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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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.

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“The Fathers Gave Rome the Primacy”

A. St. Leger Westall, “The Fathers Gave Rome the Primacy”, The Dublin Review, CXXXII (January-April 1903), pp. 101-114.
The famous xxviii. Canon of Chalcedon has been for many centuries a favourite authority among all those who, whether in the East or in England, are anxious to find support in primitive times for their rejection of the Petrine [...]

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Canon 28 redux

I have just begun listening to Bishop Hilarion’s talk at the recent SVS conference. He makes reference to the (in)famous Canon 28 of Chalcedon, and gives the standard Orthodox (and generally non-/anti-Roman) interpretation of it: that it ascribes the origin of Old Rome’s primacy not to the will of Christ or succession from the Apostle [...]

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“Rome, Constantinople and Canterbury”

Ancient Faith Radio has audio from the recent Fellowship of Ss. Alban and Sergius conference “Rome, Constantinople and Canterbury, Mother Churches”, held at St Vladimir’s Seminary, June 4-8, 2008. I have only listened to the first two lectures, by Metropolitan Philip of the Antiochian Archdiocese and Bishop Keith Ackerman of the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy, [...]

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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 [...]

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Moscow: “No” to Ravenna

Josephus at Byzantine, TX has the story. This is not at all surprising. What Catholics need to understand is that this all has to do with old intra-Orthodox squabbles and major tensions within Orthodox ecclesiology. Which, I suppose, means that Orthodoxy should get on to the same ecclesiological page before adding Rome’s particular ecclesiological vision [...]

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Ecclesiology 101

Here’s a very helpful summary of what the Roman Catholic Church teaches about what the Church of Jesus Christ is, and who belongs to her. From Caelum et Terra.
For an Orthodox take (but certainly not the Orthodox take), see Fr Georges Florovsky’s 1933 essay “The Limits of the Church”.

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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 [...]

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