I am proud to feature this interesting article by Catholic friend of the blog and frequent commenter, Michaël de Verteuil –

Of the two Patriarchs of Constantinople most closely associated with the East-West schism, Michael Cerularius (Keroularios) is clearly the lesser figure in Orthodoxy. Unlike Photius, Michael was not a great scholar and was not declared a saint after his death. As the latter schism was to become definitive, Michael correspondingly suffered more at the hands of Catholic historiography. In its more extreme forms, he stands accused of hubris, deceit, mendacity, treachery, and even homicidal intent. The purpose of this brief historical note is to offer a more nuanced picture which may help rehabilitate his reputation in the eyes of Catholic readers.

Michael Cerularius was born in a minor senatorial family probably around the year 1000.  He served initially as a court official under Emperor Michael IV the Paphlagonian (ruled 1034-1041) until implicated in subversive intrigues with Constantine Monomachus circa 1040. Exiled, and pressured to become a monk to preclude him from further political ambitions, he accepted the tonsure following the sudden suicide of his brother.
Michael’s fortunes changed in 1042, when the Emperor died and Michael’s former co-conspirator was recalled to the capital and crowned as Constantine IX (1042-1055). Michael was made principal secretary to Patriarch Alexius I, and succeeded to the patriarchal throne one year later in 1043.  While Catholic historiography tends to portray him as having been from the very first an extremist leader of the “anti-Latin” party then most closely associated with the Studium monastery, this seems unlikely to have been the case. Michael owed his rapid preferment to imperial patronage rather than ecclesiastic politics, and had only been a monk for two years prior to his promotion. In any event, his relations with the Papacy appear to have been largely untroubled and non antagonistic for most of the next decade until 1052.

In that year, Michael ordered the Latin churches serving the important Italian merchant community in Constantinople to conform to established Byzantine practice and cease offering unleavened communion bread. In 1053, at Michael’s apparent invitation, Metropolitan Leo of Ochrid in Bulgaria (modern Macedonia) wrote a letter to Bishop John of Trani in Apulia for circulation to “all the bishops of the Franks and the most venerable Pope.” This letter condemned in harsh terms typical Latin liturgical practices, including the use of Eucharistic “azymes.” Michael then circulated to the other three Eastern Patriarchs a treatise composed by the studite monk Nicetas that further attacked Latin liturgical practices, describing them as “horrible infirmities” and Latins themselves as “dogs, bad workmen, schismatics, hypocrites and liars.” Faced with continuing defiance by the Latin churches nominally under his jurisdiction in Constantinople, he ordered them closed. When these instructions were further ignored, a mob led by studite monks and his chancellor (chartophylax) Nicephorus broke into the Latin tabernacles and reportedly trampled the “invalidly” consecrated Eucharistic bread underfoot.

Given the heated polemic atmosphere that surrounded and followed these events, it is not easy to determine with precision what provoked this series of anti-Latin outbursts. The use of unleavened bread was already long been a point of contention between the Greek and (non Chalcedonian) Armenian Churches.The recruitment in recent years of warlike Armenian officers into the Byzantine army may have helped bring the issue to the fore, but the most likely cause of this new dispute with the West lay in developments in southern Italy.
Between most of the mid 6th to 10th centuries, Sicily and much of southern Italy had been under some form of direct or indirect Byzantine control. Much of the population had been ethnically Greek or hellenized, and the area had been forcibly transferred from Western to Eastern ecclesiastical jurisdiction by the iconoclast Emperor Leo the Isaurian (ruled 718-41). As a result of these factors, by the time of the gradual Muslim conquest of Sicily and southern Italy, most of the local churches were either following or had been deeply influenced by some form of the Byzantine rite.

By 1040, Norman mercenaries formerly in the pay of the Eastern Empire began a campaign of conquest on their own behalf against the various Lombard duchies and the Byzantine catepanate that then dominated the south of the peninsula.  Despite papal opposition to these destabilizing encroachments, the Normans were solidly Latin in their Christianity. They thus understandably proceeded to replace in the areas they controlled Byzantine rite bishops with Latin ones as vacancies opened up. By 1050, a progressively Latinized episcopate had begun to substitute Latin liturgical practices for Eastern ones, and this notably involved the use of unleavened bread.

It may be this perceived Latin “aggression” against the Byzantine rite and Michael’s claimed patriarchal jurisdiction in southern Italy that prompted his restrictions against the Latin rite churches of Constantinople. This would also explain why the relatively pro-Byzantine John of Trani would have been an appropriate recipient for Leo of Ochrid’s letter. Even the invitation to John to share the letter with “the venerable Pope” makes sense in this context, as ironically Pope Leo IX (1048-54, later canonized in the West) was then in loose confinement not far away in Benevento after having been captured by the Normans at the battle of Civitate in June of 1053.

It is probably from this position of weakness in Benevento that Pope Leo sent his three legates to confer with Constantine and Michael with a view both to resolving the outstanding religious issues, and to incidentally secure support for the Pope’s own release and against his Norman enemies. The three legates were Humbert Cardinal bishop of Silva Candida, the Pope’s cousin and chancellor Cardinal Frederick (later elected as Pope Stephen IX, 1057-58), and Archbishop Peter of Amalfi. On their way, the legates were briefed on conditions in Constantinople by Argyrus, a member of the local Lombard aristocracy from Bari then serving as Byzantine catepan (katepano) for southern Italy. Argyrus had argued sharply with Michael during an earlier visit to the capital over the catepan’s inability to receive the Eucharist in its unleavened form, and thus numbered among the Patriarch’s personal enemies.

That the legates’ mission was not fully successful would probably be an understatement. With the Emperor matters went reasonably well. The alliance against the Normans was duly signed and, with Constantine’s stern encouragement, Nicetas was forced to retract his incendiary accusations and publicly burn copies of his letter. With Michael, however, the mission got off to a disastrous start.  The Patriarch found the legates disrespectful and was shocked by the hectoring tone of the papal letter Humbert had drafted. Relations with Leo had always been formally correct and, given the Pope’s plight, Michael might have expected an offer of a return to the status quo ante rather than what amounted to a demand for a humiliating public retraction and submission. While court officials attempted to broken discussions between the Patriarch’s staff and the legates, Michael steadfastly refused to have anything further to do with them, preferring to treat them instead as impostors sent to discredit him by Argyrus.

In the meanwhile, Pope Leo had made his own peace with the Normans and been released.  He died shortly thereafter, leaving the position of the legates in Constantinople untenable. With the negotiated alliance now bereft of much of its point, and the Patriarch still refusing to address any of their demands, the legates drafted a bull excommunicating Michael, Leo of Ochrid and their supporters. This the legates deposited on the altar of Sancta Sophia on 16 July, departing for Rome two days later.  Michael responded by calling a synod of local bishops which exonerated him and in turn excommunicated the legates.

