhere I got to be so we can hang out look at all the cigars that I have if you guys want to hang out I'm ready to hang out yeah I have to I have to hit the road but I I thank you i do have about 10 15 minutes to say hello to people um while I pack things up and then I have to drive all the way back down to Henderson and start packing for a flight so thank you so much to all of you involved to Randolph Media to Jonathan here to Father Nathan to the bishop to everyone in the parish who worked so incredibly hard to put this together to all of you who asked questions um to the gate people you were a gate man I believe um it's absolutely wonderful and thank you for letting me debate in front of you now I better take this off before I accidentally walk off with it thank you so much thank you so much man appreciate it thank you [Music] you both in a picture real quick yes peace