The North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation
Georgetown University, Washington, DC
Saturday, October 2, 2010
[Emphasis and a few comments added]
1. Prologue. For almost forty-five years, the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation has been meeting regularly to discuss some of the major pastoral and doctrinal issues that prevent our Churches from sharing a single life of faith, sacraments, and witness before the world. Our goal has been to pave the way towards sharing fully in Eucharistic communion through recognizing and accepting each other as integral parts of the Church founded by Jesus Christ.
2. A Central Point of Disagreement. In the course of our discussions, it has become increasingly clear to us that the most divisive element in our traditions has been a growing diversity, since the late patristic centuries, in the ways we understand the structure of the Church itself, particularly our understanding of the forms of headship that seem essential to the Church’s being at the local, regional and worldwide levels. At the heart of our differences stands the way each of our traditions understands the proper exercise of primacy in the leadership of the Church, both within the various regions of the Christian world and within Christianity as a whole. In order to be the Body of Christ in its fullness — to be both “Orthodox” and “Catholic” — does a local community, gathered to celebrate the Eucharist, have to be united with the other Churches that share the Apostolic faith, not only through Scripture, doctrine, and tradition, but also through common worldwide structures of authority — particularly through the practice of a universal synodality in union with the bishop of Rome?
[There is no question here of one side or the other returning to some pure, patristic, first millennium standard. It’s unfair for each side to reproach the other for departing from such a mythic standard. Church history is full of both “Orthodox” and “Catholic” moments (and even a few “Protestant” ones!), and apologists for each side will use the bits that best fit their case. The problems which arose between the Churches in the second millennium arose because there was no consensus about the relationship between primacy and conciliarity in the first! There must, then, be a model of Orthodox-Catholic communion for the third millennium.]
It seems to be no exaggeration, in fact, to say that the root obstacle preventing the Orthodox and Catholic Churches from growing steadily towards sacramental and practical unity has been, and continues to be, the role that the bishop of Rome plays in the worldwide Catholic communion. While for Catholics, maintaining communion in faith and sacraments with the bishop of Rome is considered a necessary criterion for being considered Church in the full sense, for Orthodox, as well as for Protestants, it is precisely the pope’s historic claims to authority in teaching and Church life that are most at variance with the image of the Church presented to us in the New Testament and in early Christian writings. In the carefully understated words of Pope John Paul II, “the Catholic Church’s conviction that in the ministry of the bishop of Rome she has preserved, in fidelity to the Apostolic Tradition and the faith of the Fathers, the visible sign and guarantor of unity, constitutes a difficulty for most other Christians, whose memory is marked by certain painful recollections” (Ut Unum Sint 88).
3. Divergent Histories. The historical roots of this difference in vision go back many centuries. Episcopal and regional structures of leadership have developed in different ways in the Churches of Christ, and are to some extent based on social and political expectations that reach back to early Christianity. In Christian antiquity, the primary reality of the local Church, centered in a city and bound by special concerns to the other Churches of the same province or region, served as the main model for Church unity. The bishop of a province’s metropolitan or capital city came to be recognized early as the one who presided at that province’s regular synods of bishops (see Apostolic Canon 34). Notwithstanding regional structural differences, a sense of shared faith and shared Apostolic origins, expressed in the shared Eucharist and in the mutual recognition of bishops, bound these local communities together in the consciousness of being one Church, while the community in each place saw itself as a full embodiment of the Church of the apostles.
In the Latin Church, a sense of the distinctive importance of the bishop of Rome, as the leading although not the sole spokesman for the apostolic tradition, goes back at least to the second century, and was expressed in a variety of ways. By the mid-fourth century, bishops of Rome began to intervene more explicitly in doctrinal and liturgical disputes in Italy and the Latin West, and through the seventh century took an increasingly influential, if geographically more distant, role in the Christological controversies that so sharply divided the Eastern Churches. It was only in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, during what is known as the Gregorian reforms, that the bishops of Rome, in response to centuries-old encroachments on the freedom and integrity of Church life by local secular rulers, began to assert the independence of a centrally-organized Catholic Church in a way that was to prove distinctive in Western society. Gradually, a vision of the Church of Christ as a universal, socially independent single body — parallel to the civil structure of the Empire, consisting of local or “particular” Churches, and held together by unity of faith and sacraments with the bishop of Rome — developed in Latin Christianity, and became, for the West, the normative scheme for imagining the Church as a whole.
Even in the Middle Ages, however, this centralized vision of the universal Church was not shared by the Orthodox Churches. In April, 1136, for instance, a Roman legate – the German bishop Anselm of Havelberg — visited Constantinople and engaged in a series of learned and irenic dialogues on issues dividing the Churches with the Byzantine Emperor’s representative, Archbishop Nicetas of Nicomedia. In the course of their conversations, Nicetas frequently expresses his love and respect for the Roman see, as having traditionally the “first place” among the three patriarchal sees – Rome, Alexandria and Antioch – that had been regarded, he says, since ancient times as “sisters.” Nicetas argues that the main scope of Rome’s authority among the other Churches was its right to receive appeals from other sees “in disputed cases,” in which “matters which were not covered by sure rules should be submitted to its judgment for decision” (Dialogues 3.7: PL 1217 D). Decisions of Western synods, however, which were then being held under papal sponsorship, were not, in Nicetas’s view, binding on the Eastern Churches. As Nicetas puts it, “Although we do not differ from the Roman Church in professing the same Catholic faith, still, because we do not attend councils with her in these times, how should we receive her decisions that have in fact been composed without our consent — indeed, without our awareness?” (ibid. 1219 B). For the Orthodox consciousness, even in the twelfth century, the particular authority traditionally attached to the see of Rome has to be contextualized in regular synodal practice that includes representatives of all the Churches.