Before turning to the historical reception of these excommunications, it might be worth considering Michael’s actions for what they might imply for ecumenical efforts in our own time between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.  Significantly, at no time did Michael ever deny Leo’s substantive primacy (though he clearly had a less expansive understanding of its scope than Humbert), nor did he presume to excommunicate the Pope. While he clearly opposed the filioque or the liturgical use of unleavened bread as abuses, he never cited these as sufficient grounds for schism. Instead of contesting papal authority head on, he preferred the less confrontational approach of challenging the legates’ credentials. The closure of the Latin churches of Constantinople might have been an extreme gesture, but such action remained well within his canonical discretion as local ordinary. His sponsorship and circulation of the writings of Nicetas and Leo of Ochrid may also have been tactless and provocative, but by failing to pen such missives himself, he left the way open for what he must have considered a reasonable and face-saving compromise for all concerned, i.e. reciprocal guarranties for the Latin churches in Constantinople and the Byzantine rite churches in Italy.  There is also nothing to link the Patriarch directly to sacrilege of Nicephorus (who may have been an imperial appointee) against the Latin Eucharist. In fact, Michael never took any steps explicitly indicating a definitive break with Rome, let alone with the West generally.

The whole episode seems to have been largely ignored by contemporary Byzantine historians until the mid-13th century, at which time Orthodox historiography began to present Michael as a stalwart defender of Orthodoxy against Roman pretensions, and herein lies a tale.
In 1089 Pope Urban II (1088-1099) wrote to Emperor Alexius I Comnenus enquiring as to why the bishop of Rome no longer figured in the diptychs of the Church of Constantinople.  The question was duly passed on to the Patriarchate which, after a search of its archives, purported not to know when or why communion with Rome had ceased. One does not have to ascribe excessive importance to the events of 1054 to see in this exchange a coy exercise in diplomatically convenient institutional amnesia.  After Constantine’s death in 1055, Michael had presided in the space of two years over three successive coronations only to quarrel in 1058 with Isaac I Comnenus (Emperor 1057-1059, died 1061) over some confiscated Church property. Isaac charged the Patriarch with having ordered the making of purple slippers (part of the imperial regalia) either for his own use or that of his nephew, the Emperor’s rival Constantine Ducas (Michael’s nephew by marriage). Michael was then deposed and sent into exile, suffering a shipwreck along the way and dying of his injuries.

The resulting uproar contributed to Isaac’s eventual abdication. The Comneni never forgot, however, and Alexius I and his court had little interest in exalting his uncle’s old nemesis and snubbing the Papacy he hoped would help him recruit military assistance in the West against the Turks. It is not until after the failed reunion council of Lyons in 1274 that Byzantine scholars felt a need to recast Michael as a great champion of Orthodoxy, possibly in order to demonstrate a historically consistent but dubious chain of opposition to Rome stretching from Photius to a much later Patriarch Michael III of Anchialus (1170-1178) who, unlike his 11th century namesake, would famously dismiss the Pope as a “heretical layman.”

From my favorite Orthodox blog, Prof. Peter Gilbert’s De Unione Ecclesiarum –

I finally have some good news to report. Today I received an e-mail from the Managing Editor of the journal Communio, informing me that the Summer 2009 issue is now, at last, in print, and that they have decided to feature my article on “John Bekkos as a Reader of the Fathers” on their website. A link to the website, showing the contents of their current issue, is http://www.communio-icr.com/latest.htm; a permanent link to the article, in PDF format, is http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/gilbert36-2.pdf

A few choice bits from the article, emphasis mine (but please read the whole thing before commenting) –

John Bekkos, who served as Patriarch of Constantinople during the years of the Union of Lyons (1275–1282) and who not merely accepted that union as a practical political necessity but defended it on the grounds of its theological truth, is not a popular man in much of the Christian East; many people view him as a traitor to Orthodoxy. He earns this reputation by virtue of having defended the view that the Latin doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit, the teaching that the Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son as from a single principle, is reconcilable and compatible with Greek patristic tradition.

… How far John Bekkos did or did not convert to Catholicism is a legitimate question; but it is not the question I chiefly wish to ask in this paper. I mention it here merely to give one specimen of new thinking about John Bekkos, thinking that presents some hope that long-entrenched views about him—the automatic assumption of his estrangement from the mind and heart of Orthodoxy—might be due for reassessment. Bekkos is increasingly being recognized as an early practitioner of what is now called “ecumenism.” The word “ecumenism” did not exist in Bekkos’s day, and it may be doubted whether he would have looked favorably on all modern varieties of it—whatever people may say about him, John Bekkos was not a doctrinal relativist—but that Bekkos was, in some sense, a thirteenth-century Orthodox ecumenist can hardly be denied. What is vital to note is that Bekkos consciously modeled his “ecumenism” upon the practice of the fathers of the Church. He saw the effort to move beyond verbal differences to a recognition of fundamental doctrinal agreement, where such agreement in truth existed, as an essential part of the fathers’ theological work. Christian faith is, in the final analysis, a faith not in words, but in things—and intellectual effort is sometimes needed to get beyond mere words to the realities that words signify. The fathers were willing to engage in that intellectual effort in order to preserve the unity of the Church; Bekkos saw himself as following in their footsteps.

… I would contend that his reading of the fathers of the Church provides real insight into what the fathers, or some of them at least, were saying. To dismiss John Bekkos as an “anthologist,” a man who “juggles texts” or collects them mechanically without any genuine insight into their meaning, is to perpetrate a gross misrepresentation. Bekkos was a theologian; and his continuing ecumenical significance has to be based on the very real possibility that some of his readings of the patristic evidence are true.

The central part of the present article attempts to substantiate the claim that Bekkos’s patristic interpretation is an insightful one, that is, that he sees important aspects of the fathers’ teaching that others have missed. In particular, I shall argue (a) that Bekkos rediscovers something that may be called “Old Nicene” theology, (b) that, in line with this theology, Bekkos identifies a certain “logic” to the way the fathers speak about divine substance, (c) that crucial to Bekkos’s understanding of the trinitarian doctrine of the fathers is a recognition of what I would call “referential causality,” and (d) that, contrary to the claims of some, the reliability of most of Bekkos’s patristic citations is not in doubt, and that, for those texts whose genuineness is in doubt, there is reason to think that at least some of them are authentic.

… Whether or not one calls John Bekkos’s change of mind regarding the orthodoxy of the Latin Church a “conversion,” it seems undeniable that John Bekkos did, in fact, change his mind about the orthodoxy of the Latin Church as a result of the things he read while in prison in 1273 and immediately after his release from jail—basically, as a result of an intense study of the Greek Church fathers and of the interpretations of the fathers given by men like Niketas of Maroneia and Nikephoros Blemmydes. After publicly stating that the Latins were heretics, he came to see them as orthodox Christians, differing from Christians of the Greek Church, not in the essentials of their belief, but in the manner in which the one, common faith was expressed.

