Why was there no Protestant Reformation in the East?

[white_wolf]

This is something I've always wondered. Why was there no Protestant reformation among the Eastern Orthodox churches? Theologically speaking they are very similar to the Roman Catholic Church, but no one challenged their doctrines the way the protestants challenged Catholic doctrine. I was just wondering if anyone knew anything about this subject or could recommend some sources?

[rug]

1. Much of Orthodoxy was under Muslim control.

Much of the Reformation was explicitly anti-Papist.

Many of the doctrines, e.g. purgatory and indulgences, were not adopted in the East.

Some correspondence between German Reformers and the Patriarch exists.

http://www.stpaulsirvine.org/html/lutheran.htm

Fascinating stuff.

[apocalypsehow]

14. Great link! Thanks, rug.

[rug]

15. You're welcome!

They were interesting times.

[regnaD kciN]

2. Their theology was similar, their structure wasn't...

Most of the motive force behind the Reformation was anger at the corrupt behavior of one or another Pope and the whole Vatican apparatus. Eastern Orthodoxy had no such centralized authority to spark rebellion.

[dimbear]

3. Interesting question.

Might have something to do with the constant threat from Islam, right across the water. Or sometimes actually in town, to sack it.

[msongs]

4. a culture where speaking out was too dangerous nt

[white_wolf]

5. It couldn't have been any more dangerous than speaking out against the Roman Church n/t

[msongs]

6. im willing to speculate the western reformers were more independent than those in the east

as in more of the middle class, wealthier, entrepreneur types, part of a culture where speaking out was less likely to be severely punished

[Leontius]

7. There was contact between the reformers and Orthodox

but the iconoclast aspect of the Reformation was a non starter in the Orthodox church. "The Reformation" by Diarmaid MacCulloch has some info on the attempts to form alliances early on

[Jim__]

8. The reason may be in the differences between Augustine's and Origen's ideas.

At least I got the idea that the difference in their ideas may have led to this difference in history by reading a review of 2 books,
Sin: The Early History of an Idea ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691128901?ie=UTF8&tag=thneyoreofbo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0691128901 ) by Paula Fredriksen and
Heaven's Purge: Purgatory in Late Antiquity ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199736049?ie=UTF8&tag=thneyoreofbo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0199736049 ) by Isabel Moreira in the current issue of the New York Review of Books. The review does not directly address your question, but does discuss the ideas of these 2 early church leaders. Unfortunately, the review is not available online, but here is a brief excerpt:

...

In the third chapter, entitled “A Rivalry of Genius,” we meet two very different men—Origen of Alexandria (circa 187–254) and Augustine of Hippo (354–430). It is Origen who needs the most introduction. At first sight, he seems the milder and the more optimistic of the two. He believed that all sins would eventually be corrected, and that all sinners would be forgiven: even the Devil and his angels would eventually be converted. But he also seems alien to us because he shared with his contemporaries the majestic view of the universe that Fredriksen expounds in chapter 2. In this universe, human beings were only part of the story. The entire universe appeared to him to be caught up in a mighty process of transformation. He looked up at the sun, thinking that he saw in it a great soul like himself. Like himself, the sun groaned for deliverance. At some unimaginably distant time, the sun would replace its present, shining carapace with something yet more glorious, as Origen hoped that his own body would be transformed, by becoming ever more spiritual and translucent.

Hence the shock of meeting Augustine at the very end of the book. He is the first figure who seems to tread on familiar ground. Augustine placed the complexity of the human will at the center of his notion of sin. He limited his concern for salvation to human beings alone. Compared with the immensity of the universe, so resolutely human-centered a view of sin and redemption would have struck many as claustrophobic. Fredriksen makes clear how idiosyncratic Augustine’s solution was. Yet it would prove decisive, at least in the Christianity of Western Europe. This was by no means the case with the wider Christian world of Eastern Europe and the Middle East, for which a more “cosmic” positioning of humanity remained attractive. Though Origen was condemned as a heretic, the lingering influence of his magnificent cosmic vision still accounts for many of the differences between the Christianities of East and West.

And so we end with two very different styles of Christianity. One—associated with Origen and continued, in modified forms, in Eastern Christianity—saw sin against the backdrop of a universe whose serene immensity dwarfed the human sense of hurry. It was all a matter of time. What was wrong with the human condition would eventually be set right, by a slow process of purification that stretched unimaginably far into the future, and that involved the universe as a whole.

The other—associated with Augustine, and continued largely in the Catholic West—put human beings at the center. The universe and its unhurried rhythms took second place. And with the eclipse of the universe came a heightened sense of urgency. Human sin was not part of a cosmic drama, which had begun aeons before and would continue for aeons ahead. It involved a human battle against the grip of a concrete human past. And it was a battle that could be fought out only within the narrow walls of an ever more prominent human institution—the Catholic Church.

...

[Odin2005]

10. Origen had a counterpart in the West named Pelasgius.

Pelasgius' views were very similar to Origen's.

[Jim__]

13. The point with respect to the reformation is that (per the review) Augustine's view ...

... was decisive in western christianity.

The battle with the concrete past continued for the individual even after his conversion. Augustine was not able to answer questions about whether or not this continued after death, and this influenced the eventual doctrine of purgatory in the western church, a doctrine that the eastern church denied. And, of course, purgatory led to extreme corruption with the sale of indulgences in the western chuch; and this corruption did play a role in bringing about the reformation.

[Leontius]

11. While it is true that Origen considered universal salvation possible

he never held it as an absolute in his teaching.

[Odin2005]

9. This is something I have always wondered about myself.

In the 700s and 800s there was a Protestant-like movement in Byzantium called Iconoclasm, but that was eventually squelched.

[Leontius]

12. Iconoclasm was in part a reaction to Arab military success of the period.