By the mid-nineteenth century, the Western emphasis on the Church’s political and social autonomy had become a central feature of a distinctively Catholic ecclesiology. Reformation disputes about the nature of the Church’s institutions and the importance of ecclesial traditions had led Catholic theology to emphasize the Church’s institutional self-sufficiency in a way unprecedented in patristic thinking, and unparalleled in the Christian East. The challenges of the Western Enlightenment to religious faith, and the threats of the new secular, absolutist forms of civil government that developed in nineteenth-century Europe, challenged the competence and even the right of Catholic institutions to teach and care for their own people. [Orthodox folks, take note: Vatican I must be interpreted in its historical context!] In this context, the emphasis of the First Vatican Council’s document Pastor Aeternus (1870) on the Catholic Church’s ability to speak the truth about God’s self-revelation in a free and unapologetic way, and to find the criteria for judging and formulating that truth within its own tradition, can be understood as a reaffirmation of the apostolic vision of a Church called by Christ to teach and judge through its own structures (see, e.g., Matt 16:18; 18.15-20; Lk 10.16). Yet Vatican I’s way of formulating the authority of Catholic Church officials — particularly its definition of the Pope’s “true and proper primacy of jurisdiction” over each local Church and every Christian bishop (DS 3055, 3063), and its insistence that the Pope, “when acting in the office of shepherd and teacher of all Christians… possesses… that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to be endowed in defining doctrine” — shocked critics of the Catholic Church, and has remained since then a focus of debate and further interpretation within the Catholic world. Despite the attempt of the Second Vatican Council (Lumen Gentium 23-25 [1964]) to contextualize and refine this portrait of papal authority and Church structure, the Catholic Church’s vision of a teaching authority and a practical decision-making power vested in the Pope, who faces few wider institutional checks, has been a principal cause of division between it and the Churches outside its communion.
In the Eastern world, structures of authority and community in the Church developed in a somewhat different pattern from the fourth century onwards. The bishop of Constantinople was recognized in 381 as “patriarch,” and second in order of precedence after the bishop of “the old Rome”; after the Council of Chalcedon (451), he exercised supra-metropolitan authority in the northern part of the Eastern Empire, and was responsible for Christian missionary efforts outside the imperial borders. His see, along with the patriarchates of Rome, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem, was recognized in the legislation of the Emperor Justinian, in the sixth century, as forming a “pentarchy” of primatial leadership among all the Churches. But while the Western Church went on to develop its own institutional independence in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages under the headship of the bishop of Rome, the Eastern Churches remained fully integrated into the religious and political fabric of the late Roman Empire, even as the Empire’s territory dwindled under the domination of Arab and Turkish peoples. The Church’s main doctrinal definitions remained imperial law; maintaining Christian unity was an important imperial priority. And when the Eastern Roman Empire finally fell before the Turkish invaders in 1453, the Churches of the eastern patriarchates shared the political and social role of unifying and protecting the Christian minorities in lands dominated by a variety of Muslim rulers. In the Slavic territories to the north and east, new metropolitan sees and new patriarchates continued to develop after the fall of Constantinople, carrying out the mission of unifying newly converted Christian peoples, who largely shared the same geographical, linguistic and ethnic characteristics. Primacy had a less supra-national character than it had acquired in the Latin Church; what we presently call autocephaly — ecclesiastical independence correlative to the emerging nation-state — had become the underlying pattern for ecclesiastical organization. [AKA, nationalism, the bane of modern Orthodoxy.]
Custom and habit, in all human societies, tend to become law. Structures that had come into being gradually, under the pressures of changing cultural and political conditions, came to be seen in both Eastern and Western Christianity as normative for the life of the Church. Yet precisely in our times, when centralized power is increasingly felt to be oppressive, and national identities and traditions are increasingly overwhelmed by the complexities of migration, mass communication, and supranational forces, questions continue to be raised about the enduring value of these structures. In our discussions, and indeed in discussions within our two Churches, such basic questions about the normativity of our current structures are inescapable.
4. What We Share. Despite disagreement on the place of the bishop of Rome in the worldwide cohesion of Christianity, however, it seems to us obvious that what we share, as Orthodox and Catholic Christians, significantly overshadows our differences. Both our Churches emphasize the continuity of apostolic teaching as the heart of our faith, received within the interpretive context of the historical Christian community. Both believe our life as Churches to be centered on the Divine Liturgy, and to be formed and nourished in each individual by the Word of God and the Church’s sacraments: baptism, the anointing with chrism, and the reception of the Eucharist mark, in each of our Churches, the entry of believers into the Body of Christ, while ordination by a bishop sets some of them apart for permanent sacramental ministry and leadership, and the marriage of a Christian man and woman within the liturgical community forms them into living signs of the union of Christ and the Church. Both our Churches recognize that “the Church of God exists where there is a community gathered together in the Eucharist, presided over, directly or through his presbyters, by a bishop legitimately ordained into the apostolic succession, teaching the faith received from the apostles, in communion with the other bishops and their Churches” (Joint International Dialogue, Ravenna Statement [2007] 18). Both our Churches, too, recognize the importance of various kinds of primacy, as the Ravenna statement further affirms: “Primacy at all levels is a practice firmly grounded in the canonical tradition of the Church,” even though “there are differences of understanding with regard to the manner in which it is to be exercised, and also with regard to its scriptural and theological foundations” (ibid. 43). Both our Churches venerate Mary, the Mother of God, as the foremost among those transformed by the grace of Christ’s redemption, and both also honor a whole range of holy men and women from every age, many of them common to our two traditions. Both our Churches cherish ancient practices that help the faithful grow in holiness, value personal asceticism and fasting, reverence sacred images, promote the monastic life, and set a high value on contemplative prayer. In all of these ways, our lives as Churches are enriched by the same spiritual resources. A significant degree of communion already exists between us.
