Our friend Michaël alerts us to an interesting document, recently issued by the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation: “A Common Response to the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue Between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church Regarding the Ravenna Document.”
The North American Consultation’s conclusion about the Ravenna Document (emphasis mine):
We find much to commend in the Ravenna document and welcome its publication. The document identifies conciliarity with the entire Church, not just in episcopal councils. It draws an analogy among the three levels of communion: local, regional, and universal, each of which appropriately has a “first” with the role of fostering communion, in order to ground the rationale of why the universal level must also have a primacy. It articulates the principle that primacy and conciliarity are interdependent and mutually necessary. It provides both a sacramental and Trinitarian basis for the koinonia of the Church. It identifies ministry as a service of communion. It attempts to broaden the basis of authority wherein each of the baptized exercises an authority proper to that person’s ordo in the Church, and it invites us to reflect on the fact that just as primacy and conciliarity are interdependent, so are the processes of reception and teaching.
At the same time our Consultation also judges that some issues mentioned in the text are in need of further dialogue and clarification. Like any analogy between the eternal God and created beings, the analogy between the order (taxis) which exists among the three persons of the Holy Trinity and the order (taxis) which exists among local Churches requires further explanation and development. The Ravenna text does not make sufficiently clear the ecclesiological status of regional expressions of primacy and synodality. Even at regional levels, and not only at the universal level, the limits and exercise of authority by the “first” are also not made clear. The document’s historical treatment of apostolic succession and of ecumenical councils lacks precision and may occasion oversimplification and misunderstanding. The understanding of the local parish within the context of the modern diocese or local Church is in need of study.
Finally, we take exception to the contents of the Ravenna document’s sole footnote: “Orthodox participants felt it important to emphasize that the use of the terms ‘the Church’, ‘the universal Church’ and ‘the Body of Christ’ in this document and in similar documents produced by the Joint Commission in no way undermines the self-understanding of the Orthodox Church as the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, of which the Nicene Creed speaks. From the Catholic point of view, the same self-awareness applies: the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church ‘subsists in the Catholic Church’ (Lumen Gentium, 8); this does not exclude acknowledgement that elements of the true Church are present outside the Catholic communion.”
We find this footnote inaccurate. First, we think that its two assertions do not adequately represent the ecclesiology of either the Orthodox or the Catholic Church. The Orthodox Church’s self-understanding as the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church is not understood by all Orthodox in exclusivist terms. Throughout the centuries, significant currents within Orthodox ecclesiology have recognized the presence of the Church’s reality outside the canonical, visible boundaries of the Orthodox Church. Also, to assert that “from the Catholic point of view the same self-awareness applies” misrepresents Catholic ecclesiology at and since the Second Vatican Council, in spite of the Ravenna document’s reference to Lumen Gentium 8. Because of apostolic succession and the Eucharist, Vatican II did not hesitate to recognize that the Orthodox constitute “Churches,” (Unitatis Redintegratio, 14) that they are “sister Churches,” and to assert that in their celebration of the Eucharist, the Church of God is being built up and growing. To our Consultation, these two points of view point to the fact that the ecclesiological issues regarding mutual recognition raised at Bari still require resolution.
One teeny cavil or, rather, question re the following:
that they are “sister Churches”…
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the term “sister Churches” came, not from VCII, but from relatively recent official papal documents, notably Ut Unum Sint. Also, I was under the impression that the late Pope John Paul II meant the term “sister Churches” to apply to the united Eastern and Western “lungs” of the first millennium. And/or to the Latin and Eastern Rites within the Catholic Church. I think (again, please correct me if I’m wrong here) that the Eastern Orthodox Churches are our “sister Churches” only in part or in potentia. They are more perfectly united with us than any other communions, but the union is still imperfect. It “lacks little,” as one recent Vatican document puts it, but still, “lacking little” means lacking something.
Most notably, I think there are a whole lot of Orthodox out there who do not regard us as their “sister” in any way, shape, or form. Therefore, to assert that Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy currently enjoy a complete sisterly union would be to insult and annoy a whole lot of anti-ecumenical Orthodox. ;) So, I think the phrase “sister Churches” should be used more precisely and carefully than the excerpt above suggests.
That is my only cavil about this excerpt. The rest makes perfect sense to me.
Diane
“I was under the impression that the late Pope John Paul II meant the term “sister Churches” to apply to the united Eastern and Western “lungs” of the first millennium. And/or to the Latin and Eastern Rites within the Catholic Church. I think (again, please correct me if I’m wrong here) that the Eastern Orthodox Churches are our “sister Churches” only in part or in potentia.”
Diane,
Do you have any references that would show that Pope John Paul had such a limited view of the term “sister Churches”?
