Elías Josué Calisto

Blog Posts

Catholic But Not Roman

“Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”
— The Jesus Prayer

All engineering students will at some point in their undergraduate studies have a lecture or two on unit conversions. If the professor covering the material is the kind that likes to teach, he might cover a little history as to how some of the standard units of measurement were developed in addition to just teaching the students the methods for converting from one unit to another. I was lucky enough to have the kind of professor who liked to teach when I was learning this material and was fascinated to hear the professor in my statics (not to be confused with statistics) course tell us that prior to the speed of light becoming the standard of measurement for many of the units we currently use, it was two scratches on a metal bar kept somewhere in France that for many years were the standard for what the meter was supposed to measure. Christianity has a similar standard for determining what is true, but the standard varies by Tradition/denomination.

Over the past 500 years Protestantism has used the Catholic Church (from here on called the Roman Catholic Church) as its standard of measurement for how “un-Christian” something is.  When in doubt as to whether some practice is Christian or not, one only has to ask oneself whether a Catholic would do it. If the answer is yes, then the practice is deemed to be an un-Christian tradition of men and is immediately discarded. This fear in Protestantism of looking too Catholic is unfortunate since it is because of this fear that much of the rich Tradition of Christianity has been lost. In fact, so many things got thrown out during the Protestant Reformation that, as the opening narrative of The Fellowship of the Ring movie states:

“.. some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth...”

As someone who grew up in a very conservative Protestant upbringing where hate for the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) was very strong I believed many of the same misconceptions about the RCC that have been steeped into Protestantism since the Reformation. However, over the past three years every inaccurate belief I was raised to have about the RCC at home, in books, bible studies, and other churches has been overturned. It was the soon-to-be Catholic saint Fulton Sheen who best described most peoples’ view of the RCC when he said:

“There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church — which is, of course, quite a different thing. These millions can hardly be blamed for hating Catholics because Catholics “adore statues”; because they “put the Blessed Mother on the same level with God”; because they say “indulgence is a permission to commit sin”.... If the Church taught or believed any one of these things it should be hated, but the fact is that the Church does not believe nor teach any one of them. It follows then that the hatred of the millions is directed against error and not against truth. As a matter of fact, if we Catholics believed all of the untruths and lies which were said against the Church, we probably would hate the Church a thousand times more than they do.”

Over the last three years as I’ve read the writings of the early Christians and studied the development of the Church to what it is today I’ve come to learn that things like the Eucharist, iconography, saints, church hierarchy, the importance of apostolic succession, and the concept of the Church as an institution on earth and not simply a general term for Christians all over the world are not inventions of the RCC. I’ve learned that Christian Traditions as old as the RCC have also believed a lot of the same things for thousands of years in the East, for example. These two main Traditions I speak of in the East are the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox Churches (Eastern and Oriental might sound the same, but these churches are different). These churches have their differences, some going as far back as the ecumenical councils from the fifth century, but they share a lot of beliefs in common not found in Protestantism. In fact, the Eastern Orthodox and the RCC were united for the first thousand years or so of Christianity until the Great Schism happened around 1054 A.D. As a side note, the Oriental Orthodox Church, specifically the Coptic Church, which separated from the Church during the fifth ecumenical council is the one currently being persecuted in Egypt. If you ever hear about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, they’re most likely Coptic or Eastern Orthodox Christians.

A lot of the hate I had for the RCC has turned into respect and admiration instead. It was through the RCC that I heard about the Eucharist and its importance for the first time and it was during my first mass that I heard the Nicene Creed recited for the first time in my whole life even though I had been a Christian at that point for about 25 years. It was also through the RCC that I was pushed to begin reading and understanding the writings of the early Christians such as Justin Martyr, Basil the Great, Anthony of the Desert, John of Damascus, and many others. For this I am very thankful to the RCC for it helped to prepare me for my discovery of Orthodoxy.  

My new found respect for the RCC, however, was not enough to justify my entering into communion with it and submitting myself to Rome. After all, and many Catholics don’t know this, Catholicism is not a cafeteria religion where you pick and choose your beliefs. Once something has been dogmatically defined by the RCC it is binding on all believers regardless of what that individual person might want to believe or no. In other words, one is either 100% Roman Catholic or one isn’t. There are important concepts in the RCC that I cannot be at peace with such as the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (which came about as one of the conclusions of the concept of Original Sin), the current understanding of the filioque in the creed, the RCC’s understanding of purgatory, its exaggerated approach towards a scholastic understanding of religious topics that should be left a mystery, and the supremacy of the Pope over the entire church as opposed to the conciliar practice that has been more common and is still kept in Traditions such as the Eastern Orthodox Church.The more I read about the ancient Church, the more (Roman) Catholic I became. However, I didn’t feel at peace with the topics previously listed and struggled to figure out what to do. It was then that I decided to learn more about these Orthodox people I kept hearing about.

Sometime around the end of 2017 I began to read more about the Orthodox Church. I purchased some books on Amazon and became fascinated. Later on, I moved to St. Louis to start a new job and was lucky enough to discover an Orthodox bookstore not too far from my apartment. I stocked up on books and kept reading. Over the course of the next few months I consumed book after book on the Orthodox Church, it’s understanding of Christianity, and its rich history. I kept attending the Divine Liturgy (the Orthodox term for what the RCC calls “the mass”. It was written around the fifth century by John Chrysostom and is still used by every Orthodox Church to this day) and fell in love with its practice. I came to learn that the Orthodox Church also understands itself as being Catholic due to its presence all over the world and its unity with all the Orthodox Churches in communion with one another, which is why “Roman” is commonly used to describe the Catholic Church in the West to denote its communion with Rome (i.e. the Pope). The more I read about Orthodoxy the more I connected with it and it was finally in March of 2019 that I became a catechumen. I found my home and I look forward to the day that I can enter into full communion with the Orthodox Church.

Although every church has its problems, such as the current schism between Constantinople and Russia in the Orthodox church, I’ve found the Orthodox Church to be the one who has most closely kept the fullness of the faith from the beginning. I long for the day that all churches will once again unite as one, but until then I look forward to being able to recite the Creed every Sunday in communion with the Orthodox Church. We recite the creed every Sunday (and during our daily prayers) as follows:

“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages. Light of light; true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made; Who for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man. And He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried. And the third day He arose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; Whose Kingdom shall have no end.

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father; Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; Who spoke by the prophets.

In one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.”

I would like to end this post by sharing just a few of the many resources that have helped me over the past few years to understand things more clearly. I wouldn’t be where I am were it not for the stories, journeys, and writings of the many people whose works I’ve had the blessing to read and listen to over the past few years.

Elias CalistoComment