5. A Matter of Urgency. In light of the divine gifts that we share, then, it seems all the more urgent to us that our Churches grow closer together, in ways that the men and women of our time can see. The fact that our two Christian families have been separated in some central points of theology and Church discipline for almost a thousand years, and as a result no longer share in the sacramental communion that bound us together during the first millennium, is not only a violation of the will of God, as expressed in the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper that his disciples “may be one” (John 17.21), but is also a serious impediment to effective Christian engagement in the world, and to the effective realization of our common mission to preach the Gospel. Marriages involving members of both our traditions are increasingly common, especially in ethnically pluralistic countries, creating serious problems in Christian education and practice for the families involved. All of these factors urgently call our Churches to overcome their division. As our largely secular world reaches constantly for new technical means of communication, and for mutual understanding within all its cultural and political diversity, it is urgent that Orthodox and Catholic Christians find an effective way to realize our common tradition of faith together, and to present the world with a unified testimony to the Lordship of Jesus. To be what we are called to be, we need each other. In the words of the Second Vatican Council, “The divisions among Christians prevent the Church from realizing in practice the fullness of catholicity proper to her” (Unitatis Redintegratio 4). To become what we are, effectively and permanently, we cannot stop short of re-establishing full Eucharistic communion among ourselves. Clearly, this cannot be achieved without new, better harmonized structures of leadership on both sides: new conceptions of both synodality and primacy in the universal Church, new approaches to the way primacy and authority are exercised in both our communions. [That is, a model of communion for the third millennium.]
6. The Shape of Communion. It is difficult to predict what a structure of worldwide ecclesial communion, sacramental and spiritual, between our Churches, might look like. Some of its main features, however, would include the following:
a) Mutual Recognition: the larger units of Orthodox and Catholic Christianity, including patriarchates and other autocephalous Churches, would explicitly recognize each other as authentic embodiments of the one Church of Christ, founded on the apostles. This would include the recognition of our fundamental agreement on central Christian dogmas, as revealed in Scripture and articulated in mutually recognized ecumenical Councils [how many?], despite variations in our theological and liturgical traditions.
b) A Common Confession of Faith: both our Churches would confess the same basic Christian faith, as expressed in the Christian canon of Scripture and in the Churches’ traditional creeds. The “faith of Nicaea,” professed by the ancient councils as the foundation of Christian faith and practice, is received most fully in the original form canonized at the Council of Constantinople in 381 [sans Filioque], as understood through the canons and prescriptions of the other ecumenical councils received by Orthodox and Catholic Christians. As we have suggested in our 2003 statement “The Filioque: a Church-Dividing Issue?” the original Greek form of the Creed of 381, because of its authority and antiquity, should be used as the common form of our confession in both our Churches.
c) Accepted Diversity: different parts of this single Body of Christ, drawing on their different histories and different cultural and spiritual traditions, would live in full ecclesial communion with each other without requiring any of the parts to forego its own traditions and practices (see Unitatis Redintegratio 16) [How far does this go? How about marriage disciplines?]
d) Liturgical Sharing: members of all the Churches in communion would be able to receive the sacraments in the other Churches; priests and bishops would express their unity in concelebration, and the heads of the other Churches would be commemorated liturgically in the diptychs. [Intercommunion’s been going on, sporadically and unofficially, ever since the “schism” (however you want to date it). For better or worse, there’s exists now a de facto intercommunion amongst Arab Orthodox and Catholics in the “old countries”.] In addition, other forms of common liturgical prayer would be encouraged as a regular practice involving both our Churches.
e) Synodality/Conciliarity: the bishops of the reunited Churches would meet regularly in regional synods, which would regulate the common life and relationships of the Churches in a particular region and provide an occasion for mutual correction and support. Bishops of all the Churches would be invited to participate fully in any ecumenical councils that might be summoned. Synodality would operate at various levels of ecclesial institutions: local, regional and worldwide. Aside from episcopal structures of synodality, the laity would be active participants in this dimension of Church life. [Pretty vague! I’d like to hear some more concrete, detailed thinking about this.]
f) Mission: all the Churches would share a common concern for what directly affects their unity, as well as for their mission to non-Christians. As sister Churches, they would also engage in common efforts to promote the realization of a Christian moral vision in the world. [This is already happening, especially between the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church.]
g) Subsidiarity: following the ancient principle recognized as normative for well-organized human structures, “higher” instances of episcopal authority would only be expected to act when “lower” instances were unable to make and implement the decisions necessary for continuing union in faith. This would mean, among other things, that in the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, at least, bishops would be elected by local synods or by other traditional methods of selection. Those elected to major episcopal or primatial offices would present themselves to other Church leaders at their level, to their own patriarch, and to the bishop of Rome as first among the patriarchs, by the exchange and reception of letters of communion, according to ancient Christian custom. The bishop of Rome would also inform the Eastern patriarchs of his election.
h) Renewal and Reform. [This bit, also very vague, gets me quite nervous. The Latin Church is currently in the long process of digging itself out of a deep hole dug in the name of liturgical “reform” and “renewal”. A great many Orthodox are rightly skeptical of this sort of rhetoric.] Ordered growth is essential to the health and well-being of the Church, and this means both continuity and change. For the Church, an essential aspect of this growth is renewal: the continual rediscovery of its fundamental identity as the Body of Christ, based on its experience of the Paschal Mystery, in the constant readiness to take on new forms of common life and witness and to adapt itself to new historical situations. In the words of a late medieval aphorism, “The Church is always in need of reform (ecclesia semper reformanda).” By making their catholicity concrete through full communion, the Catholic and Orthodox Churches would be realizing this life of reform in a new, undreamed-of way, and would be committing themselves to continuing renewal and growth – but now together. Life in communion with each other would be a life lived in readiness for a new Pentecost, in which people of many nations and cultures are formed anew by the living Word of God.
