The other aspect of the ad extra mission of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church is its role in the ecumenical journey towards Christian unity.
Our Church has always been conscious of this role. The history of our Melkite Greek Catholic Church of Antioch, in full communion for close on three hundred years with the Church of Rome that “presides in love,” has been marked by many vexations. In particular, it has had to live in the catacombs for about one hundred and thirty years. Indeed, we are a Church of martyrs and confessors of the faith, especially in Lebanon and Syria. There are, standing before you, Most Holy Father, descendants of martyrs.
These were martyrs for unity, martyrs of communion with Rome, that communion which was, and still is for us, an historic, existential choice for commitment, that is both effectual and emotional, a definitive and irreversible constituent of glory and humility.
However, that communion with Rome does not separate us from our Orthodox ecclesial reality. We say this with profound humility, a deep ecumenical awareness and a touch of humour: we are an Orthodox Catholic Church.
Nearly nine centuries ago, a Patriarch of Antioch, Peter III, prefigured this role: few are aware of his courageous reaction at the time of the dispute between Patriarch Michael Cerularius and Cardinal Humbert of Silva-Candida, which caused the schism of 1054. His mediatory letter to Patriarch Cerularius closes with a plea, in a very “ecumenical” tone, “With all my strength, I appeal to Your Holiness not to enter upon this business with the spirit of contention. Otherwise, it is to be feared that in wishing to mend the tear you may enlarge it. Think carefully: could not all the current misfortunes, all the troubles which ravage kingdoms, all calamities, plagues and famines that devastate our towns and countryside, all the defeats of our troops, stem from this, I mean this long separation, this misunderstanding of our Church with the Apostolic See? Let the Latins correct their Creed, and I’ll ask for nothing more, even discarding as a matter of indifference the question of unleavened bread.”
That is the role played by our predecessors, Gregorios II Youssef-Sayyour at the First Vatican Council, and Maximos IV Sayegh at Vatican II, with the pleiad of members of our Hierarchy.
That role is very apparent in several documents and decrees of Vatican II, and in the institutions originating in and promoted by that Council: Episcopal Conferences, the Synod of Bishops, liturgical reform, ecumenism…
Patriarch Athenagoras, of blessed memory, thanked my predecessor Maximos IV for having spoken in his name at the Council. And Maximos IV replied: “Every time I spoke at the Council, I thought of you.”
Most Holy Father, the ecumenical role of our Church is founded on this long Antiochian tradition, on our ecclesial experience of communion with the Church of Rome. We feel that it is an imperative duty and an essential part of the reality of our Church that is fully Eastern and in full communion with the See of Peter.
This role is intended to be a contribution to the ecumenical movement, and to be humbly added to ecumenical efforts in the Roman Dicasteries and in the International Joint Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Our role is always to make ever present the great Absent One: Orthodoxy.
We are indeed rather the Eastern “enfant terrible” in communion with the Church of Rome. That was the goal of the initiative of the late Archbishop Elias Zoghby in 1996: to be in full communion with the Church of Rome and with Orthodoxy. That may be a dream, an Utopian vision, but it is also a prophetic vision.
We would like to live, in the very heart of the Catholic Church, a life that could be accepted by Orthodoxy. Let us do so, Most Holy Father. That is the key to all real progress along the ecumenical way. Accept us, Holy Father, as we are: Eastern Orthodox, who want to live our full and complete Eastern Orthodox tradition in full communion with Rome. That is the really big challenge for the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, as has been evident at every stage of the ecumenical dialogue since 1980 and especially at Belgrade and Ravenna.
For all that, Most Holy Father, we need your prayer, your approbation and your blessing.
What most moved me…
“We are indeed rather the Eastern “enfant terrible” in communion with the Church of Rome. That was the goal of the initiative of the late Archbishop Elias Zoghby in 1996: to be in full communion with the Church of Rome and with Orthodoxy. That may be a dream, an Utopian vision, but it is also a prophetic vision.
