‘We should not pretend we are close to solving this problem’
BY JOHN BURGER
National Catholic Register
Monday, February 07, 2011
(Emphasis and [my comments] added)
There’s been encouraging — sometimes tantalizing — news in recent years about the growing potential for Catholic-Orthodox unification. Pope Benedict XVI is said to be viewed more favorably by the Orthodox than his predecessor. The Catholic Archbishop of Moscow exclaimed in 2009 that unity with the Orthodox could be achieved “within months.” And the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation issued a document last October that envisions practical steps each Church can begin taking to begin the process of reunification.
But Russian Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev is a lot more cautious about any predictions of imminent unity between East and West. Archbishop Hilarion heads the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External Church Relations, a position that was held by now-Patriarch Kirill before Patriarch Alexei died in 2008.
At 44, Hilarion has experienced a meteoric rise in the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church. A brilliant theologian and author, he was elected bishop at age 35, has served as bishop of Vienna and head of the Representation of the Russian Orthodox Church to the European Institutions in Brussels. He is deeply involved in ecumenical dialogues with the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.
He’s also an accomplished composer and is in New York for the U.S. English-language premiere of his St. Matthew Passion oratorio this evening. He also delivered the annual Father Alexander Schmemann lecture at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y., on Saturday, where he spoke about the meaning of icons in the Orthodox Church.
Thanks to Father John Behr and Deborah Belonick of St. Vladimir’s, I was able to sit down with Archbishop Hilarion for a chat after the lecture. Here’s a transcript of our conversation.
How important is Christian unity to the Orthodox Church?
The notion of Christian unity is essentially linked to the last words of Jesus Christ, which he pronounced at the Last Supper and, notably, those which were addressed to his father, when he preached about the unity of his disciples. It is a tragedy that Christ’s disciples throughout the world were unable to preserve this unity and that many schisms and divisions arose in the Church, and the call to Christian unity is the ultimate goal of our exposure to inter-Christian activities and to various dialogues which we lead with the Roman Catholic Church and with other Christian traditions.
So I think for an Orthodox Christian, it is essential to participate in inter-Christian exchanges in order to bring different Christian traditions closer to mutual understanding in order to overcome centuries of prejudices with the ultimate goal of the restoration of the full Eucharistic communion between various Christian denominations.
Of course, the Orthodox and the Catholic are the closest ones. We have certain differences in dogma, certain differences in ecclesiology, but we have the same teaching on the apostolic succession of the hierarchy, on the sacraments and on the Church in general.
Therefore, though there are obstacles to unity, they are, I believe, in no way insurmountable.
What in the Orthodox view constitutes full Christian unity? What does it look like?
Full Christian unity is the Eucharistic communion. We do not need to reshape our Church administration, our local traditions. We can live with our differences within one Church, participating from one bread and one cup. We need, however, to rediscover what united us and what brought us to disunity, particularly in the 11th century.
So the basis for the restoration of the full communion would be, I believe, the faith of the Church east and west in the first millennium.
And you are quite involved in these talks personally.
Yes.
Has Catholic-Orthodox unity become more of a possibility in recent years? If so, since when, or because of what?
I think certain feasible positive changes came with the beginning of the pontificate of Benedict XVI. He is a man of the Church. He is very traditional in his understanding of the dogma and of morality and he is very close to the Orthodox Church. He highly respects Orthodox traditions. He knows Orthodox theology, and as he indicated in his latest book, Orthodox concerns are very close to his heart. [I might add that he is a man of the Fathers and the great Saints of the Church, and above all, a man of the Liturgy. I believe that Summorum Pontificum, which restored the ancient Roman Mass to a place of honor in the Latin Church, was one of the most ecumenical things the Pope could have done. The congratulatory comments from the late Patriarch of Moscow, immediately after the Motu Proprio, are evidence of this.] He speaks very highly about the Ecumenical Patriarch (Bartholomew I). He speaks very highly and also very personally about his encounters with the current Patriarch of Moscow, Kirill. And it is clear that, for him, the relationship with the Orthodox Church is one of the primary tasks on his agenda.
Do you think complete union between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches is a possibility in our lifetime? What do you think would have to happen before it could come about?
I would respond by quoting the Pope: it depends on how long we will live. But I believe that the Eucharistic unity between the Orthodox and the Catholics is not something easily achievable within a few years because even if we look at our theological dialogue, it goes very slowly, and we sometimes are unable to solve even rather insignificant problems which existed in the past for many years.