7. The Role of the Papacy. In such a communion of Churches, the role of the bishop of Rome would have to be carefully defined, both in continuity with the ancient structural principles of Christianity and in response to the need for a unified Christian message in the world of today. Although the details of that role would have to be worked out in a synodal way, and would require a genuine willingness on both sides to accommodate one another’s concerns, a few likely characteristics of this renewed Roman primacy would be these:
a) The bishop of Rome would be, by ancient custom, the “first” of the world’s bishops and of the regional patriarchs. His “primacy of honor” would mean, as it meant in the early Church, not simply honorific precedence but the authority to make real decisions, appropriate to the contexts in which he is acting. His relationship to the Eastern Churches and their bishops, however, would have to be substantially different from the relationship now accepted in the Latin Church. The present Eastern Catholic Churches would relate to the bishop of Rome in the same way as the present Orthodox Churches would. The leadership of the pope would always be realized by way of a serious and practical commitment to synodality and collegiality.
b) In accord with the teaching of both Vatican councils, the bishop of Rome would be understood by all as having authority only within a synodal/collegial context: [Vatican I can’t be chucked into the bin, but it can be completed] as member as well as head of the college of bishops, as senior patriarch among the primates of the Churches, and as servant of universal communion. The “ordinary and immediate” jurisdiction of every bishop within his particular Church [never destroyed or undermined by Vatican I, as the German bishops 1872 response to Bismarck, approved by Pio Nono, makes abundantly clear], would be “affirmed, strengthened and vindicated” by the exercise of the bishop of Rome’s ministry (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 27; cf. Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus 3). In a reunited Church, this understanding of papal and episcopal authority, as complementary and mutually enhancing, would have to be expanded to include the much more complex patterns of local, primatial, and patriarchal leadership that have developed in the Eastern Churches since patristic times.
c) The fundamental worldwide ministry of the bishop of Rome would be to promote the communion of all the local Churches: to call on them to remain anchored in the unity of the Apostolic faith, and to observe the Church’s traditional canons. He would do this as a witness to the faith of Peter and Paul, a role inherited from his early predecessors who presided over the Church in that city where Peter and Paul gave their final witness.
d) His universal role would also be expressed in convoking and presiding over regular synods of patriarchs of all the Churches, and over ecumenical councils, when they should occur. In the Western Church, this same presiding function would include convoking and leading regular episcopal synods. In harmony with the Pope’s universal ecumenical ministry, the Roman curia’s relationship to local bishops and episcopal conferences in the Latin Church would become less centralized: bishops, for instance, would have more control over the agenda and the final documents of synods, and the selection of bishops would again normally become a local process.
e) In cases of conflict between bishops and their primates that cannot be resolved locally or regionally, the bishop of Rome would be expected to arrange for a juridical appeal process, perhaps to be implemented by local bishops, as provided for in canon 3 of the Synod of Sardica (343). In cases of dispute among primates, the bishop of Rome would be expected to mediate and to bring the crisis to brotherly resolution. And in crises of doctrine that might occasionally concern the whole Christian family, bishops throughout the world would have the right to appeal to him also for doctrinal guidance, much as Theodoret of Cyrus did to Pope Leo I in 449, during the controversy over the person of Christ that preceded the Council of Chalcedon (Ep. 113).
8. Preparatory Steps. To prepare for an eventual restoration of full communion within a reunited Church formed from the Orthodox and Catholic traditions, a number of steps might be helpful.
a) Delegations of Orthodox and Catholic bishops in a nation or region could begin to gather regularly for consultation on pastoral issues. Patriarchs and representatives of the autocephalous and autonomous Orthodox Churches could also meet with the Pope and leading Catholic bishops and curial officials on a regular basis for consultation and planning.
b) The Pope and the Orthodox primates could invite all the faithful under their jurisdiction to recognize each other’s Churches as “sister Churches” that fully realize the Apostolic faith in doctrine, sacraments and ecclesial life, despite the historically different forms in which our liturgy is celebrated, our doctrine taught, and our community life structured.
c) Special liturgical services and activities of common prayer and social ministry, involving lay people of both communions, could be organized as a way of drawing Orthodox and Catholic Christians into a deeper practical awareness of their common faith and dependence on God.
d) Ultimately, new structures of authority, in which the relationships of local and regional primates are concretely regulated, would need to be instituted by common consultation, perhaps by an ecumenical council.