We would like to live, in the very heart of the Catholic Church, a life that could be accepted by Orthodoxy. Let us do so, Most Holy Father. That is the key to all real progress along the ecumenical way. Accept us, Holy Father, as we are: Eastern Orthodox, who want to live our full and complete Eastern Orthodox tradition in full communion with Rome. That is the really big challenge for the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, as has been evident at every stage of the ecumenical dialogue since 1980 and especially at Belgrade and Ravenna.”
As a Zoghby-ite I cheered loudly.
As a non-Zoghby-ite, I respond (to paraphrase the late Abp. Zoghby): We are all Westerners. Indeed, I have just been told there’s a Starbucks in Moscow. ;) Along with MacDonalds, of course.
Someone please tell the Melkontents that there are bigger fish to fry than this compulsion to out-Orthodox the Orthodox. The explosion of the Catholic Faith in the Global South will soon render this whole East-vs.-West kerfluffle more or less completely irrelevant.
The world has moved on from 1054 and even from 1204. Time to stop arguing about the Immaculate Conception (it’s the Truth; get over it) and move on to completing the Great Commission.
My ever-provocative two cents’ worth….
Diane
Putting in my 2 cents. Whether one like it or not, the “west” needs the Orthodox insights. Without them it becomes a one armed paper hanger. It may be true that the Roman Catholic Church is growing in the Global South but, unless it resolves the East-West difference, it won’t be able to resolve what will become a North-Sout difference.
Hmmm…what makes a Zhogbyite? Do you have to be a member of an EC Church to be one? If so, do the Melkites have vacancies? ;-)
It may be true that the Roman Catholic Church is growing in the Global South but, unless it resolves the East-West difference, it won’t be able to resolve what will become a North-South difference.
Well, I’m not sure that’s true at all. ;)
I’m also not sure what you mean by “Orthodox insights.” Do they differ from Eastern Catholic insights? I thoroughly agree that the Church breathes with both lungs. But the late great Holy Father said this of the ECs, not of the EOs. This is not *at all* to disparage the latter. But where the Orthodox explicitly differ from us–e.g., in rejecting papal jurisdictional primacy, the Immaculate Conception, etc.–they cannot be said to constitute our other lung. There is no such thing as a double (contradictory) truth: one for East, one for West. The Theotokos does not cease to be the Immaculate Coneption when she crosses some geographical line. Either she is the Immaculata or she isn’t, period. Sure, the dogma can be explicated in terms the East would find more congenial. But that’s not the same thing as saying that the dogma can be dispensed with…or that it obtains only for the West. Both of these latter positions are illogical and ridiculous, as I’m sure you would agree.
That is why Pope Benedict, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, told the Zoghbyites that they had to choose. They could not be Orthodox in the sense of rejecting papal primacy and the IC yet still remain Catholic. Truth does not contradict itself.
If I were to really take the comments on this post to heart I would indeed despair that reunion could ever take place. Thank God the representatives on both sides in the Orthodox/Roman Catholic talks have a far greater vision than I often see expressed here. And I might add far greater insight into the theology of both churches. All that shooting from the hip polemics ever does it to keep people within their own narrow confines, therbye thwarting the work of Christ.
Eirenikon,
Thanks for calling my attention to this. I’ve been thinking a lot about these words of Patriarch Gregorios III, and am glad that the “prophetic vision” of Archbishop Elias still lives!
W.H.
[…] first read these words of Patriarch Gregorios III at Eirenikon a few days ago, and have been thinking about them since. “Orthodox in communion with […]
I am a proto-Zoghby-ite but the devil is in the details on this one. To believe “all that Orthodoxy teaches” is to determine “what does Orthodoxy teach?”
That is polemic or simply rhetoric, it is an honest question. As popular in the Anglo-phone world as folks like the late Father John Romanides’ view of the “graceless” west has become… And as much as such personal speculations are enshrined in the mind of some as the definative and de fide understandings of what it is to be Orthodox…. Well the fact of the matter is that the world is far bigger than that and those pet opinions and theological speculation – by nature of the lack of councils in a conciliar church or an organ with final authority to step forward and say “This is in fact what we definatively teach” – they are just speculation. When it comes to asessing the writings of Fr. Romanaides versus the writings and theologies of Saint Peter Moghyla, whose opinion is definative?