… John Bekkos was not a juggler of texts or an anthologist, but a man who was concerned to state the logical coherence of traditional Christian belief in the Trinity, and to state it in such a way as to show that the insights of the Latin and Greek Christian traditions are ultimately harmonious. He saw, and I think saw correctly, that the Filioque debate had deep historical roots; this debate arose out of earlier misunderstandings concerning person and substance in God. Bekkos sees Photius and Gregory of Cyprus as teaching, not Cappadocian theology pure and simple, but a kind of neo-Cappadocianism that, by radicalizing the person/substance distinction through logical premises which the Cappadocians themselves do not state, draws from this distinction consequences which the Cappadocians themselves do not draw. They could not have drawn these consequences, because to do so would have disallowed much of their own stated thought; they would not have done so, because they recognized that those who spoke differently than they did nevertheless shared with them one faith.
The Cappadocians practiced a kind of ecumenism; John Bekkos, in his role as bishop and teacher, thinks that he is authorized and obliged to do the same in the circumstances of his own time. The Cappadocians, in their day, articulated the mystery of the Trinity in a way that differed, in some significant respects, from the way St. Athanasius or St. Epiphanius or Pope St. Damasus articulated it; yet the Cappadocians strove to maintain communion with St. Athanasius and St. Epiphanius and Pope St. Damasus. Similarly, St. Maximus, in his day, recognized that the Latin-speaking Church articulated the mystery of the Holy Spirit’s procession in a way that differed from the way most Greek-speaking Christians did; yet he strove to maintain the bonds of communion, and said that he had never known the fathers to disagree with each other in thought, even though, very often, they disagree with one another verbally. John Bekkos thinks that reasons of Christian truth and love oblige him to imitate these holy men.

… Trinitarian language becomes meaningless if it loses its concrete moorings in the revelation of God in Christ. John Bekkos understood that, as there is no approaching the Father except through the Son, so there is no knowing the Holy Spirit’s eternal relation to the Father except, implicitly or explicitly, through the Son. The Spirit does not lead to the Father except through the Son, nor does the Spirit come forth from the Father to us except through the Son. When theologians deny a mediation of divine being, when they confidently assert an ontology that makes the Son’s mediation of the Spirit’s ousia impossible, one must ask how they have acquired this mystical knowledge of the Father that shunts the Son off to the side.

John Bekkos did not shunt off the Son. He worshiped God the Logos, and logic played a role in how he worshiped him. He had no use for a “spirituality” that was not true rationality, just as he had no use for any new Spirit who is not through the Son. He was a diligent, painstaking researcher who cared about fact, because he cared about truth; but he did not worship the status quo. Pachymeres and others testify to Bekkos’s faith that, even if his own generation failed to appreciate what he had tried to do, future generations would understand. Time may yet prove him right.

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 22, 2009 (Zenit.org).- A Bulgarian Orthodox prelate told Benedict XVI of his desire for unity, and his commitment to accelerate communion with the Catholic Church.

At the end of Wednesday’s general audience, Bishop Tichon, head of the diocese for Central and Western Europe of the Patriarchate of Bulgaria, stated to the Pope, “We must find unity as soon as possible and finally celebrate together,” L’Osservatore Romano reported.

“People don’t understand our divisions and our discussions,” the bishop stated. He affirmed that he will “not spare any efforts” to work for the quick restoration of “communion between Catholics and Orthodox.”

Bishop Tichon said that “the theological dialogue that is going forward in these days in Cyprus is certainly important, but we should not be afraid to say that we must find as soon as possible the way to celebrate together.”

“A Catholic will not become an Orthodox and vice versa, but we must approach the altar together,” he added.

The prelate told the Pontiff that “this aspiration is a feeling that arose from the works of the assembly” of his diocese, held in Rome, in which all the priests and two delegates from every Bulgarian Orthodox parish took part.

“We have come to the Pope to express our desire for unity and also because he is the Bishop of Rome, the city that hosted our assembly,” he stated.

From Vertograd Orthodox Journal, Newsletter No. 76, Oct. 21, 2009 (via the Irenikon listserv):

“To all intent and purposes, mutual recognition of each others Mysteries already exists between us. We do not have communion in the Mysteries, but we do recognize each others Mysteries”, declared Archbishop Hilarion (Alfeev) on the air during a broadcast of the program “The Church and the World” on the television channel “Russia”, on October 17th (video and text, http://vera.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=237432).

“If a Roman Catholic priest converts to Orthodoxy, we receive him as a priest, and we do not re-ordain him. And that means that, de facto, we recognize the Mysteries of the Roman Catholic Church”, explained Archbishop Hilarion.

Responding to the question of whether Roman Catholics can receive Communion from the Orthodox, or Orthodox Christians from the Roman Catholics, Archbishop Hilarion said that such giving of Communion should not take place, inasmuch as “eucharistic communion has been broken” between the Orthodox and Roman
Catholics. But, at the same time, he made clear that in some cases such
Communion is possible: “Exceptional cases occur, when, for example, a Roman Catholic is dying in some town where there is no Roman Catholic priest at all in the vicinity. So he asks an Orthodox priest to come. Then in such a case, I think, the Orthodox priest should go and give Communion to that person.”

By David J. Melling (1943-2004)

(Many thanks to De Unione Ecclesiarum for the text of this article.)

Early in his ministry as a Non-Juror Anglican priest, the saintly William Law published a sequence of “Letters to a Lady inclined to enter the Church of Rome.” (1732-3) His advice to the Lady was that she, like other laymembers and junior clergy of the Anglican Church, was in no way responsible for the schism separating her and her fellow Anglicans from the Greek and Roman Churches. There is, he argued, no way of escaping the reality of schism, since every history determines that each of us is “necessarily forced into one externally divided part, because there is no part free from external division.” The divisions cannot be escaped by simply changing one’s ecclesiastical allegiance, he tells her, since that action resolves the schism with the Church entered at the price of schism with the Church abandoned. He counsels her to stay where she is, but to love the Greek and Roman Churches with the same love she has for her own Church. Law attributes the schism that divides the Churches to “the unreasonable quarrels and unjust claims of the governors on both sides.” He sees schism as caused by the failings and shortcomings of hierarchs, and as something affecting only the external reality of the Church’s life. Law is not, of course, writing of all kinds of schism. His position flows from the belief that the Roman, Greek and English Churches, whatever their differences in theological tradition and styles of worship, are alike in being effective means of attaining “christian holiness.” He does not have the same positive view of any Christian bodies which are merely human institutions and lack the full means of sanctification.

In Eastern Christian tradition, schism between ecclesial communities is not always read as William Law reads it. Eastern theology has tended to stress the intimate unity of faith and sacrament and to see schism as a sign of heresy. Roman Catholic theology, on the other hand, has generally distinguished more sharply between schism, in which both the separated communities may be fully orthodox and retain a full sacramental life, and formal heresy which involves the rejection of the Church’s dogmatic teaching. Roman Catholic sacramental theology has tended to regard heretical sacraments as invalid by reason of heresy only in those cases when the heresy explicitly denied the Church’s dogmatic teaching about the sacraments. The consequence of such a denial is obvious: a heretical priest who does not believe in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the Real Presence or the Apostolic Succession can hardly be the presiding minister at a Divine Liturgy, consecrating this bread and this wine to become the Body and Blood of Christ, since that is precisely what he does not believe he is authorised to do and what he believes does not come about even when a Catholic or Orthodox priest celebrates the Mass. Roman Catholic tradition differs from Eastern Orthodox in the relative status it accords the canons of the Ecumenical Councils. In Catholic theology, the infallibility attaching to the dogmatic definitions of the Councils is sharply distinguished from the relative degree of authority accorded their disciplinary and legal decisions. Orthodox Christians would not normally go so far as to claim the disciplinary canons of the Ecumenical Councils are absolutely immutable and irreformable, but tend to see them as reformable only by the authority of another Ecumenical Council.

