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Praying to Saints: Diminishing Christ by Intercessory Prayer? | Ask David Latting and Orthodox Luigi
Ever wondered why Orthodox churches are filled with icons while Catholic ones aren't? This fascinating conversation with David Latting and Ben Langlois (Orthodox Luigi) takes us deep into the heart of Orthodox Christianity and its distinctive practices.
The discussion uncovers how icons serve as "windows into heaven" for Orthodox believers—not just beautiful art, but portals into the divine realm. Langlois explains the theological reasoning behind the two-dimensional nature of icons, tracing this tradition back to the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 CE. For those curious about Christian history, the episode offers a refreshing perspective on how the ancient Church used visual imagery to teach biblical stories to illiterate believers, challenging common misconceptions about scripture access in early Christianity.
One of the most enlightening segments addresses the Great Schism between Eastern and Western Christianity. Rather than a simple split in 1054, we learn how the separation evolved gradually over centuries, with fascinating insights into how the pre-schism Western Church was considered Orthodox despite cultural differences. This nuanced historical understanding helps bridge denominational divides and fosters appreciation for shared Christian heritage.
The conversation doesn't shy away from difficult questions, including a thoughtful Protestant concern: "Why would I give my attention to anyone but Jesus?" The response offers a compelling parallel between asking friends for prayer and requesting intercession from saints, demonstrating how Orthodox veneration practices ultimately maintain Christ's centrality while honoring the communion of saints across time.
Whether you're deeply familiar with Orthodox traditions or completely new to them, this episode will transform your understanding of Christian worship, history, and theology. Subscribe to Cloud of Witnesses for more thought-provoking conversations that explore the depth and richness of Christian faith across traditions.
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And I don't have a problem with veneration at all. I don't think it's worship. All that being said, I do wonder to me me personally again. I'm so new to this, but why would I give my attention to anyone but?
Speaker 3:Jesus, hi Jeremy. Jeremiah here with Cloud of Witnesses. We had a great opportunity to sit down with David Ladding and Ben Langlois, otherwise known as Orthodox Luigi. The conversation was amazing, you guys. It was about an hour and a half long. The full uncut version is available right now on our Patreon, so go to Cloud of Witnesses and check out our Patreon for the full, unedited version of this conversation. Here's a clip that we hope you guys enjoy.
Speaker 1:Like Upper Room, isn't the first people to do this. Like, I went to an Orthodox liturgy once with my, with my good friend Sage, and I cried because because the priest, like you said, was the everyone was was just looking to the altar. It was all about Jesus and the icons. Help with that as well. It's hard to get distracted and not think about jesus and the icons. Help with that as well. It's hard to get distracted and not think about god when, like, every square inch is god, um and uh we should talk about icons yeah, we can talk about icons.
Speaker 1:uh, I'd love to, but, man, I yeah. I think it's so important that we keep our eyes on the Lord. That's what I appreciate about the Orthodox Church. That obsession with Christ is so present within the liturgy. The whole service is geared around the presence of God. The whole service is geared around the altar, and it's something that I long for. It's something that I appreciate so dearly.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, man, yeah, I mean, when I was kind of studying orthodoxy from a Protestant perspective, that was something I quickly realized was that orthodoxy really is Christianity in its purest form, in that sense, like it's just raw Christianity. It's just raw Christianity. And you know, one of the things I love about iconography is it brings Christianity to life in many ways. You know, one of the reasons for iconography historically was that people were illiterate. You know, I like to challenge a lot of Protestants of like hey, you know, what would you do if you got to tell like an 8th century person where to go find truth and it's just a random century, we could pick any century, right but it's like, where would you tell them to go? And I'll just ask you where would you tell an 8th century person to go find truth?
Speaker 1:To the woods man To find themselves brother. Well, I think about that question. I think it's a really good question. Yeah Well, where are they at in the world?
Speaker 2:Are they like? What region are they in? We'll just say they're in the Middle East Europe, Middle East, Great.