It is imperative to examine a few things in understanding what the venerable bishop of blessed memory was working towards. Not the least of which is comparing the voice of Antiochian Orthodoxy and the situation (already existing) of intercommunion among the Greek Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Catholics in places like Lebanon and Syria. Some here would be shocked and scandalized to visit and see who exactly has concelebrated DL at the Antiochian Greek Orthodox Patriarch’s own altar. Who approaches the chalice in Catholic, Oriental and Orthodox altars would positively give (some here) fits.
Sadly too many on either side of the debate are thinking that when Bishop Elias was offering his initiative he was saying “We believe all that Father Romanides (or some such) teaches.” When in fact that simply does not ring true. What is taught and practiced there is more than an ocean apart from the mileu we deal with here.
As to: “Putting in my 2 cents. Whether one like it or not, the “west” needs the Orthodox insights. Without them it becomes a one armed paper hanger. It may be true that the Roman Catholic Church is growing in the Global South but, unless it resolves the East-West difference, it won’t be able to resolve what will become a North-Sout difference.”
This is fair enough, but in a sense – depending upon what you are meaning – what the west needs in the East the Catholic Church does today have, however imperfectly. Go to Rome and you will see kamilavkas swirling in the wind and Catholic bishops, priests, deacons, writers and theologians from every corner of the east. We are the Eastern Catholics, we do bring – however imperfectly – voices of the East to the chorus of Catholic thought and theology. At Roman altars Christians from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, India and further gather. Through union with the Holy See, Armenian Catholic priests concelebrate with Greek Catholics, and may on occasion be joined by Anglican converts, Assyrian priests or Copts. As a function of being only a small percentage of a Church of 1.3B believers, they will be represented in proportions relative to their percentage of membership, but we are there.
It would be unsatisfying to say that we alone are enough – that the unias have yielded “enough of the east” – I don’t beleive that. But, and I think the Melkites are a good case in point – voices of Orthodoxy already exist in the Catholic Church from the mouths of those in unimpeded union with the Holy See.
To be truly Catholic, Rome needs the Greeks, and the Syrians and Assyrians and more. We do have them. We are there.
Simple Sinner, fascinating and illuminating insights, as always.
I would also like to clarify my own comments somewhat. When I suggested that the Christian explosion in the Global South may be rendering much of the East-West fracas irrelevant, I did not thereby mean to denigrate the concerns of Eastern Christians. Nor did I at all mean to imply that Eastern insights are not extremely valuable and necessary.
What I did mean is this: In the areas in which Christianity is currently exploding, the issues that exercise Internet polemicists scarcely even register. African Christians, for instance, are wrestling with the HUGE threat of militant Islam. Does anyone really think they are twisted into a pretzel over Palamism vs. Thomism? Does anyone imagine that they are ready to fall on their swords in defense of a dogmatic rejection of the Filioque? Certain Internet polemicists who shall be nameless–and whom we all know well–may have the luxury of drawing lines in the sand over such questions. But Christians in the Global South–where Christianity’s center of gravity is shifting–have far more pressing concerns to attend to.
The Church’s future lies with these Global South Christians, not with the polemicists of medieval Byzantium and their Internet proteges.
Diane
I would go a step further and say that African Christians are bringing to the table fresh voices and a theology in a new key… with the benefit of voices from the East and West and South all coming together.
Duns Scotus, Patristics of the Ethiopian Church, Gregory Palamas, Hahn’s Covenant Theology, Augustine, Chrysostom, Anselm, Lombard, Abelard, Aquinas, Meyendorff, Bernard of Cl., Von Balthazar, Rahner, Kung, Wojtyla, Soloviev, Ratzinger, Gilson, Mauritain, Lonergan, de Lubac, MacIntyre, Courtney Murray, Dulles, Chardin, Chesterton, Newman, Ligori, Hippolytus of Rome, Schmemann, Loyola, Irenaeus, Bonaventure, Cyprian, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Pachomius, Origen, Justin Martyr, Ignatius of Antioch, Olivier Clément….
