DESCRIPTION AND EVALUATION REGARDING THE HOLY MYSTERY OF PRIESTHOOD IN ROMAN CATHOLICISM

Abstract

The central difference between the Orthodox teaching and the Catholic one regarding the Church comes from the conception regarding its foundation. In the Catholic conception, the visible Church was founded before the Pentecost, on the testimony of Saint Peter the Apostle, and at Pentecost only the invisible Church would have been added. The entire conception about the hierarchy, in the Roman Catholic Church, is strictly juridical. In reality, as the Orthodox theology testifies, the essence of the ecclesial hierarchy is charismatic, not juridical. This is what the great difference to the Catholic teaching consists in. The Eastern theology makes no abstraction of jurisdiction and canon law, yet, jurisdiction depends on grace, not grace on jurisdiction, contrary to what some Western Church theologians would suggest in certain works such as those belonging to the Western Theology.