Correction from the Phanar

Fr Gregory Jensen has posted this Press Release from the Ecumenical Patriarchate:
With respect to the recently published articles reporting that allegedly His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew believes that it is possible for the Greek Catholics (Uniates) to have a “double union”, in other words, full communion with Rome as well as with Constantinople, the [...]

Read Full Post »

EP proposes dual communion?

This is the strangest news story I’ve come across in a while. I can’t help but think that there is something seriously wrong with the English translation (hint: I’m guessing “1st century” means “1st millennium”). Anyhow, here’s the story from the Religious Information Service of Ukraine (RISU):
Munich — In a recent interview with the German [...]

Read Full Post »

Marriage discipline, East and West

Wan Wei Hsien, over at Torn Notebook, has posted an essay by the late Melkite Archbishop Elias Zoghby on “The Indissolubility of Marriage”, in two parts, here and here.
Also, while we’re at it … I never got the chance to link to some comments on the same sticky issue of Eastern and Western marriage disciplines [...]

Read Full Post »

Two from the Byzantine Rambler

The Melkite Greek Catholic priest who blogs at Byzantine Ramblings has an interesting response to an Orthodox parish priest’s take (in the pages of a local newspaper) on “church leadership”. Westall’s article on Canon 28 of Chalcedon, which I posted yesterday, is referenced.
And also, via the Rambler, the latest in the saga of Metropolitan Nicolae of Banat.

Read Full Post »

Fr Paul on the “Timisoara Incident”

Fr Paul, the English Catholic priest who has left many thoughtful comments both at Cathedra Unitatis and here at Eirenikon, has written a remarkable post over at De unione ecclesiarum on the ecclesiological, ecumenical and sacramental implications of the “Timisoara Incident”.
It is not my place to say whether it was in the event helpful to the [...]

Read Full Post »

Romanian Orthodox-Catholic intercommunion

The Anastasis Project and Byzantine, Texas both report that Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan Nicholae (Corneanu) of Banat recently received Holy Communion from the hand of Romanian Greek-Catholic Bishop Alexandru (Mesian) of Lugoj, at the consecration of a Romanian Greek-Catholic parish in Timisoara.
Catholic World News broke the story. 
I shudder in anticipation of Orthodox responses. Doamne miluieşte.
In other Romanian [...]

Read Full Post »

Assyrian Unity

I have been remiss in posting about the recent act of reunion between the Assyrian Diocese of Mar Bawai Soro and the Chaldean Catholic Church in union with Rome. The Mar Bawai Soro blog, as well as the Ab Oriente Weblog (written by Anthony, a subdeacon under Mar Bawai Soro), has assembled a great deal of information [...]

Read Full Post »

Gregorios III to Benedict XVI

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

From Unia to Koinonia

An address given by His Beatitude, Gregorios III, Melkite Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, at Holy Apostles Seminary, Cromwell, CT, on Tuesday, May 28, 2002. [Source]

It is well known that it was in Antioch that the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth were called Christians for the first time (Acts 11: 26). This indicates the importance of [...]

Read Full Post »

Prof. Antoine Arjakovsky

From the blog of OCA Bishop Seraphim (Sigrist) comes an interesting interview with Antoine Arjakovsky, an Orthodox Frenchman and Professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University (the institution which now offers “the first distance learning Master’s program in Ecumenical Studies“).
In the interview, Professor Arjakovsky addresses why he, an Orthodox Christian of the Russian Tradition under the jurisdiction of Constantinople, teaches [...]

Read Full Post »