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a “Note on the Expression ‘Sister Churches’” in 2000, just prior to the issuance of Dominus Iesus. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000630_chiese-sorelle_en.html
It’s a very nuanced instruction on the proper use of the phrase.
Diane,
I don’t see the use of the term “sister Churches” in reference to the Orthodox Churches as inappropriate from the Catholic point of view, nor do I see that it should be reserved to the relationship between the various Catholic rites. One need not be “one” with one’s sister. The Churches with apostolic succession surely all belong to the same family given their genetic relationship.
Michael, your point is well taken. But ISTM there are many Orthodox out there, including some pretty major hierarchs, who are unwilling to accept us papists as even kissin’ cousins. Let alone sisters. ;)
True. But there are indications that the relationship is thawing. For example:
http://byztex.blogspot.com/2009/12/abp-hilarion-receives-first-secretary.html
Yes, it is thawing, hence the increasing stridency of some Orthodox anti-ecumenists. They seem to be under the impression that most Orthodox hierarchs are about to desert them and apostize. Would that it were so. (sigh)
I do have comments to offer, but they will of necessity be rather lengthy, and it will take me a few days to draft them in discussable form. I merely mention this to encourage others to jump right in without worrying that no one will respond. I certainly don’t want the thread to die before I can comment.
Please do, Michaël. I will move the post to the top of the blog when you have your comments prepared.
There has been a tremendous evolution in the relationship between the RC and Orthodox churches in the last 150 years or so. The first Vatican Council ignored Orthodoxy and promulgated a doctrine of papal infalibility that could only deepen the rift between the two churches. Leo XIII’s clumsy overtures to the Phanar were met with accusations that the pope was virtually in league with the devil. Things really only began to get better after the First World War. In 1924 Pius XI set up the Chevetogne Monastery to advance ecumenical dialogue and in 1925 the future John XXIII was named apostolic visitor to Bulgaria. Slowly things got better at least on paper, but the sad truth is that the majority of communicants in both churches still do not regard each other as members of ‘sister churches.’ The road to unity, from my perspective, still has quite a few ruts to smooth out.
In case it’s of interest, there is an article in volume 53, number 4 (2009) of the St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly entitled, “The Concept of ‘Sister Churches’ in Orthodox-Catholic Relations in the 12th and 21st Centuries”, which touches on some of the issues that have been raised in this thread. (I wrote it; also a dissertation on the subject, so I am well aware of my potential of sounding annoying and tendentious.) One way of boiling down what I say there is that the CDF’s 2000 Note seems to me to risk pitting primacy and conciliarity (especially conciliarity at the patriarchal level) against one another rather than affirming their complementarity, as is done for example in the 2007 Ravenna Statement of the Joint International Commission. The latter part of the 20th century, in general, seemed to be the era of emphasizing conciliarity in all sorts of ways (communion ecclesiology, etc) and saw the RCC do a certain amount of reorienting of itself ecclesiologically eastward, while the 21st has seen a reemphasis on primacy and challenged the Orthodox East to open itself to western gifts, in particular the gift of primacy at the universal level. It would be a shame, though, if in the process of bringing primacy rightly back to the fore, conciliarity would then be relegated to the margins somehow — as I think has somewhat occurred with the overly tight and not always entirely sound restrictions on the use of “sister churches” and also with the removal of the title of patriarch of the west from the Annuario Pontificio. But on the other hand a healthy synthesis seems more and more within reach and is suggested by numerous theologians both Catholic and Orthodox. Adam DeVille’s recent book Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy (which I figure has been mentioned on this blog) does a nice job of showing this.
Oops — I just noticed that I posted a response to a three year old thread! Shows how non-blog savvy I am. Sorry for the mistake.
While dormant, the blog is still open. So there is no inherent problem in resurrecting discussion on a three-year old post.
One point I don’t think Orthodox have internalized enough is that Catholic theology does not acknowledge the existence of “conciliarity at the patriarchal level.” Rome has never (and I mean “never”) bought into the idea of the Pentarchy as a constitutive element of the Church’s esse, while many Orthodox ecclesiologists appear to take it as a given. In contrast, in Catholic theology primacy and conciliarity at the universal are both dominical and thus core features of the Church’s constitution.
Regional primacy (including Rome’s) and conciliarity at the regional level have been sanctioned both by tradition and by ecumenical councils. While they weren’t mandated by Christ, they remain part of the Church’s lived ecclesial experience. The idea of patriarchal conciliarity (e.g. Pentarchy) on the other hand, in the Catholic view is neither dominical nor conciliar, and has never had any practical reality in that Rome has never presided over or even participated in such an exercise either in person, through legates or by correspondence. Whatever its validity in post-schism Orthodoxy, in the context of the undivided Church, the notion is strictly an a-historical fiction. It may be that the Ravenna document went too far in this direction, and that this explains the Roman reserve on the issue.