9. Outstanding Questions and Problems. Confronted by these long-term prospects of growth towards ecclesial unity, we are aware that many serious theological, liturgical and structural questions remain unsolved, and need to be considered further. For example:
a) To what extent is the distinctive role of the pope rooted in the New Testament? How far is the role of Peter in the New Testament to be taken as setting out a pattern of leadership “inherited” by the bishops of Rome, whose Church rests on the ancient site of Peter’s martyrdom? While some of the Church Fathers present the Peter of Scripture as a model for all bishops, or even for the whole believing community, others – especially some fourth- and fifth-century bishops of Rome – have stressed the unique, even mystical connection between Peter and the later Popes who led Peter’s local Church. To what extent do these Scriptural interpretations simply reflect differing ecclesiologies?
b) What limits should be acknowledged, canonically and theologically, to the exercise of initiatives by the bishop of Rome in a universally reunited Church? What limits should be acknowledged to the authority and jurisdiction of the other patriarchs? Who has the authority to define these limits? To what extent can the formula of Apostolic Canon 34, from the late fourth century, serve as a model for the universal Church as well as for the local Churches: “The bishops of each national group should recognize the one who has first place among them, and consider him as head, and do nothing out of the ordinary without his agreement;… but neither should he do anything without the agreement of all”?
c) What kind of accountability can be canonically demanded of the bishop of Rome in his primatial role? What relevance does the ancient western principle used later by the defenders of papal authority, “the first see is to be judged by no one else,” [isn’t this simply a statement of fact; like, “In the United States, there’s no court higher than the Supreme Court?”] have in today’s world of constitutionally regulated authority? What does the synodal or collegial dimension of papal authority imply for the Pope’s concrete exercise of his proper jurisdiction?
d) Can the bishop of Rome, as the one responsible for convening synods and councils of the universal Church, compel attendance and participation by representatives of particular Churches? Can he overrule those councils’ initiatives? Can he lay down rules of procedure?
e) What limits should be set to the common Orthodox practice of recognizing the autocephaly or autonomy of particular churches on ethnic, linguistic and geographical grounds? By what primatial and synodal authorities does such independence need to be recognized? Should diversity of national background continue to determine the structures of church life in a world that is increasingly shaped by the migration of peoples? What should the effect of today’s ethnic and cultural pluralism be on the unity and diversity of local Church organization, in countries representing the Orthodox “diaspora”? What aspects of the ancient principle of “one bishop, one place” can be reclaimed in contemporary society?
f) Beyond these technical questions, how much formal agreement on doctrine and Church structure is necessary before the Orthodox and Catholic Churches permit local communities to begin at least some degree of sacramental communion with each other? [Remember the Ratzinger Formula?] If diversity within our own Churches on theological issues is usually not seen as a barrier to Eucharistic sharing, should we allow the differences between Orthodox and Catholic Christians to overrule the substantial agreement our Churches already enjoy on most of the fundamental issues of faith, and keep us from receiving each other at the Eucharistic table, at least on some occasions? Would it be acceptable to both of our Churches to allow priests of one Church at least to care for the dying in the other, when no priest of their own is available? The extraordinary practice of shared communion has been carried on, at various critical points of recent history, in some parts of the world, and is occasionally carried on today. Can this serve as a precedent for wider Eucharistic sharing? Can such occasional sharing of communion serve as a concrete step towards deeper and more lasting unity?
10. One Body. In his Commentary on the 17th Chapter of St. John’s Gospel, St. Cyril of Alexandria argues that the unity of the Church, modeled on the unity of Father and Son and realized through the gift of the Spirit, is primarily formed in us through the Eucharist in which the disciples of Jesus share:
For by liturgically blessing (eulogōn) those who believe in him into a single body – namely, his own – through sacramental participation, [Christ] has made them completely one body with himself and with each other. Who, after all, could divide, or alienate from natural unity with one another, those who are bound through the one holy body into unity with Christ? For if ‘all of us partake of the one loaf’ (1 Cor 10.17), all of us are formed into one body. It is impossible to divide Christ. That is the reason that the church is called the Body of Christ, and we are individually his members, as Paul understands it. For since we are all united with Christ through his holy Body – which we take, one and undivided, into our own bodies – we owe our own limbs more to him than to ourselves…
How, then are we all not clearly one [Cyril goes on to ask] in each other and in Christ? For Christ is himself the bond of unity, existing at the same time as God and as a human being…. And all of us who have received one and the same Spirit – I mean the Holy Spirit – are blended together, in a certain way, with each other and with God… For just as the power of his holy flesh forms those to whom it comes into a single body, in the same way, I believe, the one Spirit of God, who dwells in all of us undivided, brings us all to a spiritual unity (Comm. on John 11.11 [ed. Pusey 2.735-737]).
Conscience holds us back from celebrating our unity as complete in sacramental terms, until it is complete in faith, Church structure, and common action; but conscience also calls us to move beyond complacency in our divisions, in the power of the Spirit and in a longing for the fullness of Christ’s life-giving presence in our midst. The challenge and the invitation to Orthodox and Catholic Christians, who understand themselves to be members of Christ’s Body precisely by sharing in the Eucharistic gifts and participating in the transforming life of the Holy Spirit, is now to see Christ authentically present in each other, and to find in those structures of leadership that have shaped our communities through the centuries a force to move us beyond disunity, mistrust, and competition, and towards that oneness in his Body, that obedience to his Spirit, that will reveal us as his disciples before the world.
Interesting viewpoints. But like so many of these publications, it puts the cart before the horse, in that the decentralized ecclesial nature of Orthodoxy makes it impossible to enact these carefully nuanced “agreements” over the role and meaning of the Papacy. The Orthodox people will not accept the Pope as one of them, and all the working groups and position papers in the world will not change that fact. Nor will sacramental unity come about the same way. In fact, a de jure sacramental unity would most likely result in a more de facto disunity, as rifts would develop between factions trying to determine whose sacraments were genuine enough to warrant participation.
No, all this talk of primacy and intercommunion and unity is just talk, until both sides can truly engage point 6f) Mission on the parish level. When all Roman Catholic parishes and Orthodox parishes can come together side by side to serve the Kingdom of God, then maybe we can talk about the rest of the issues. Until then, it’s just an academic exercise.