Speaker 1:Then I would tell them to go to an Orthodox church. Yeah, I would tell them to go. I have nothing, I have no problem with the Orthodox church, like whatsoever. My friend became an Orthodox believer recently and I think about him often. I'm like, well, he's just more, you know, he just loves Jesus more now.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like he just gets now to experience the Lord more authentically. He's, he's more of a Christian now, like he just wants to. He wants Jesus more now. So I'm like great, yeah, um, dude, I I wanted to ask you. So. 1054, this is a genuine question why do you believe there was a schism?
Speaker 2:What do you mean? Why do we like?
Speaker 1:not, not, not, not like philosophically, I mean literally, like practically, like Like the schism between the church, because from my knowledge, I believe it was very, it was cultural, like it was like, basically, it was like, even though language became different, and the, you know, the Catholic church, we'll just, I'm just going to say Roman Catholic church, the Roman Catholics, they became so separated from Byzantine believers, from from the Eastern Orthodox church, and that's why, as I was like, well, where are they at? Cause I also have a deep appreciation for Catholicism, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, but so we would. We would say that the eighth century church in the West was Orthodox Great. So as far as, like, I mean, there was a formal excommunication on both sides in 1054. It really is actually kind of a misunderstanding about that. It really doesn't culminate until the Council of Black Renee in 1285. That's when all four patriarchs excommunicate Rome. In 1054, it was really just Rome and Constancecommunicate Rome. Yeah, In 1054, it was really just Rome and Constantine and Opal. Yes, that had a formal excommunication, but yeah, so we believe that you know, for the first thousand years, the entire West, even though they had the Latin mass, they had, you know, the Western fathers and there were those cultural differences. We believe that that church was Orthodox.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, same church. Yeah, it's the same church. But I feel like if I would go to an eighth century church in Constantinople or then, then I go maybe um, farther and farther, deeper into Europe, like Italy, great, I think the church would be different. Or maybe I'm wrong about that, maybe the liturgies were the exact same, but it feels to me like the the schism is a result of a farther, because the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Church in general, it's so Eastern, like it's, this is such a Middle Eastern place, like wow. And then when I go to England, you know there's, there's, you know, cathedrals from the 12th century there. I'm like wow, these are so European and even the way that they operate in the liturgy just feels different.
Speaker 2:So we, even today, still have the Latin mass in our Western Rite parishes? Yeah, okay, so it's not that those churches weren't Orthodox, and even like the filioque doesn't get really dogmatized into the creed until the 1200s. Okay, so like, really, up until then you're going to be reciting the same creed as those in the East and that's really, you know, in a fundamental sense, like that is the faith, right, it's the creed. What?
Speaker 1:about the icons Because literally just stepping into like why is the Orthodox Church so icon heavy?
Speaker 2:And I go into a.
Speaker 1:Catholic church, it's not as much.
Speaker 2:That actually didn't really happen until several hundred years after the schism I mean you can still find, like a lot of the western churches that are pre schism, um, look exactly like this. Um, in fact, I mean it's crazy how you can, like we continue to dig up older and older churches and like there's like third century churches that we're finding that it's like the same style iconography yeah, it's unbelievable, yeah, yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, yeah, I mean the icons. For some reason in the West this actually has happened in every communion other than the Eastern Orthodox. For some reason is they've lost a lot of their iconography tradition. Yeah, and I don't know if that's some form of judgment or what that is, but it just is what it is. I mean, we're the only ones that have truly preserved I mean, every Orthodox parish that can possibly afford it is like this, and this is something that we make a huge priority because, like I was bringing up earlier, I mean, this is how the ancient Christians knew the stories in the Bible, because, think about.
Speaker 2:Before the printing press, people didn't have access to the scriptures and people think that was like this oppressive thing. Oh, the church didn't let them have access to the scriptures, and that's partially true, but it's really more just that people weren't literate. Like they weren't literate, there was no printing press, so where would they learn about scripture? Well, they would go to liturgy, they would. They would hear the gospel reading, they would hear the epistle and they would see the biblical stories. Yeah, so, yeah, I mean that's a little bit of a tangent, but does that answer your question?
Speaker 1:No, it does it does. I just wonder where this, like, I wonder when the icon, just the icon thing for the Catholics, like when did it drop off? You know?