This attitude to the legislation of the Ecumenical Councils explains in part the bitterness of the schism between Old Calendarists and New Calendarists in the Greek world. The Old Calendarists have consistently and vehemently denied the right of Patriarchs, Hierarchs and local synods to alter the calendrical arrangements laid down in the canons of the Council of Nicaea. Given the nature of what they see as a grave breach of Orthodox ecclesiastical discipline, some, but not all, Old Calendarists have gone further, and invoking the authority of St. Basil the Great, have seen New Calendarists not only as schismatics, but as a religious body whose sacraments are devoid of grace. Interestingly, this schism as the Old Calendarists see it does indeed conform in part at least to William Law’s characterisation of schism, since what the Old Calendarists object to is precisely what they see as high-handed, unlawful and unreasonable action by the Church’s hierarchs. This was equally an issue in the schism between the Old Believers and the Russian Orthodox Church. In both cases, what was judged by their opponents to be the illegitimate use of Hierarchical authority to alter the calendar in the one case, the service books in the other, was interpreted not merely as imposing on the Church untraditional and objectionable legislation, but also as signifying a drift into heresy that made schism both inevitable and a matter of inescapable duty. William Law, however, in speaking of the schism between the Roman and English Churches emphasises that the “unreasonable quarrels and unjust claims of the governors” were on both sides. An authoritarian and assertive Papacy had found its own claims reflected in the distorting mirror of Henry VIII’s assertion of his own divine right to rule as “Supreme Head” of the English Church. The Old Believers and Old Calendarists reflect the position not of the Vatican in relation to the Church of England, but of the Catholic Recusants, loyal to the religion they inherited from their fathers and mothers, and unable to accept the changes imposed by state authority. Conservative dissent is always an embarrassment to church authorities. It is not obvious exactly how one can become a heretic by standing fast on yesterday’s orthodoxy.

Law’s argument that schism as such is fundamentally a matter of the external reality of the Church is of particular significance if we attempt to interpret the schism between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The mutual excommunications of 1054, while furnishing a fine example of the “unreasonable quarrels and unjust claims” which Law identifies as the fundamental cause of schism, were neither the origin nor the legal basis of the schism. Had they been so, the lifting of the excommunications by the Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch would have brought the schism to an end. It continues. The schism between Catholics and Orthodox continues, yet the full ecclesial life of both Churches also continues. While the absence of external institutional unity may be a cause of suffering and something to deplore, it has not prevented either Church from producing a rich crop of saints, from engaging in Apostolic missionary work, from serving the needy, from finding within its own spiritual resources the means for renewal.

The notion that Western and Eastern Churches were ever identical in theology, ritual and social life, is pure fantasy. Theological differences existed in the days when the Church of the Roman Empire was a legal unity. The typically Augustinian doctrine of Original Sin as inherited guilt is to be found in the doctrinal canons of the early sixth century councils of Carthage and Orange, and the latter council even went so far as to condemn the typical Eastern view that what is inherited from Adam and Eve as a consequence of their sin is our mortality. The dogmatic canons of the latter council were confirmed by Pope Boniface II. Eastern and Western Churches had different rules concerning the bread to be used in the Eucharist, different rules for fasting, clerical celibacy, the ordination of eunuchs, and later, the legitimacy of fourth marriages and the permissibility of divorce even during the period when the Churches were in full communion.

The schism between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches did not begin, nor was it completed in 1054. Indeed, one wonders at exactly what point in history many communities realised they were in schism from the other church. The failed reunion councils, the intrusion of Latin bishops in the wake of the Crusades, the sack of Constantinople and the profanation of Hagia Sophia in 1208 and the consequences of the Fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Turks all helped crystallize out a pattern of relations that still managed to retain some fluidity even into the seventeenth century. The establishment of Eastern Catholic jurisdictions in the Patriarchate of Antioch and in the east of Poland helped considerably to confirm the external separation of the two Church institutions. The external separation spread and became firm. But what changed in the life of ordinary parishes? Some experienced a shift in hierarchical authority. Some experienced the arrival of new religious orders. In traditional Orthodox and Latin Catholic communities nothing took place. The life of the local Church carried on as before. Where things did change, it was not as a direct result of the schism, but as a result of the local changes taking place in the life of one Church or the other — e.g., the implementation of the reforms of the Council of Trent.

The heart of the life of every Catholic or Orthodox church, is the celebration of the Divine Liturgy. In the Liturgy we find ourselves called to communion with Our Lord, to eat mystically His Body and Blood in the form of bread and wine, to become one with Him, to be incorporated in Him. Our communion with Christ draws us into the life of the Holy Trinity. It is by the Power of the Holy Spirit He became a human being; it is by the Power of the Holy Spirit that the mystery of the Eucharist incorporates us in Christ. The Liturgy we celebrate here in our churches is an image of the Eternal Liturgy of the Court of Heaven. The barriers between Heaven and Earth are broken as the power of the Holy Spirit makes this holy table the Throne where the Son of God becomes present amongst us. Christ is “a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek” [Heb.5, 6] the one true High Priest of all humanity. He is the Son and Word of God, Who has put on our humanity so that we may share His Divinity. He is the one perfect Sacrificial Victim who “has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” [Heb.9, 26] He offers Himself once and for all, not in the sanctuary of the earthly Temple, but entering “into Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” [Heb.9, 24] His death on Calvary is the visible historical realisation of Christ’s sacrifice for us. In the Eucharistic Liturgy, the same High Priest is present offering Himself to the Father for us, and inviting us to the Mystic Feast where He Himself becomes our food and drink so that we become one with Him, becoming by His grace what He is by nature. The Son of God offers Himself to us to make us too children of God. But we stand in separate churches, hear different priests recite the ancient words of the anaphora, communicate from separate chalices. To that extent, precisely to that extent, the schism between Catholics and Orthodox is real. But we communicate together in the Body and Blood of the one Anointed, we put on the one Christ in Baptism and are incorporated in the one Anointed in the Mystical Supper. It is our communion with Him, and in Him with one another that is the fundamental basis of our relation to each other. In the most basic and the most important sense, we are in communion with one another and always have been. In Him we are in communion with each other in a sense far more important than that in which, because of the schism between the churches, we are separated. We are united in Christ by His Holy Spirit, and divided outwardly by the inherited habit of schism.

Understandably in this century of ecumenical politics and ecclesiastical bureaucracy, there is a broad pattern of exploratory discussions and negotiations underway aimed at the removal of the scandal of schism. Whatever may be agreed by such a path, for the Orthodox it will be necessary to find the consent of the Church in a way other than by Patriarchal or Synodical decree, unless the decree be that of what is recognised as an Ecumenical Council. The immediate response of the Monks of Mount Athos to the recent agreement between representatives of the Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox makes clear exactly what problems such negotiations will face. The theologians and hierarchs involved in the Orthodox-Oriental Orthodox discussions have published a report that shows a true spirit of conciliation and mutual acceptance. Unfortunately, it proceeds from and addresses the mind-set of those who are prepared to see the proceedings of Ecumenical Councils in their historical and political relativity, and are ready to renegotiate relations amongst Churches without demanding formal acceptance of the dogmatic definitions of the Seven Councils. There may be many Orthodox who share such an outlook: they do not include the Holy Epistasia of Mount Athos or the many thousands who will stand in solidarity with the Athonite Community in seeing the definitions of the Ecumenical Councils as infallible and irreformable, as divinely inspired, and as the only possible basis for unity.

