Old Catholic Communion

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Hello Bishop Sean. I'd like to ask a question if I may? I am an Antiochian Orthodox Christian with an interest in Old Catholicism. Would being Orthodox mean I would be able to receive the Sacraments if I attended an Old Catholic Mass? God bless, David Carter-Green.

It would depend on the Old Catholic Mass you are attending. Obviously you may "attend" any Mass anywhere in any public building. Receiving the Blessed Sacrament is something else. There are differing manifestations of Old Catholicism, as the majority of jurisdictions are autocephalous and mostly independent of each another. Even the Utrecht Church from where Old Catholicism originally seceded in the eighteenth century is no longer deemed "Old Catholic" by traditionalists, despite Utrecht calling itself so. This is because of its drift into modernisn, liberalism and it being received into the Protestant Anglican Communion. Some jurisdictions who call themselves "Old Catholic" would be regarded as heretical by any standard. Others are traditional and recognise most of the same rules and strictures as the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, which means, notwithstanding special dispensations, their discipline prohibits those in a non-Catholic denomination receiving the Host. While obviously allowing Roman and Eastern Catholics to receive the Blessed Sacrament, traditional Old Catholics would leave any decision regarding whether an Antiochian Orthodox Christian might be eligible to the discretion of the bishop in question. One is bound to wonder why someone would want to receive the Body of Christ in a denomination and church not their own? The most obvious barrier to those who are Catholic receiving those who are not is the doctrine of the Real Presence, which is paramount in the Catholic Mass.

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There is also the matter of the Filioque, which became a point of contention between the Eastern and Western Churches in 867 when Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople declared it heretical. The controversy over the phrase contributed to the East-West Schism of 1054 and, despite agreements among participants at the Second Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Florence (1439), reunion has not been achieved. The filioque clause was probably devised in response to Arianism, which denied the full divinity of the Son. To the Byzantines, however, the clause also appeared to compromise the primacy of the Father, which according to the Eastern Church is the source of deity. An unsuccessful attempt to reconcile the two points of view was made at the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1439. The Eastern and Western churches have remained separate, and the doctrine represented by the term Filioque stands as one of the principal points of difference between them.

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Tertullian, writing at the beginning of the third century, emphasises that Father, Son and Holy Spirit all share a single divine substance, quality and power, which he conceives of as flowing forth from the Father and being transmitted by the Son to the Spirit. While the phrase "who proceeds from the Father" is found in John 15: 26, no direct statement about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son is found in the New Testament, although perhaps indirectly discernible in John 20: 22 and other passages. In John 16: 13-15 Jesus says of the Holy Spirit "He will take what is mine and declare it to you", and it is argued that in the relations between the Persons of the Trinity one Person cannot "take" or "receive" (λήψεται) anything from either of the others except by way of procession. Other texts that have been used include Galatians 4: 6, Romans 8: 9, Philippians 1: 19, where the Holy Spirit is called "the Spirit of the Son", "the Spirit of Christ", "the Spirit of Jesus Christ", and texts in the Gospel of John on the sending of the Holy Spirit by Jesus (14: 16, 15: 26, 16: 7). Titus 3: 6 speaks of God pouring out the Holy Spirit "through Jesus Christ our Saviour", while Acts 2: 33 speaks of Jesus himself pouring out the Holy Spirit, having received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father. The Eastern Orthodox interpretation is that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and is sent (at Pentecost) from the Father through the Son (ex Patre per Filium procedit). The Latin West states that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son together (ex Patre Filioque procedit)..

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