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I was recently reading about Isaac the Syrian. I learned that he is considered a Saint in the Eastern Catholic Church (EC), but, it seems, not in the Latin Catholic Church (LC). He is not listed here, and he does not have a YES in this list either. Actually, from the latter, you can see that a lot of saints in the EC are not saints in the LC, and vice versa.

So, if this is really the case, why is it? I could imagine this disparity does not mean disagreement about the merits of sainthood, but rather a type of specific tradition or relevance to the respective church. In effect, many LC-only saints were "members" of the now called LC (for example, Rose of Lima, from Peru), whereas many EC-only saints were "members" of the now called Orthodox Church (for example, Clement of Ohrid, from now Bulgaria).

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  • Exclusively? No. Though I don't understand the question. You can certainly derive a list of their common saints from your 3rd Wikipedia link.
    – Stephen
    Feb 28, 2018 at 18:42
  • @Stephen I see the ambiguity. Reworded the title of question. Although it is evident from the list that the answer is "No", there must be somewhere a regulation about this, e.g related to who enters the General Roman Calendar and who does not.
    – luchonacho
    Feb 28, 2018 at 19:27
  • Pope Paul VI decided who and what constitutes the latest version of the General Roman Calendar (1969). I don't know about Eastern churches.
    – Stephen
    Feb 28, 2018 at 20:35

2 Answers 2

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Yes, recognised in the sense that they can never be rejected as a saint.

A saint is someone in heaven.

Therefore St. Isaac of Nineveh is either in heaven or not. The Catholic church is "one", that would mean that St. Isaac of Nineveh cannot be a saint in the Catholic Church in Damascus and cease to be a saint in Paris.

St. Isaac of Nineveh is either in heaven or not, and if one part of the one Church declares an individual in heaven, it would make no sense for a church to call itself "one" and have conflicting irreversible supernatural declarations.

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    I am sympathetic to the intuition that underlies your answer, but is there any explicit mention of this "sharing" of saints somewhere in the regulations, or the calendars? For example, the General Roman Calendar adding a disclaimer like "although not included here, Easter Catholic Calendar saints are also venerated as such in the Latin Church"... I would like a "proof" of the issue.
    – luchonacho
    Mar 1, 2018 at 10:05
  • Your question is correct, but you should expand it to make agreement within the Catholic Church. Eastern Rite Saints are acknowledged by Rome and vice versa. However not all Saints of the corresponding Orthodox Church are considered saints by the Catholic Church (West or East). St. Pontius Pilate of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is not considered a saint in the Catholic Ethiopian Rite or by Rome.
    – Ken Graham
    Mar 2, 2018 at 1:37
  • Does the OP mean saint or Saint (someone canonized by the Pope)?
    – Craig
    Apr 2, 2018 at 0:47
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The Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics share the same basic list of saints prior to the Great Schism of 1054. Besides having divergent saints since then, the two Communions have a different Ecclesiology when it comes to nominating saints. Roman Catholics have a formal multistep process for a person to be eventually nominated and elevated, while Eastern Orthodox use the older, more informal method of simply relying on the popular acclaim of the people for such considerations. Besides this, I have heard that Roman Calendar has been revised as far as feast days go (older less popular saints removed to make room for more recent and venerated personalities).

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    Thanks Pavel, but the question refers to Eastern Catholics versus Latin Catholics, and not between Catholics versus Orthodox.
    – luchonacho
    Apr 30, 2018 at 7:50

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