A process of growing together based on mutual trust and respect offers a much more realistic model for future developments than the repetition of ancient errors by the construction of eirenic but ambiguous documents and the validation of proposals for reunion by Patriarchal fiat or Synodical decree. Face to face, local communities can experience for themselves the reality of their oneness in Christ — or they can discover precisely the opposite. The zeal for full union will come from mutual knowledge, shared experience and profoundly respectful love: it can also come from the vivid awareness of the reality of our present communion with each other in Christ. That is not to say the hierarchs have no role in promoting the removal of schism. Pope John Paul II has made a major personal contribution in the last few months with the two letters Orientale Lumen and Ut Unum Sint. Sadly, the publicity given the second of these encyclicals has almost totally overshadowed the first, a document of immense importance for Catholic-Orthodox relations, emphasising, as it does, the need for Western clergy and theologians to become far better acquainted with the Eastern tradition of theology and Christian worship. Indeed, the Encyclical shows a warm sympathy for and a profound awareness of Eastern theology. It also offers an unusual opportunity for Orthodox and Eastern Catholics to co-operate in responding to the Pope in creating opportunities for Western brethren to learn more of our shared Eastern tradition. Co-operation between Orthodox and Eastern Catholics may seem an odd thing to recommend. For many Orthodox “Uniatism” remains an offensive and illegitimate method of Vatican proselytism. Whatever the truth of such a charge, there is a need for Orthodox Christians to face the challenge of the deep loyalty to Rome shown by many Eastern Catholic communities, even in the face of contemptuous treatment by Latins, even of appalling humiliations, the ultimate being that revealed by the late Melkite Patriarch Maximos IV when he disclosed, that in the aftermath of the then patriarch’s opposition to the definition of Papal infallibility at the first Vatican council, His Beatitude had been forced to the ground before the Papal throne while Pius IX placed his foot on his head. Loyalty in the face of such provocation merits at least astonished respect.

The draft agreement between Catholic and Orthodox theologians reached at Balamand in 1993 proposes a helpful way forward here, in proposing a formal rejection by the Catholic Church, Latin as well as Eastern, of “proselytizing among the Orthodox.” Once it becomes clear to the Orthodox that this commitment is serious, (and at the moment that is very far from clear) the possibility will grow of precisely the open and co-operative dialogue between Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox that the Balamand agreement envisages. It has, however, to be recognised that in both Catholic and Orthodox Churches there remain zealots and integrists who will defend forever a maximalist ecclesiology which leaves no room for any ecumenical activity whatsoever, since it sees schism as defining the boundaries of the Church of Christ, outside of which there exist heretical conventicles devoid of sacramental grace. In the Orthodox Church such interests still have a powerful voice, as Patriarch Bartholomaeos has discovered to his cost, facing demonstrations protesting against his brotherly relationship with the Pope, and denunciation of him as trying to drag the Orthodox Church into union with Rome.

There are, indeed, specific problems in the relation of Catholic and Orthodox Churches that the present Ecumenical Patriarch’s very public role has made vividly evident to many Orthodox. The Ecumenical Patriarch’s role as senior hierarch of the Orthodox communion is far more fragile than his public image sometimes suggests. In Rome he may look like the Eastern counterpart of the Pope, and the vigour with which he has exercised and even developed his role in the Orthodox Church may give plausibility to that image, but the fact remains that he is not the linear superior of the chief hierarchs of other autocephalous Churches, but only the first among equals among them, and that is something very different. Orthodox tradition, moreover, has never recognised any hierarchical role above that of the local bishop as of divine authority. Any higher layer of authority and responsibility derives from Synodical or sometimes even state decision. There is nothing inevitable or immutable in the Primacy of Constantinople. Nor can the Ecumenical Patriarch assert his authority to guarantee the Orthodox Church’s acceptance of the policy he espouses. The same arguments that establish the ecclesiastical and human origin of the patriarchates are deployed by Orthodox to reject Catholic claims of divine institution for the Roman Papacy, and of course to reject any claims to Papal supremacy. (Not, of course, to the Primacy of Rome, that is a quite different and relatively uncontroversial matter.) It is, then, very helpful to see the Pope is clearly aware that his own office as interpreted by Vatican theologians and canonists is experienced by Christians of other traditions as a major obstacle to unity. In his encyclical Ut Unum Sint he calls for a “patient and fraternal dialogue” on the nature and exercise of his primacy. This is a welcome and helpful development.

Progress in extricating ourselves from the bad habit of schism involves a reappraisal of what is central to our Christian heritage and what is transitory and peripheral, what is essential and what is merely a matter of cultural tradition. When we return to the heart and centre of our faith, we find ourselves together in Christ. If we lose the living awareness of our oneness in Christ and identify ourselves simply in terms of a particular community’s history and interests, we find a chasm yawning at our feet. The full flourishing of the spirit of schism is not merely external separation and institutional rivalry, its fruit can be tasted at the point where religious identity becomes a means of justifying political and ethnic conflict.

Good friend of the blog Michaël sends along this excerpt from a recent interview with Francis Cardinal George of Chicago. I think it’s of particular interest to our Orthodox readers, as it sheds light on how a conservative Roman Catholic bishop understands the delicate balance between primacy and conciliarity in his own communion.

You spend a fair bit of space responding to the critique offered by Peter Steinfels in his book A People Adrift, but there’s one point you mention and then let drop. He suggests, as many others have, that the American bishops are spineless when it comes to Rome – that is, constantly looking over your shoulder at how people in Rome will react. Is there any merit to that?

I don’t think so. People say that again and again. We have a very adult discussion with the Holy See, while at the same time acknowledging that the pope is our father too, and that the primacy of Peter is a datum of revelation that constitutes the church internally as well as externally. There’s great respect, but bishops will go back to the Holy See again and again if they think there’s been a mistake on the governmental level. It goes on all the time. We’re doing it now, this week. This idea that we’re all sitting around waiting to see what somebody over here in the Curia will do, whether to pat us on the back or to give us a slap on the hand … I don’t find that attitude at all, I really don’t.

I think the bishops know that, by Christ’s will, they are responsible for their churches. They’re in Catholic communion, they’re not franchises of General Motors. I think the Holy See knows that too … it’s a bureaucracy, of course, and like any bureaucracy, it’s mixed, but on the whole they know it. They expect us to come back and say, ‘This works, this doesn’t work.’ Why are they revising the Code of Canon Law? Because a bunch of bishops came back and said, ‘This doesn’t work.’ Again and again, they’ll do that.

Of course, they’ll do that slowly. Rome has its own rhythms, and sometimes it feels like we’ll all be dead before something happens. Often they can be too willing to say, ‘time will take care of this,’ when something really is urgent. That’s a cultural problem.

You don’t wake up in a cold sweat worrying about how Rome will react to whatever you say or do?