And, if we can do this in honesty and strength, then in practical terms of witness to the world, what would then be the urgency in resolving the underlying structural and theological differences? Would we not then be living and serving each other in unity, regardless of where we went on Sunday mornings or when we celebrated Easter?
JTK, I can’t argue with most of what you write. This is just a statement by academic theologians, many of whom are not pastors and may be more or less disconnected from the realities on the ground.
There are those, mostly Catholics of good will, who read these sorts of things and say, “Oh boy! The Churches are coming together real soon, aren’t they???” Most of the commenters here know better. The prospects for full O/C unity at this point in time are zip, zilch, zero.
At the same time, I don’t think that such statements are completely irrelevant or useless. I think they do represent important theoretical/conceptual breakthroughs. If the Churches are going to reunite, sometime in the very distant future, certain things like the mechanics of communion, the relationship of primacy and conciliarity, etc. do have to be hashed out at length by hierarchs and theologians.
Now, is it going to be convincing at this point to Ioannis and Maria Orthodoxou, who have been taught from the breast that the Pope is a nasty old heretic? Not likely.
Of course, joint statements and ecumenical meetings can’t, in and of themselves, create unity; they can’t soften hearts or heal hurtful memories (only the Holy Spirit can do deal with that, ever so slowly, heart by heart); but that doesn’t mean that they’re good for nothing.
Well, they are good for generating a lot of bits and bytes on the Internet. They are good for making people think that something is really happening this time around. And, they are good for masking the real problems. So, if all we need is a lot of noise and no real action, then yes, they are good for something.
Wow! I can’t help but marvel at the difference in tone between your first and second comment. The first was reasonable and constructive. The second, rather childish and dismissive. What happened?
Yes, I admit I did come across a bit snarky in my reply. Part of that was to draw the conversation into a new direction from the typical Eastern vs Roman polemics, and part was from frustration with our modern approach of assembing another bunch of talking heads to address any particular issue with no practical result whatsoever.
Let’s be honest: Sacramental union will be the LAST step of the process.
A new widely accepted role for the Pope will be the second to last.
Neither of these will happen because people don’t WANT them to happen. Ask your average Roman Catholic of the top five things he or she would like to happen within the Church, and being able to receive Communion in an Orthodox parish will not be on the list. Ask your average Orthodox of the top five things he or she would NOT like to happen within Orthodoxy, and increasing the role of the Papacy would probably make a good showing.
Understanding this, why don’t we focus on the FIRST steps of the process — encouraging the average Orthodox parish and the average Catholic parish to actually WANT to do things together? So instead of more blather about the historical role of the Papacy, which will produce no real imperative for change from either side, why not work on fostering some real changes? Unity arises from community, not the other way around.
I am not in the business of making predictions in such matters, and frankly I find the confidence and eagerness of others to do so puzzling. Like the Second Coming, I suspect that eventual unity will steal upon us like a thief in the night.
I will grant that common mission at the parochial level is a necessary step in the softening of hearts, and am not really a fan of the kind of “inter-communion” advocated by Protestants of various stripes as some sort of end-goal for its own sake, but do see limited intercommunion as one possible step along the path to full corporate and institutional unity. I also see the pursuit of such unity as absolutely necessary in obedience to Christ’s prayer.
I would list the steps in ascending order differently:
1. Joint mission
2. Mutual recognition of sacraments
3. Discretionary communion
4. Recognition of unity of faith in essentials
5. Freedom of communion for laity
6. Agreement on ecclesiological norms and praxis
7. Concelebration and full corporate unity
While I see these steps being taken in sequence, some early progress can be made towards each of them simultaneously, albeit in differing degrees.
Beyond historical curiosities (that can be dismissed as local abuses) a certain degree of intercommunion between Catholics and Orthodox already exists, and we would do well to appreciate this before dismissing it as an intermediate step. It is true, however, that the respective disciplines applied by the two communions are not symmetrical (and great variety of practice exists within Orthodoxy itself).
The Catholic Church allows Orthodox faithful to partake of the eucharist, if they are suitably disposed to receive it (i.e. recognize it for what the Catholic Church claims it to be). The Catholic Church also allows its faithful to commune from Orthodox clergy, if and where Catholic clergy are not available (admittedly not a very frequent occurrence).
Orthodoxy formally admits Catholics to communion, if and where no Catholic clergy are available, but forbids its own faithful from partaking of a Catholic eucharist under any circumstances. This prohibition does not seem to be universally respected, however, as Antiochan Orthodox seem to be able to commune in Melkite Churches without causing scandal or being subject to any disciplinary sanctions.
By “discretionary communion” in the sequence of steps I have listed above, I mean a return to the primitive discipline of letting the local bishop or ordinary determine on a prudential basis (and within reasonable limits) who will or will not receive communion in the churches under his direction.
“Freedom of communion for the laity” would allow faithful in good standing, but not in orders, to commune in any Catholic or Orthodox church. Clergy would still be forbidden from partaking outside their respective communions in recognition of a continuing failure of full institutional unity.
I hope you are not offended if I point out that from my perspective your seven points are listed in a very “Roman Catholic” order. That is, there exists within the Roman Catholic Church the authority and autocracy to make and promulgate these decisions according to a gradual timetable. For example, the Pope and bishops can (and in many cases have already) pronounce “recognition of sacraments”, and that’s the end of it — it’s said and done.
