Why are Catholics called "Catholic" and not "Western Orthodox"?
If the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches both use "Orthodox" despite not being in communion with each other, is not the Catholic Church rightly called "Western Orthodox"?
Hell, one of the titles of the Pope is "Patriarch of the West", first used by Pope Theodore I in 642.
Is it just a linguistic thing to help define who is a Coptic Catholic, Coptic Orthodox, and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria?
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But than Rome would be equal with the rest of Christianity and they wont allow that. Muh keys and all that.
I hope and pray that one day Rome will come back and be first amongst equals once again.
I think the question should rather be why the Orthodox don't call themselves "Catholic". It's even in the creed.
Catholic was first used by Ignatius of Antioch I believe not sure when Orthodoxy was used but they're both synonymous before the schism, neither are used in the bible as such but both are implied.
Roman Catholics are rightly called Western Orthodox and Orthodox would think they're rightly Catholics, but in common parlance one would think you're refering to Roman Catholics when you say 'Catholic' and vice versa if you say Orthodox and if you use Eastern Catholic they'd think Uniates, and if you say 'Western Orthodox' perhaps western rite orthodoxy or just eastern orthodox in the west.
Because they are the Catholic (kata holos = belonging to all) Church.
I think the word is mentioned in one of Pauls letters. Thats why they are also called the "catholic epistles".
Orthodoxy (orthe doxa = right opinion) sounds like something that came up later to deal with heretics.
The term Orthodox started after an ecumenical council iirc when both east and west were the same church. Orthodox people still refer to themselves as Catholics but Orthodox was used more to emhpasize the correct faith so it prevailed over the years. Still every Sunday we say "i believe in one, holy catholic and apostolic church"
Orthodox means "correct faith", Catholic means universal. Both are used according the occasion. The church is Catholic and the faith is Orthodox.
a real shame, St. Pacian put it as "Christianus mihi nomen est, catholicus vero cognomen ("My name is Christian, my surname is Catholic."
for Orthodox I suppose it is "my name is christian, my surname is Orthodox, but really we're the real catholics"
Christian is too vague today that are 1000 Christian denominations. At the beggining just Christian was fine but as years passed, we needed a name to descripe the true faith.
Both Orthodox and Catholic are Greek words that were used by acient Christians according to the occasion, but after the split the western part, which didn't spoke Greek anymore, kept only the Catholic as an identity. The eastern part continued to use both.
I hope the Vatican mafia burns in hell and Rome becomes last among unequals once and for all.
We literally call ourselves Orthodox Catholic Church.
They're the only ones who survived
1) fall of rome
2) ottoman empire expansion
It all comes from that
The Church called itself both Catholic and Orthodox in the 1st millenium. "Catholic" was the first common term, understood in the sense of "according to the whole" - every local Church is the whole Church, because Christ is present, sacramentally through the Eucharist and symbolically through the bishop. Later on, "Catholic" caught on in the West (but understood in the sense of "universal", referring to the Church's mission of universal evangelization which is being fulfilled more and more everyday) and "Orthodox" caught in the East ("proper faith/worship", in opposition to heretical sects, especially the Monophysites).
Today the Eastern Orthodox Church officially refers to itself as the "Orthodox Catholic Church" or as the "Eastern Catholic Church". And while the title of "Orthodox" isn't really used in the West anymore, most Eastern Catholic churches call themselves "Orthodox" liturgically. To add to this mess, the Monophysites have decided to call themselves "Oriental Orthodox" since the 1960's.
The title of "Western Orthodox" is unlikely to be used by the Catholics simply because 1) "universal" is already a traditional title and more relevant to the Pope's universal jurisdiction, 2) the title of "Catholic" understood in the Greek sense has been recovered with Vatican II (thanks to the influence of Nicholas Afanasiev), and 3) the Orthodox have called dibs on the "Western Orthodox" title, with their Western Rite.
The Pope took back this title in 1863… and dropped it again in 2006.
Since Chalcedon, they have equal footing with Constantinople.