I don’t know any bishop who fits that description. There may be, but it’s certainly not the description of the conference and certainly not the description of the bishops I know. If people mean that we’re concerned to be orthodox in our teaching, then sure, yeah. But if you’re saying that the teaching is just defined by whatever the pope thinks of in the morning, no. The pope is also subservient to the gospel, as Benedict says very clearly, and to the tradition. He is a marker for it, and we look to see what he says, but because we want to be faithful to Christ, not because he says it.

There’s a concern that we are faithful to the apostolic tradition, and the pope is a marker for that to which we pay attention, obviously carefully. But mostly it’s our faith that makes us of one mind with the pope, it’s not his commands. The same thing is true for governance generally, although it’s a little different, because there’s a little more independence, also in the Code itself. Still, you want to govern in communion … the whole book is about that. There’s a concern that we govern not just in communion with the pope, but with the bishops of Brazil, for example. Not in the same way, but we’re a universal communion.

The concern for communion doesn’t mean we’re afraid of being reprimanded. The concern for truth doesn’t mean that we’re afraid of being scolded. Instead, it means that we’re Catholic.

From the blog Communio, via Sean, the recent letter of Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon to the Archbishop of Athens and the Metropolitans of Greece on their Church’s ongoing dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church. Emphasis added.

Your Eminence,

Given that much turmoil has been unduly created by certain circles, on the subject of the official theological Dialogue between Orthodox and Roman Catholics, and that views have also been expressed, which often range between inaccuracy and open falsehood and slander, I am hereby addressing Your affection in order to clarify the following:

1. The aforementioned theological Dialogue does not constitute a concern of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and much less, that of a specific person, but is something that is taking place upon the decision of all the autocephalous and autonomous Orthodox Churches without exception. Specifically with regard to the present period of the Dialogue, during which the undersigned has the co-chairmanship from the Orthodox side, the agreement of all the Orthodox Churches for the continuation of the Dialogue has been recorded in Memoranda signed by the venerable Primates of the Orthodox Churches, which are hereto attached in photocopy.  As Your Eminence will see when reading these Memoranda, even the most holy Church of Greece – and in fact with a Synodical decision – has admitted that “despite the existing difficulties, which spring from the provocative activities of Unia to the detriment of the flock of the Orthodox Church, the said Theological Dialogue must continue.”  Consequently, those opposed to the said theological Dialogue are doubting and judging pan-Orthodox decisions, which have been reached synodically. By claiming solely as their own the genuine conscience of Orthodoxy, these people are in essence doubting the Orthodoxy not only of certain persons – as they misguidedly insist – but of the very Primates and sacred Synods of all the most holy Orthodox Churches.

2. The same things apply in the case of the said Dialogue.  We are informed that a certain professor in his letter to the Reverend Hierarchs is censuring the topic of primacy as a chosen topic for the theological Dialogue, and believes that the Dialogue should be concerning itself with other matters.  But the said professor is either ignorant of, or indifferent to, the fact that – again – the topic of the Dialogue was decided on at a pan-orthodox level. The attached Memoranda, signed by all the Primates of the Orthodox Churches, testify to and verify this.  The most holy Church of Greece thus accepts that “this discussion (regarding Unia) can, for the sake of facilitating the course of the Dialogue, be conducted within the framework of ecclesiology through the prism of the primacy”.  This is precisely what we normally intend to do, during the forthcoming discussion of the subject “The Primacy during the 2nd Millennium”, which is also when Unia first appeared. The remaining topics that the said professor referred to will by no means be overlooked by the Dialogue. However, during the present phase, as decided at an inter-orthodox level from the beginning of the Dialogue, the focal point of the discussion is Ecclesiology. It is duly respected and legitimate, for the said professor – or anyone else – to have a different point of view, but it is inadmissible to be crying out that Orthodoxy is in danger because the Primates who are shepherding Her do not share his opinion.  Where are we heading as a Church, my Reverend holy brother?

3. It is being propagated very falsely and conspiringly that the signing of the union of the Churches is imminent! A professor emeritus of Theology, who is well known for his ill-will towards my person, had visited a Hierarch of the Church of Greece and had told him that he knew with certainty (!) that the union had already been signed (in Ravenna!) and that the relative announcement was a matter of time!!!  Clergy and laity have approached me and asked me if it is true that the union is to be signed in Cyprus, in October!  Obviously, a feeling of unrest is being attempted among the people of God through this behaviour, with unpredictable consequences for the unity of the Church.  However, those who are disseminating these things are fully aware (as long as they have not been blinded by empathy, fanaticism or a mania for self-projection), firstly, that the ongoing theological Dialogue has yet to span an extremely long course, because the theological differences that have accumulated during the one thousand years of division are many; and secondly, that the Committee for the Dialogue is entirely unqualified for the “signing” of a union, given that this right belongs to the Synods of the Churches.  Therefore, why all the misinformation? Can’t the disseminators of these false “updates” think of what the consequences will be for the unity of the Church?  «He who agitates (God’s people) shall bear the blame, whoever he may be» (Galatians 5:10).

Your Eminence,

The responsibility of all of us, and mostly of the bishops who have been appointed by God to cater to the safeguarding of the canonical unity of their flock, is an immense one.

What is being jeopardized is ecclesiological: What is the authority and the prestige of Conciliar decisions? Do we conform to the Conciliar decisions as we are already doing – and being attacked for doing so – or do we conform to the “zealots” of Orthodoxy?  Can there be an Orthodoxy and Dogmas without any Conciliar rulings?

We ask you to please place yourself on the matter, before we are led to a complete demerit of Conciliar decisions, and before Your flock disintegrates because of negligence on our part.

In humility and in awareness of episcopal responsibility, we submit the above to Your affection and judgment and remain,

in Athens the 26th of September 2009

With Respect, honour and love in the Lord

+ John of Pergamon

Orthodox Co-Chairman of the Committee for the Theological Dialogue between Orthodox and Roman Catholics

“Rejoice, much-sorrowing Mother of God, turn our sorrows into joy and soften the hearts of evil men!”

I’ve been thinking a bit about this topic lately, and since it came up recently in the comments to this post, I thought I’d focus the discussion on this article of the late Melkite Catholic Archbishop Elias Zoghby. It’s come up before here at Eirenikon. The text of the article comes from the blog Torn Notebook (part 1 and part 2) – and, by the way, the comments there are well worth reading through.

Archbishop Elias Zoghby, A Voice from the Byzantine East, R. Bernard trans., (Newton, MA: Eparchy of Newton, 1992), pp. 163-169.

The Indissolubility of Marriage

The problem which probably causes more anguish to young married people than birth control is that of the innocent spouse in the prime of life (usually the young lady, so we shall use the feminine form throughout this chapter to denote the wronged spouse) who is deserted by her partner and contracts a new union. The innocent party goes to her parish priest or bishop for a solution but hears: “I can do nothing for you. Pray and resign yourself to living alone for the rest of your life because you cannot marry again and expect to remain in the good graces of the Church.”