The Ecumenical Patriarch has no such ability. If he did, a large number of Metropolitans would probably turn against him. Even if he could sway a few of the more influential to his side, they would find so much resistance to the idea within their respective jurisdictions that the resulting turmoil would render the pronouncement moot. Like it or not, the Orthodox do not change, and all the position papers and timetables in the world will not make it so. Heck, just look at the Calendarist controversy which is still guaranteed to cause a flamewar on just about any Orthodox site.
The fact of the matter is if you want the Orthodox to change, you will need to do it from the bottom up. It will be a slow, messy, and organic affair that defies studies, formulations, schedules, and in many cases even authority structures. But at the end of it, you will have real unity that really means something. And that’s what Jesus was praying for after all, wasn’t it?
I am by no means offended. :-)
I offered them in an order I consider logical and plausible. The only “Catholic” timetable ever formally offered for reunion was (Lyons, Florence):
1. Ecumenical council of East and West
2. Acceptance of all Catholic claims
3. Full corporate union
I think it is safe to conclude that that particular formula didn’t produce the intended result.
As to the plausibility of the recognition of the sacraments, it doesn’t rest on the dictat of this or that Orthodox patriarch, but on the very incoherence of and inconsistencies of actual current Orthodox praxis. One or other of the various Orthodox Churches already recognizes Catholic baptism (by not requiring the baptism of Catholic converts), Catholic confirmation (by accepting converts via a profession of faith), Catholic marriages (by not requiring remarriage of converts), and Catholic orders (by not reordaining former Uniate convert clergy, for example). That leaves only the, as it were, “delible” sacraments of unction, penance and the eucharist, post facto recognition of which is largely moot as repudiation of their prior effectiveness is not required for reconciliation.
So, as Orthodox Churches mutually recognize each other’s sacraments, in principle they also have to recognize each other’s recognitions (even if they inconsistently fail to do so in particular cases). If a Catholic is reconciled by the Moscow Patriarchate without baptism, for example, a Greek bishop is going to grant him communion even though rebaptism of “converts” is a common (though not invariable) practice in the Greek Church.
You do bring up a key point, however. By virtue of its ecclesiology, the Catholic hierarchy will carry its faithful with it in any programme of unity that doesn’t require repudiation of Catholic teaching. Each and every Orthodox step in that direction, on the other hand, including even the joint mission at the parochial level you advocate, risks schism.
As for the nature of unity Christ prayed for, it is “that they may be one just as we (the Father and the Son) are.” That hardly sounds like a mere meaningful unity of works to me unless one’s monotheism is entirely superficial.
I will wade in in greater depth tomorrow when I hope to have more time, but I would like to offer a personal gloss for other readers to chew on. Unlike the broader Orthodox-Catholic dialogue, the North-American discussions have grappled more directly with some of the perceived core doctrinal differences.
One unstated conclusion, but one that permeates their most recent effort, and probably annoys the Orthodox “anti-modernist” crowd no end, is that such differences as exist (once unpacked, explained and talked through) all demonstrably predate the schism by several centuries. If this inference I draw is correct, the participants have little choice but to question the continuing basis for the separation, and to turn their focus, as they have, to how reunion might take place and what institutional form it might assume.
It is rather interesting that what really divides the West from the East, is more or less the authority that each holds within the life of the Church. Personally i could care less whether we become united in structure. Frankly the uniate situation and accord with the Vatican is a bit schizophrenic, and serves no real example for Intercommunion. I believe that the present Pope understands full well that his own office must be reinterpreted if concelebration is ever to be restored. Frankly I believe that he can’t do that due to the factionalism that has overtaken his own church. let us continue to pray for each other, and maintain open and honest conversations with each other.
Michaël de Verteuil,
You were speaking about the Orthodox recognition of Catholic sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders. From what I have been taught, the fact that converts from “catholic” denominations such as the RCC, the Anglican Communion, and some Lutheran churches is a matter of condesending economy and long established and respected practice.
For example, Saint Elisabeth (Elizaveta Fyodorovna), recently added to the calendar of Saints of the Russian Church, was received into the Orthodox Church (as was likewise her sister, the sainted Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna) from the state German Lutheran Church where she had been baptized as a child, through the Rite of the Reception of Heretics with ensuing Chrismation–without a new Baptism.
In the Orthodox Church we do not move backward from economy to dogma. Therefore, the fact of the condesending practice of not re-baptizing Roman Catholics and not re-ordaining Catholic convert priests does not mean that dogmaticaly we believe that the sacraments of said “other churches” are “valid.” For indeed we do not think of sacraments in terms of validity, but rather of Holy Mysteries that are both Grace-filled and Grace-filling. Nor do we mean by the word “churches” in the phrase “other churches” anything beyond a socialogical self-identification of these communities of themselves. For dogmaticaly, we believe that the Church in One and the Grace-filled and Grace-filling Holy Mysteries are found in that One Church alone.
I think this is why your original order with recognition of sacraments being step 2, seems weird to Orthodox Christians. Full sacramental recognition is exactly identical to Full Communion.
That said, I think that the mystery of the Church is very great and I cannot judge what exactly goes on in the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. I don’t believe that grace has a half-life. I look forward to reunion of the Roman Patriarchate with the other Churches. I think that Pope Benedict is trying to move the Roman Church in that direction by promoting more conciliar structures of governance and a more traditional model of catholic liturgical theology and practice.
Here are my references.
http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/the-unity-of-the-church.aspx
Ryan,
When a Melkite reconciles with Antiochan Orthodoxy, he is neither baptized nor chrismated. If he was already ordained as a deacon, priest or bishop, he retains that status. Whether a sacrament is grace-filled or not as you understand it is not really pertinent here. The fact that this hypothetical reconciled Melkite can then perform sacramental acts within Orthodoxy, whereas a reconciled Melkite layman cannot, signifies recognition of the objective difference between the two and of the reality of the first Melkite’s ordination. This is all that Catholics mean by “validity.”
