If "big O" Orthodoxy is meant – those Churches in the two families of Churches bearing the respective names Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox, which two famililies are in Full Communion with neither one another nor the Catholic Church – then the statement heading this page will seem rather obvious. The absence of Full Communion among Catholics, Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox, and a shared understanding of Primacy at the Universal Level, both canonical and workable, necessary to maintain Full Communion is the Schism, the healing of which should be the first priority of the Church Militant and of Christendom. Wtih Full Communion not achieved, the Patriarchs and Patriarchates of Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy are not, at the least, "big C" Catholics, and the Popes and their flocks, post Vatican II or otherwise, are not Orthodox. This is clear.

Yet the intention here is to draw a clear distinction between, on the one hand,

• those Christians struggling to be orthodox and catholic, that is, to actually be Christians, and who take issue with the pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council, as also with the pronouncements, statements and actions of those five or six bishops (six if Pope John XXIII is included) elevated to the Papacy since the repose of Pope Pius XII in 1958, and who do so because such formal pronouncements, less formal statements and actions are not in accord with the teachings common to Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, and

on the other hand,

• those Christians struggling to be orthodox and catholic, that is, to actually be Christians, and who take issue with the pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council, as also with the pronouncements, statements and actions of those five or six bishops (six if Pope John XXIII is included) elevated to the Papacy since the repose of Pope Pius XII in 1958, and who do so because such formal pronouncements, less formal statements and actions are, they fear or maintain, not in accord with the teachings of the Catholic Church itself, pre Vatican II. Of these Traditionalist or Tradition-minded Catholics, an extreme group, comparatively few in number even vis-à-vis the number of Traditionalist Catholics as a whole, are Sedevacantists. They maintain that the men elevated after Pope Pius XII are heretics, and also apostates through action. Heresy is more than, is worse than, just theological error. It is an obstinate persistence in error after correction has been made, and a heretic can not be a true pope.

A sister page will deal with objections to the Second Vatican Council and its Popes advanced by "big C" Catholics.

The present page will undertake what is in some respects a more complicated task. Apart from objections to the pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council and those of the popes succeeding it, Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Christians maintain that all was not well with the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council. This being the case, let us pause to consider the Orthodox view from the perspective in time after the council was convoked but before it opened or issued any pronouncements, and for these purposes and going forward, the convention will be to use the term Orthodox to refer together to the Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox, their relationship to the issues surrounding Vatican II being indistinguishable one from the other. The view unclouded by what actually happened, as a logical matter, and however much or little hope individual faithful or leaders actually had, it was theoretically possible that the Second Vatican Council would correct errors, as the Orthodox understood them to be, in Catholic doctrine or discipline as they existed before the council. Likewise it would be possible that Vatican II would just make matters worse all around, again, from the Orthodox perspective.