Such an unrealistic response is an insult to the young person’s inherent dignity! Furthermore, it presupposes an heroic virtue, a rare faith and an exceptional temperament. This almost abnormal way of life is not for everyone. After all, the young person was married in the first place because she didn’t feel called to perpetual continence. Now she is being cornered into contracting a new and illegitimate union outside the Church so as to avoid physical and emotional pressure. This good and normal Catholic now “officially” becomes a renegade and is even tortured by her own conscience. Only one course of action is left open: either become an exceptional soul overnight or perish!

Nothing but common sense tells us that perpetual continence is not the answer for the majority of Christians in such a predicament. In other words, we Church officials know that we are leaving these young and innocent victims without an answer. We ask them to depend upon that faith which works miracles, but we forget such faith is not given to everyone. Many of us, even we who are priests and bishops, still have a long struggle and a great amount of prayer ahead of us before we will even be able to approach it, let alone attain it!

The question presented us today by these disturbed people is, therefore, the following: “Does the Church have the right to tell an innocent member of the laity, whatever the nature of the problem disturbing him: ‘Solve it yourself! I have no solution for your case,’ or indeed can the Church provide in this case an exceptional solution which she knows to be suited only for a tiny minority?”

The Church has certainly received sufficient authority from Christ, its founder, to offer all its children the means of salvation proportionate to their strength. Heroism, the state of perfection—these have never been imposed by Christ under pain of eternal perdition. “If you wish to be perfect,” Christ says, but only “if you wish…”.

The Church, therefore, has sufficient authority to protect the innocent party against the consequences of the other partner’s wrongdoing. It does not seem normal that perpetual continence, which belongs to the state of perfection alone, can be imposed upon the innocent spouse as an obloigation or a punishment simply because the other spouse has proven to be false! The Eastern Churches have always known that they possessed the authority to help the innocent victim and, what is more, they have always made use of it.

The marriage bond has certainly been rendered indissoluble by the positive law of Christ. Yet, as the Gospel of St. Matthew points out: “except in circumstances of adultery” (cf. Matthew 5.32, 9.6). It is the duty of the Church to make sense of this parenthetical clause. If the Church of Rome has interpreted it in a restrictive sense, this is not true in the Christian East where the Church has interpreted it, from the very first centuries of its existence, in favor of possible remarriage for the innocent spouse.

It is true that the Council of Trent, in its twenty-fourth session (canon 7 of De Matrimonio) sanctioned the restrictive Roman interpretation, but it is well known that the final formula adopted by Trent for this canon had been purposely altered so as not to exclude the Eastern Christian tradition. This tradition followed (and still follows) a practice contrary to that of the Church of Rome. History gives credit for this act to the representatives from the area of Venice [1] who were well acquainted with the Greek tradition, which was founded upon the interpretation of the Greek Fathers and even of some Western Fathers, such as St. Ambrose of Milan.

We know how the Eastern Fathers tried to discourage widows and widowers from contracting second marriages, following in this the counsel of the Apostle Paul; but they never intended to deprive the innocent spouse, who had been unjustly abandoned, of the right to remarry. This tradition, preserved in and exercised by the East, was in no way dissolved in the six centuries of union. There is no reason why it could not be brought back into use today and adopted by Western Catholics. The progress of patristic studies has, in effect, put in bold relief the doctrines of the Eastern Fathers who were no less competent moralists and exegetes than the Western Fathers.

Pastoral solicitude for the wronged is suggested in another way by Western canonists. By means of a subtle casuistry, which sometimes borders upon acrobatics, they have devoted themselves with diligent application to uncovering every impediment capable of vitiating the marriage bond. This is done because of their pastoral concern. Sometimes, for example, it happens that somebody suddenly discovers an impediment of affinity after ten or twenty years of marriage (one which was unsuspected all the while!) and now this impediment is permitted to afford a complete resolution of the “problem” as if by magic! Though canon lawyers find this state of affairs both natural and normal, those of us who are pastors have come to realize that our people are very often confused and scandalized by this.

It is not the tradition of the Eastern Fathers, as outlined above, more suitable than the impediments to marriage in extending Divine Mercy toward some Christian spouses? [2] Undoubtedly, inconsiderate action cannot be tolerated here either; abuses are always possible. But, the abuse of authority does not destroy authority.

During this age of ecumenism and dialogue, can the Catholic Church recognize this longstanding tradition of the Eastern Churches? Or, what is more important to it: Can its theologians apply themselves to the study of this problem and provide a remedy for the anguish of the innocent party, permanently abandoned by his or her spouse, and to deliver this person from a danger constituting a grace menace to the soul?

My statements above are of a strictly pastoral nature. My aim is to help the Western Catholic Church discover a solution for the problem faced by so many young marrieds who are doomed to a single life of loneliness should they decide to separate. As it is now, through no fault of their own, they are forced to endure continence as a matter of obligation.

In addition, I have clearly affirmed the immutable principle of the permanency of the married state. In doing this, I have purposely avoided using the word “divorce” because the Catholic use of this word clearly denotes an infraction of the unchangeable principle of the indissolubility of marriage.

The indissolubility is so deeply embedded in the traditions of both East and West, Orthodox as well as Catholic, that it can never be questioned. In effect, the Orthodox tradition itself has always held marriage indissoluble as the union of Christ and His Spouse, the Church, a union which remains the type exemplaire of the monogamous sacramental marriage of Christians. In Orthodox theology, divorce is nothing but a dispensation allowed the innocent party in certain, well-defined instances and from motives of purely pastoral concern, in virtue of what Orthodox theology calls the “principle of economy”, which means “dispensation” or, more accurately, “condescension”. This dispensation does not exclude or set aside the principle of indissolubility. This principle is even used in much the same way as the dispensation of a valid, consummated marriage are allowed by the Western Catholic Church through the Petrine Privilege. We are not speaking here of abuses; they are always possible, but they do not change the theological reality.

Therefore, it is this “dispensation” on behalf of the innocent spouse that I suggest be employed by the Catholic Church of the Western tradition. When I referred to the traditional Eastern interpretation of Matthew 5 and 19, I saw the eventual possibility of additional reasons for dispensations to supplement those already admitted by Western Catholics, such as fornication and the abandonment of one spouse by the other, so as to keep away the peril of damnation which menaces the innocent spouse. Such a dispensation would not cast any doubt upon the indissolubility of the marriage bond any more than do the other dispensations.

Such a proposal is not fruitless, despite what certain militant Roman canonists contend, beacuse it rests upon the indisputable authority of the blessed Fathers and Doctors of the Eastern Churches—these same saints who are annually commemorated in the Roman liturgical calendar—who cannot be accused of having given up truth while interpreting the Lord’s words, or of interpreting the Lord’s words to suit their personal ambitions.

It is the perspective of the universal fidelity of the East, as well as of the West, that the Roman Church has never contested the legitimacy of the Eastern ruling favorable to the remarriage of the innocent marital partner, either after the separation of the two great Christian halves of the Church, or during their long centuries of unity.

To anyone who has observed the Eastern Catholic communities in union with Rome, it goes without saying that in these days—and it grieves me to admit it—almost all of the Eastern Catholic Churches follow contemporary Latin-Roman discipline and practices with regard to remarriage.

