30
edits
Changes
→January 1, 2010 changes
3. The Orthodox identity can only be said to exist after the Great Schism since before that time none within the Church thought of themselves as somehow different from Christian believers in the West. The fact that an Orthodox identity developed after the Schism is evident in the slow realization of the division.
4. You will also do well to read Latin documents, which clearly say "Christ's Church ''subsistit in'' the Catholic Church"--that is their position in their own words.
5. If you are going to sit here and claim that the Christians faithful to Christ's Church before the Schism in any way thought of themselves in the same way that modern Orthodox Christians do, you are bearing false witness and flat out lying. Consider the argument so often given that people in the eastern Mediterranean, although Greek-speaking, thought of themselves as Romans and did not cease to think of those in the West as also Roman. The situation of the pre-Schism Church was just like that. You '''might''' be able to say that the Church was "Orthodox" in belief, but you '''cannot''' say it was "Orthodox" in identity because such an identity did not exist.--[[User:Maximustheconfessor|Maximustheconfessor]] 04:12, January 2, 2010 (UTC)
