The word “catholic” means universal. The word “orthodox” means the right opinion. In a physical world, where an institution has to be somewhere before it is everywhere and where a right opinion immediately begets a wrong opinion, it cannot surprise that institutional ownership and use of these words has created dispute.
The church of Rome, through many battles, has asserted universal jurisdiction with the result that the expression “Roman Catholic” can be seen, depending on one’s viewpoint, as a tautology or as an oxymoron.
On 16 July 1054, three papal legates laid a charter of excommunication on the altar of Hagia Sophia, directed against the patriarch of Constantinople. An issue, but only one of a number, was whether the pope as bishop of Rome had universal jurisdiction.
History records that this act was fundamental in the East-West Schism, the break of communion between the eastern and western churches. As a matter of language, we have the rather odd sight of the universal being at odds with the right opinion. It is often forgotten by westerners that the formal name of the eastern church is the Orthodox Catholic Church.
16 July 1519 was the last day of a debate known as the Disputation of Leipzig, where Martin Luther was, again depending on one’s viewpoint, cornered into a public declaration that the church of Rome did not have ultimate authority. In broad terms, the English language since the English founded their idiosyncratic brand of protestantism called the Church of England, has seen a lower case “catholic” come to embrace a more secular sense of the universal, while “Catholic” refers to the Roman Catholic church.
Meanwhile, the importance of the word “orthodox” is hardly limited to the Christian world. “Orthodox” Judaism is as recognised as it is misunderstood. Sunni Islam, the largest branch, is sometimes described in the west as “orthodox” Islam, although the appropriateness of the term is disputed. In July 2020, the abovementioned Hagia Sophia was proclaimed as a mosque.
Whatever is correct or universal in our world of differences, it is generally accepted that the first day of the first month of the Islamic calendar was set to the first new moon after the day the Prophet moved from Quba’ to Medina, in western counting 16 July 622.
And for those who remember Holden Caulfield’s complaint that “Catholics are always trying to find out if you’re Catholic”, The Catcher in the Rye was 16 July 1951.