As for the Eastern way of viewing divorce and remarriage, objective evidence proves that the Fathers and Doctors of the East who developed the basic tenets of all Christian doctrine could not have been influenced by politics or any other aspect of Byzantine civil or legal tradition in interpreting Christ’s words in Matthew chapters 5 and 19 as they did. To assume this would be to forget what the universal Church owes to their knowledge and holiness.

The Justinian Code which was promulgated toward the end of the sixth century adopted the Eastern discipline on marriage. But it would scarcely have influenced Origen, St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil [3], St. Epiphanius [4], and others who lived some 350 years before this Code was ever conceived, as some Latin canonists believe. The Justinian Code merely reflected the doctrine and practices of the Eastern Churches.

As we have seen, long before the schism with Rome, Eastern Christianity adopted the more lenient interpretation of the law (favoring the innocent party) and also put it into practice. And yet the Easterners were never condemned for this—-not during the first thousand years when they were in full and visible communion with the Roman See; not by the Ecumenical Councils over which presided the representatives of the Bishop of Rome and were attended by both Eastern and Western bishops; and not by any other high authorities in the undivided Church. These facts alone should be enough to prove that the Roman Church never contested the legitimacy of the Eastern discipline in this matter.

The Church of the East has always followed this tradition of tolerance of divorce and has remained faithful to it. The West maintained it for many hundreds of years with the positive approval of many of its bishops, popes, and councils, and in fact never attempted to condemn it in the East, even after cessation of its practice in the West.

In conclusion, we reiterate that this is an exegetical, canonical and pastoral problem which cannot be ignored. As for the opportunity of permitting a new reason (or reasons) for dispensation analogous to those already introduced in the Roman Church by reason of the Petrine Privilege, this decision remains in the hands of the Church.

NOTES

1. There is still a somewhat large and visible Orthodox population in Venice and its vicinity.

2. Father David Kirk, a Melkite Greek Catholic priest (founder of Emmaus House in Harlem, New York City) has recently said: “The tradition of Eastern Christianity is essentially one of compassion. People must be given a second chance. The absolute value of the human person must be underlined. Just as the monk can abandon his state in the name of his person, so the same freedom exists [in the Eastern Churches] for a married person. We are not free if we can only say ‘yes’ at one moment and cannot say ‘no’ at another moment.” (Cf. Rev. David Kirk, “An Eastern Catholic Understanding of Sexuality,” in U.S. Catholic-Jubilee, March 1970, pp. 39-42.)

3. St. Basil, in whose immediate family were several saints, was Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia during the fourth century. He said: “I am not sure that a womn who lives with a man who has been abandoned by his wife could be called adulterous.”

4. St. Epiphanius, Archbishop of Constantia on Cyprus during the fourth century, wrote: “Divine Law does not condemn a man who has been abandoned by his wife, nor a woman who has been abandoned by her husband, for remarrying.” See also the following:

“Better to break a marriage than be damned.” From Homily on 1 Corinthians by St. John Chrysostom (Migne: P.G. 61, 155)

“He who cannot keep continence after the death of his first wife for a valid motive, as fornication, adulter, or another misdeed, if he takes another wife, or if the wife [in similar circumstances] takes another husband, the Divine Logos does not condemn him or exclude him from the Church…” From Against Heresies by St. Epiphanius of Cyprus (Migne: P.G. 41, 1024)

For a further explanation of conditions that are tantamount to death so far as the marriage bond is concerned, see Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective by John Meyendorff (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir Seminary Press, 1970).

From the new promising new blog, Toward Transfiguration, by Nathan, a seminarian of St Vladimir’s in Crestwood, NY –

Last night my wife and I drove north of New York city and across the Tapan Zee bridge to see an icon visiting from Moscow. It was a more powerful experience than we reckoned for. Indeed, the evening was pregnant with prophecy.

The church, a small Russian Orthodox church in a picturesque and rocky New York village right on the west side of the Hudson, was filled with Russians in its narrow bosom. It was a beautiful church, with icons and paintings from floor to ceiling, an elaborate icon screen with brass overlays everywhere, and the many-layered architecture you find only in such places.

In the middle of the church, underneath brass candle holders filled with beeswax candles dancing with flame, stood a very small icon in a glass case. It is the icon of the Theotokos, or Birth-Giver of God, the “Softener of Evil Hearts.” It’s also called “Symeon’s Prophecy,” since it shows seven swords pointed towards the center of the Virgin’s torso, an allusion to Luke 2:34-25. It’s a miraculous icon, associated with physical healing and miracles, but especially for softening hearts towards God and one another of those who pray before it… and softening the hearts of their enemies, too.

What was the icon doing here? On February 2, 2009, the day that the current Patriarch of Moscow Kyrill was enthroned, it miraculously and profusely began gushing pure myrrh. Since then, it’s been on tour.

The service was an Akathist hymn, a long string of poetic verses recounting step by step the crucible of discipleship for Mary from the scriptures, and the sufferings that both she and her Son experienced. Afterwards, the priest anointed all of us with the myrrh from the icon mixed with olive oil. Unexpectedly to us, we saw the anointing of the icon at work in the gift of tears.

The atmosphere of the church was different: my wife remarked on the way home that people were transfixed in meekness. It was spontaneous. Even the priest briefly lost composure and choked up at certain points while reading the prayers of the Akathist, something I’ve rarely seen a priest do. When we got back into our car afterwards, we spontaneously began praying for a family member, and found ourselves weeping, as well. Tears are only tears most of the time. But sometimes they are qualitatively different.

Now what is the meaning of spontaneous tears in a church, and why did an icon associated strongly with miracles of reconciliation and the softening of hearts, and inspired by a Latin devotion, suddenly begin to stream myrrh at the election of the new patriarch of Moscow?

Could it signify that Patriarch Kyrill has been ordained in God’s economy for an extraordinary mission in the midst of a movement of repentance in suffering?

Let me get bolder: not to proclaim a prophecy, but a possibility.

The icon is well known for miracles of softening hearts hardened towards one another in animosity, but it represents reconciliation in another way. The icon is a bridge between East and West, drawing from western piety about the Seven Sorrows and plopping them down squarely in a thoroughly Eastern and Byzantine cultural frame.

Could it therefore be that events that have yet to unfold shall thrust Patriarch Kyrill into the place where he shall enact God’s will for the reconciliation of his divided people, Catholic and Orthodox? Church unity, from a human perspective, will take generations… even at the extremest stretch of optimistic imagination. Yet I believe that there is reason to believe that it can happen suddenly and soon. Stay posted further posts to explain that bold statement later.

But any sign of the Kingdom that God gives us,he gives us to drive us towards prayer and repentance, and not speculation. So let us take the wonder of this icon as a sign that God has given us a very special opportunity in this present time since the election of Patriarch Kyrill: an opportunity to have our prayers born powerfully heavenward on the wings of the Holy Spirit who rushes to answer when we pray that God will soften the animosity of hearts towards one another and heal his divided Church.

Let’s seize this opening in the Heavens and pray as fervently as we can for unity, and for His Holiness Kyrill.

Let us also take the occasion to meditate on how the Mother of God suffered for Christ during her earthly life through the slander, animosity, and shaming of others, and allow those swords that Symeon prophesied would lay bear the thoughts and intents of many hearts to pierce our own souls also. Then the Holy Spirit will soften our evil hearts and lead us to true repentance.