Speaker 2:It was slow. I mean, it was a slow, and you also have different traditions, like within Roman Catholicism, and so you know, some of them hold on to iconography longer than others, and yeah, I mean it's just not something you see very now. Now you go into modern roman catholic churches and it's more like statues. You know, I before I was orthodox that's a good point, yeah, before.
Speaker 2:That's a really good point, yeah and actually the second council of nicaea actually, um, actually prohibits, uh, ven of statues. We don't have a problem with statues themselves Like statues are fine, but it's the veneration of them that we prohibit in the Orthodox Church. Why is that? It's because it's supposed to be one, um, like, one step away from like reality. So, like you and I are like 3d, so it's, it's, it's in order for it to be once, because we see them as windows into heaven. Great, right. So what is a window? Window is, you know? It's, it's not three-dimensional, right? So it's the same way. So we, when we're looking at these icons, we are literally looking into heaven that's great.
Speaker 2:I love that explanation, yeah yeah, and so, um, the statue it it. For us, it just has a little bit too much of like a pagan implications to it, and so that's why the Second Council of Nicaea but that's the reasoning it gives is that it's for it to be one step away from us as live human beings.
Speaker 1:When was the Second Council of Nicaea? 787. 787. Okay, great yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's you know, we can get into like the ecumenical councils and stuff, but I don't think it's a, I don't think it's a coincidence that the second council of Nicaea was the ceiling of the seven ecumenical councils, and it just happened to be that the first council of Nicaea was the first and the second council of Nica, see, was the last, and I think, and then seven, as you know, is that's a number meaning completion. Right Now in the Roman Catholics they have over 20 ecumenical councils now. Quote unquote.
Speaker 2:For us it's still the same seven.
Speaker 1:Great, yeah, that's super cool man. Yeah, wow, remarkable, that's so cool. Windows into heaven. Can we talk about icons? Yeah, great, okay. So I wanted to ask you a question and me and my friend were actually talking about this on the way here. Yeah, I have a problem and I'll be transparent with you One I think I have a good understanding of veneration, like I think it's way more nuanced than what most Protestants think it is. I don't believe it's worship, I don't believe that you like it's like you're praying to him in the sense that, uh, I would pray to Christ. Like, again, I. It's hard to talk about this because there's different presuppositions. When I say those words, like the understanding for the Protestant, they're so against anything but Christ that even the thought of an icon and even like giving honor to someone else besides Christ is like, literally it's a repulsive to a Protestant because we're taught that. But in my research I've learned no, like, if I ask a friend to pray for me, what's the difference between someone dead praying for me?
Speaker 1:You know, like the bounds there and I don't have a problem with veneration at all. I don't think it's worship. All that being said, I do wonder to me me personally again. I'm so new to this but why would I give my attention to anyone but Jesus? And it's dangerous to speak from like just my own personal experience it's. You know, I got to be very, very careful.
Speaker 2:No, you're just being honest where you're at.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I've never needed. I've never needed the prayer of a saint I've. I was telling my wife a day ago I feel like I'm so blessed by God. Like every day I pray and things happen. Like I pray and there's answers that are there's answers to my prayers constantly. Yeah, I have never gone, you know, in lack for anything. Yeah, so why? Why would I give my attention to someone else? And maybe I have again a wrong presupposition of what veneration is. Maybe what I'm saying right now isn't even an authentic rebuttal against veneration, because, well, I don't have a right perspective. So maybe you can clear things up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a couple of things. Well, I think you implicitly have gone to, I think you have asked for intercession because I bet you asked your friends for them to pray for you. I bet you go to your pastor to ask him to pray for you 100%. And I bet if St Paul was walking around you would go right up to him and you would ask him. You may not even clarify If you went up to St Paul, you would probably just ask him for things. And what I mean by that is, let's say, like you're, about to have a child.
Speaker 2:And let's say your child was ill, right, and you would just walk up to Paul and say, paul, can you please heal my child? And like, guess what's baked into that request that it's Jesus that's really doing it, right? Like that's you don't have to clarify. Like Paul, can you ask Jesus to heal my child? Like no, like you know that St Paul is St Paul and he's got the ability to do that because God has granted it to him.
Speaker 2:That's good, yeah, and so it doesn't like. But that in no way takes away from the glory of Christ.
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