Such Christian charity.
While Christ prayed The Father's mercy for the men who nailed him to a cross, you pray for fire on men you never knew.
Catholics are hardly Orthodox. They're are fundamentally different on some key theological issues. You can't be orthodox and have different ideas of God, breaking him up in a thousand different energies.. or even disembodying him (i.e. "Heart of Jesus"). Being Orthodox, if anything, is an insistence that you have precision on terms. And there's nothing more important than the word God, first off. They went wrong with the filoque, and continue to do so, with one innovation on top of another.
Besides that, they enshrine Latin and Rome to the point of being clowns. As if the language of Caesar had some kind of inherent holiness to it. Not even the early Roman fathers (the great ones) would be this insistent about enshrining one's own vulgarity.. or forms of government (i.e. things like "Magisterium"). This mess ended up creating a revolt with Protestants, but Orthodox always spoke in common tongues before. It was nothing new. And there's nothing holy about any language.. except the language of angels.
The Oriental Orthodox are not Orthodox either, as they're not better than Catholics. You misunderstand OP's question, I think.
Apologies. But all of those really are different, even immediately to me, in how they approach God. Like I'm in different church.. despite physically resembling each other at times. I think the word "orthodox" was a later word anyhow, made in post schism. So it's a little strange that anyone else adopted it.
They were just called Monophysites by us prior to the 20th century, it's just the diplomatic effeminate ecumenists who call them so.
Catholics often refer to Catholic teaching as orthodoxy. And the Orthodox consider themselves Catholic too. It's just a norm that distinguishes the churches.
Orthodox actually mean it though. They're not insisting on Roman flourishing to the word "universal". That's an oxymoron… "Roman Catholic". It's like saying you're saying you're an all-inclusive guy who only wears blue.
To play the devil's advocate, catholicity implies primacy (see pic related). The Roman Catholics believe that the Bishop of Rome has universal primacy (even supremacy in fact), and is the Vicar of Christ. I don't think that catholicity, as defined by them at Vatican II, isn't something they can allow themselves to claim.
"Roman Catholic" refers to a particular rite of the Catholic Church. Similar to how "Greek Orthodox" refers to a particular Orthodox rite. Roman Catholics are also called Latin-rite Catholics, opposed to Coptic Catholics or Sarum Rite Catholics. There are 23 Catholic churches in full communion with each other, and only one is Roman.
You could call Roman Catholics "Roman Orthodox" for the same reason Greek Orthodox are called Greek.
I see.
Well, in any case, they perverted the whole "inclusive" notion at Vatican II anyways.. since they claim leadership over everything else too, pagans and churches alike. It has nothing to do with a universal nature of the church, but a generic overseer over ALL mankind's religions. This is precisely what their centuries old bad ideas of God led them to. Or whatever Aquinas calls it: Divine Simplicity. That of a simple essence that can be in everything. Instead of a God who reveals in a specific manner and way, it's a God of universality even with pagans, instead of a God of revelation.
This is why Pope JP2 commited an abomination like Assisi (although to be fair, some Orthodox were there sadly). Once you think think of God as some concept that can be broken down by theistic nonsense/philosophical principles and understood by EVERYONE, then you eventually proclaim nonsense like "Even the Hindus and Muslims know of our God somehow." When that is NOT the God of revelation. When he appeared to Moses in the burning bush, Pharaoh didn't also "somehow know God in his own way" at the same time. These are literally the kind of retarded conclusions their leaders have come to…whether they phrase it as such or not. I don't care anything about whatever primacy they think they have. It's a primacy over fallen man, at best. But not the Church.
The Catholics I've spoken with would say otherwise. They would say that the Church calling itself "Roman" is extremely important, because Rome is the foundation of the Church, and all other churches derive their orthodoxy and catholicity from Rome alone.
I'm not Catholic so I won't insist on defending this though, but this is what I've been told.
It'd be different if it was just that, but they're a lot more ambitious. Lets give them a little more credit.