All thinkers
Theologian · Contemporary
Patriarch Maximos IV Sayegh
1878–1967 · Eastern Catholic ecclesiology at Vatican II
Catholic
Melkite
Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch 1947–1967; cardinal from 1965.
The Melkite Patriarch whose interventions at Vatican II, delivered in French rather than Latin, insisted that the Eastern Catholic Churches are not a rite within the Latin Church but Churches with their own patriarchal authority, that the vernacular and concelebration belong to the liturgy, and that collegiality and synodality balance the primacy. He refused a cardinalate until its compatibility with patriarchal dignity was secured.
Why he matters: More than anyone he shaped Orientalium Ecclesiarum and the conciliar recovery of synodality; Orthodox observers called him the voice of the absent East, and he remains the reference for Eastern Catholic self-understanding.
Reading
-
The Eastern Churches and Catholic UnityPatriarch Maximos IV (ed.) · The Melkite vision set out by the Patriarch and his bishops.
-
The Greek Melkite Church at the Counciled. Archimandrite Robert F. Taft / Melkite Eparchy of Newton · His conciliar speeches collected.
-
Orientalium EcclesiarumSecond Vatican Council, 1964 · The decree he did most to shape.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.
Settled teaching
Its center
Open question
Beyond teaching, not condemned
Condemned error
I
God and Being · What is, and whence it is.
Can reason know that God exists?
Natural theology
Fideism or agnosticism
Natural theology
Is the world governed by purpose?
Providence and final causes
Chance and mechanism
Providence and final causes
God's essence and His energies
Essence–energies distinction
Essence–energies distinction
Absolute simplicity
How should we speak of God?
Apophatic (negative) way
Apophatic (negative) way
Cataphatic (analogical) way
II
Faith, Reason and Truth · How we know, and whom we trust.
Faith and reason: who has the last word?
Between
Rationalism
Fideism
Is truth objective?
Objective truth
Relativism and pragmatism
Objective truth
Who interprets revelation?
Living Tradition and Magisterium
Private judgment
Living Tradition and Magisterium
Does doctrine develop?
A living development
Always the same, in the same words
A living development
Are the world's learning and arts a danger or a gift?
A gift to be baptized
A danger: Athens has nothing to do with Jerusalem
A gift to be baptized
III
The Human Person · Soul, body, freedom and the Fall.
Is there a spiritual soul?
Immortal spiritual soul
Mind is brain
Immortal spiritual soul
Are you free?
Free will
Determinism
Free will
How fallen is human nature?
Basically good
Totally depraved
Basically good
Marriage, sex and the body's meaning
Given by nature and grace
Given by nature and grace
Defined by consent and identity
What is suffering for?
A share in the Cross
An evil to be relieved
A share in the Cross
IV
The Moral Life · Law, virtue, conscience and the good.
Is morality objective and knowable?
Natural law
Relativism
Natural law
Rules or character?
Morality of virtue and beatitude
Morality of obligation
Morality of virtue and beatitude
What is happiness?
Beatitude in God
Earthly flourishing
Beatitude in God
V
Grace and Salvation · How God saves, and whom.
How are we made right with God?
Infused, transforming grace
Forensic imputation
Infused, transforming grace
Who can be saved?
Between
Strict exclusivism
Indifferentism
What is salvation for?
Deification
Pardon and escape
Deification
Where does your eye rest in Christ: His divinity or His humanity?
The eternal Word made flesh
The eternal Word made flesh
The man Jesus of Nazareth
VI
Church and Society · Authority, the state, wealth and the nation.
Church and state
Social kingship of Christ
Laicism
Social kingship of Christ
The economic order
Between
Socialism
Laissez-faire capitalism
Reform or tradition?
Guided by tradition
Remake by reason
Guided by tradition
The nation and the Church
Between
Nation or race first
Nation does not matter
May the state restrain false religion?
Civil liberty for every religion
The confessional state: error has no rights
Civil liberty for every religion
Which form of government best suits a Christian people?
Democracy and participation
Monarchy and hierarchy
Democracy and participation
May a Christian take up the sword?
Never: the way of the Cross is nonviolence
Never: the way of the Cross is nonviolence
Yes: war can be just and sometimes a duty
VII
Worship, Prayer and the Two Lungs · Liturgy, icons, the Spirit, and the See of Peter.
Liturgical development
Receive and develop organically
Reconstruct and innovate
Receive and develop organically
Icons and images
Veneration of images
Iconoclasm
Veneration of images
The way of prayer
Stillness and the Jesus Prayer
Stillness and the Jesus Prayer
Discursive meditation
The procession of the Holy Spirit
From the Father through the Son
From the Father through the Son
From the Father and the Son (Filioque)
The office of Peter
Universal and immediate primacy
Conciliarism
Universal and immediate primacy
What do the sacraments do?
Efficacious ex opere operato
Signs only
Efficacious ex opere operato
The Second Vatican Council
A new beginning
Reject the Council
A new beginning
When the Pope speaks
Between
Resist and judge
Every word binds
Holy Orders and the Church's constitution
A clerical Church
A clerical Church
Reformable by the people
Should the faith take the forms of each culture it enters?
The Gospel in each people's own forms
One form everywhere
The Gospel in each people's own forms
What are the Eastern Catholic Churches?
Sister Churches with their own rights and theology
Rites of the one Roman Church
Sister Churches with their own rights and theology
Contemplation or action?
Action: the apostolate and the works of mercy
Action: the apostolate and the works of mercy
Contemplation: the one thing needful