Where Catholics and some Orthodox differ is that Catholics believe that the sacraments belong to God and not to the Church. Grace comes from God, not the Church, and the Church doesn’t have a hand on some grace-dispensing spigot that somehow turns sacraments on or off. All “real” (i.e. valid) sacraments, coming from God, are “grace-filled” and beyond the judgment of man even though administered through human agency. Thus for Catholics the question is reduced to whether a real sacrament has occurred. If it has, then it is what it is. If it hasn’t, then it is nothing. Where there is doubt, it is treated as nothing out of charity lest anyone be misled.
Whether Orthodox want to draw a further distinction between supposedly grace-filled and grace-less “real” sacraments is their business. But you will never find any time in history, even when the purity of the Roman faith was being recognized, lauded and extolled in the East, in which the Church of Rome held to such a distinction. Ergo the issue of “gracefulness” doesn’t arise at all for Catholics. If Orthodox wish to withhold recognition of the “grace-filled” nature of Catholic sacraments until full communion is achieved, no Catholic is going to be offended as no Catholic believes such a distinction exists. As such a distinction is not recognized in the West, such a recognition is neither sought by or even of interest to the West.
So much for the sacraments. I am not going to get drawn into addressing unsubstantiated, rather insulting and essentially ignorant and bigoted assertions of “modernism” in the teachings of the Latin Church. So I will leave it there. I am sorry if I appear testy today, but this casual propensity to toss around accusations of heresy based on no more than “I read that such-and-such-a-saint or such-and-such-a-dissident-Catholic made this claim, so that settles it for me” doesn’t smack of much charity.
Ryan,
Orthodox Christians are free to believe Roman Catholic sacraments are valid if they choose because no Ecumenical Council has declared them void of grace. Orthodox info is a good, yet conservative leaning web site.
This is not my privet opinion but that of Holy New-Martyr Archbishop Hilarion. He points out that if what you say is true then every Orthodox priest would be obliged, it would be his solomn duty, to urge his faithful to receive the Holy Eucharist from the hand of the local Roman Catholic Bishop. If indeed, if there is no dogmatic differences between us, then we are obliged to express our unity through intercommunion.
But as St Hilarion points out, Orthodox Christians are concerned with the “facts.” The fact is, we do not already share intercommunion with our Roman Catholic Cousins which means we are yet not One Holy Church together with them, however heartbreaking this is for me. And because there is One Holy Church and we confess that the Orthodox Church is that One Holy Church then from an Orthodox Christian perspective the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the mia-pysite Churches, do not have grace-filled and grace-filling mysteries. It is not a question of validity.
And St Hilarion gives an example when he discusses the difference between the visit of an Anglican bishop to Russia and the visit of the Patriarch of Antioch to Russia. He says that in the case of the latter, there was in-expressable joy felt by all the faithful at greeting the Patriarch of a local church with whome they shared the fullness of the faith and full intercommunion. With the Anglican bishop, there was no such joy.
Lastly, I have many good ideas about how the two communities could move toward one another again. One has to do with the Anglican theological movement known as Radical Orthodoxy, which traces the roots of the sickness of western modernism which desacralized the cosmos. Pope Benedict has come to similar conclusions. This analysis could come to serve as a basis of discussions with the Orthodox Church where it could be admitted that without the Eastern Churches an inballence occured in Western Church Life that resulted in this modernism sickness. Then the RCC could make changes to correct the results of that sickness, something that they are willing to do, most notabley in the “reform of the reform” concerning post Vatican II liturgical revisions. There is much that the Orthodox Church could learn from the RCC as well. Reaproachment will only occur as both parties recover their ancient roots. And hopefully the remnant of orthodox Anglicans will also join us in reawaking Christendom!
Ryan,
On a further note (and I should make clear that my earlier response was to both your posts), you wrote:
“This is not my privet opinion but that of Holy New-Martyr Archbishop Hilarion. He points out that if what you say is true then every Orthodox priest would be obliged, it would be his solomn duty, to urge his faithful to receive the Holy Eucharist from the hand of the local Roman Catholic Bishop. If indeed, if there is no dogmatic differences between us, then we are obliged to express our unity through intercommunion.”
I can’t say whether you are representing Hilarion’s views accurately, but the outlined conclusion does not follow from the prior points in the argument.
Dogmatic differences are not the only grounds for breach of communion. It can also be the result of perceived breaches of ecclesial discipline and order. Indeed this, and not alleged doctrinal differences, was the basis for the mutual personal excommunications of 1054, and for Orthodoxy’s generalized excommunication of the West in 1099 as a consequence of a dispute over who was the legitimate Patriarch of Antioch.
Similarly, Catholics justify the schism on the basis of Orthodoxy’s alleged contumacy in walking away from the canons of the Council of Sardica. The semi-formal elevation by either side of such doctrinal differences as existed at the time to a level providing sufficient cause for schism is, somewhat ironically, a post-schism development (which is not to say that the odd polemically-minded bishop on either side didn’t make free with such accusations on his own account).
Ryan,
While much of what you say is true, it is still the private opinion of Saint Hilarion on Roman Catholics. All I am trying to express is that until the Church speaks in the form of an ecumenical council Orthodox Christians are permitted to believe what they will concerning Roman Catholic mysteries. Some could say they are grace filled, some could say they do not know, and others could say they are not grace filled. At this point in Church History there is no universal statement on Roman Catholic mysteries that Orthodox Christians are obliged to believe.