All of these folks and so many more are on their plate and part of the legitimate cafeteria they can use to fill their plates and write an African theology in a new key with the voices of people who have come to calvary in their history of colonialism and poverty.
I don’t want to belabor a point or be accused of being triumphal, but in the bossom of Holy Mother Church they find a wealth and teasury of the voices of Church that are cruciform in their transcendence of time and geography. We have the East, West, North, and South, we have the Early Church, the Middle ages, the modern era. The voice of the East IS part of the chorus of theological voices that from age to age in every time and place have assented to TRUTH.
Orthodoxy being blessed with the beauty and truth of the Greek East (forgive my boldness) needs to consider that it isn’t their witness (which we already have thanks to unias from all particular churches) that they alone bring to the altar so much as it is the case that Rome, appreciating (even sometimes slowly) the gold of the East counts it already as part of her patrimony and DOES defend it fiercly. The polemics of “You need us lest you just wallow in your own scholasticism” is as shallow as it is Hollow – from the Russicum to the Greek College and further East still to the Assyrian College the voices of the East Resonate in the Eternal City itself.
It should be noted that the Patriarch of Constantinople was not only educated in Rome but was experienced firsthand the largess of the Papal charity of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association which stridently works to allocate funds donated from the world over to the support of the East – including Orthodox Churches. Go to their website and you will find solicitation for the financing of the construction and support of Greek Orthodox Churches in the mid-east.
On a local level my parish is one of three in Ohio that is home to ORTHODOX missions. That is right, when our 9:30 DL is done and I am in the sacristy removing my server’s vestments I am greeted by the smiling face of an Antiochian Orthodox priest who is preparing to celebrate DL for his flock – we have (as have several other parishes) opened the doors and provided our altars for the succor and support of Orthodox faithful (another Ruthenian parish does so for the Antiochians, the Melkites do so for the Ethiopians) in pure love and caritas for our brothers and sisters in need of a holy place and holy table.
The weekend after the Holy Father was in the US he was back in Rome to ordain 29 men from around the world to the Holy Priesthood. One of whom was an Iraqi, and one of his guests was an Assyrian bishop that within two weeks would we welcomed to the altar via unia at Pentecost along with his clergy and faithful. The message was as strong and clear as on Easter when one of 7 initiaited into the Church at Saint Peter’s was an Egyptian born Muslim, Maghdi Allam; we are universal, we will stand in the gap and gloriously proclaim truth, and we will gather those who have been baptized into Christ in our folds, protect them, strengthen them, and support them.
So for all the talk of “Rome needs the east” this Greek Catholic responds simply: We agree, we have them, and we support them. A question that many of us have been otherwise far to humble to ask is simply this: honestly, how might you need us?
I don’t want to belabor a point or be accused of being triumphal, but in the bossom of Holy Mother Church they find a wealth and teasury of the voices of Church that are cruciform in their transcendence of time and geography. We have the East, West, North, and South, we have the Early Church, the Middle ages, the modern era. The voice of the East IS part of the chorus of theological voices that from age to age in every time and place have assented to TRUTH.
An extremely attractive thing about the Roman Communion, IMHO: what I’ve heard described as legitimate theological diversity within a common dogmatic framework.
From my perspective as a Cradle Catholic, it’s more than just the theological diversity; it’s the cultural diversity.
Recently I was listening to Basque Celtic music–a hauntingly beautiful piece called “The Joyful Mysteries.” Who knew there was such a thing as Basque Celtic music? Or a Basque Celtic spirituality?
Only in the Catholic Church can you find such a rich, rich diversity of cultural expressions…and such a rich variety of spiritualities. I would miss that terribly if I had to embrace any other communion. Which is one reason why I never could or would.