So we should not anticipate that there will be major breakthroughs in just a few years time. But we should be hopeful, and, what is most important, we should work. We should be honest towards each other. We should not hide our differences. We should discuss them openly. [This is the entire point of this blog.]
But I also believe that, without aspiring that solving all theological problems that exist between the Orthodox and the Catholics we can learn how to work together, how to act together. [The theological dialogue, though it won’t magically create unity, is important. But common action and a common witness before the world is also important, and it’s something we can do in the meantime, to build up a sense of charity and brotherhood.] And without being one Church administratively we can act as members of one Christian body.
This is what I call a strategic alliance between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church. This alliance is necessary in order for us to learn how to work together, because the challenges we are facing are the same. One of the challenges is how to re-Christianize a de-Christianized world. This is what Pope Benedict XVI speaks about very often. In particular he speaks about the New Evangelization of Europe. I believe that this is a huge missionary task and even such a grand Church as the Catholic Church cannot accomplish this task alone. And the closest allies for it would be the Orthodox Church. I believe we can do many things together; we can face modern changes together, even without being one Church, even without having full Eucharistic communion.
How would you describe recent dialogue on the issue of primacy? What is each side saying? Has either side shown any sign of possibly changing?
Well, Pope John Paul II called on everybody, particularly on the Orthodox to express their understanding of primacy.
In his encyclical Ut Unum Sint.
Yes. I believe we the Orthodox are ourselves not altogether clear about what we mean by primacy and how this primacy should be exercised. [Another good reason for the theological dialogues: each side needs to get its own ecclesial house in order.] We have, for example, certain differences between the primacy as it is understood by the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the primacy as it is understood by the Patriarchate of Moscow.
In any case, we do not believe that there could be a bishop above all other bishops whose decisions would be binding for the entire Church. We believe that the bishop of Rome in the first Millennium was obviously first in honor but he was first among equals. He did not have direct jurisdiction, for example, over the East. Therefore, when we come to the discussion of the primacy we would argue that the universal jurisdiction of the Pope is something that didn’t exist in the first Millennium and that if we restore, for example, Eucharistic communion, we would accept his role as first among equals but not as the universal bishop.
So what has some of the dialogue been like in recent months? There’s been a lot of talk about breakthroughs and being on the verge of unity.
I believe that when some people talk about breakthroughs, it was a wishful thinking rather than anything close to reality. We are still at a rather early stage of the discussions. We still discuss the role of the bishop of Rome in the first millennium, and even on this issue we see clear differences between the Orthodox and the Catholics. If we come to the discussion of the second millennium, the differences will become much more obvious. Therefore we should not pretend that we are close to solving this problem.
I think, however, that we should discuss it honestly; we should describe the differences in our positions, and we should see what would be the way out. For us, as I said, the way out would be the return to what we had in the first millennium. [My own view is that “what we had in the first millennium” was not enough to preserve communion between the Churches. It seems obvious to me that there were very significant theological and ecclesial differences between East and West in the first millennium.]
Would you tell me about your background: where you are from originally, what was your family like when you were growing up, what kind of family you come from.
It would be a long story. I wonder whether I should start telling you this story.
I was born in Moscow. I studied music for many years. Then I became a monk in a small monastery in Lithuania. I spent five years there. I did my doctorate at Oxford. And then I became a bishop and served in Austria and Hungary as a Russian Orthodox bishop. And when Metropolitan Kirill became Patriarch Kirill, I inherited his former chair as president of the Department of Foreign Relations.
This is to make a long story short.
How did you discover that you had a vocation to the priesthood?
I cannot quite tell you how I discovered it but I can tell you when I discovered it. It was approximately at the age of 15 when I realized that I really wanted to serve the Church and serve as a priest. For some preceding years, as I was studying music, the choice which I had to make for myself was whether to become a professional musician or to serve the Church. I was even thinking about combining the two by, for example, becoming the choir master.
At the end I decided that I wanted to serve the Church in the full sense, to serve at the altar, i.e., to become a priest. And this was the inner voice that was repeatedly telling me this, and this is what we call a vocation.
How do you find time to write music?
I no longer have time to write music. I didn’t even have it before, but when I was a bishop in Austria, I could somehow organize my agenda in order to have some minutes to write music, but very often I did it on a plane or in the waiting area of an airport. For example, some of the pieces from St. Matthew Passion were composed literally on a plane.
Thanks for posting this. I for one appreciate his honesty. And, in light of this interview, I would amend on of your glosses:
“But common action and a common witness before the world is MOST important, and it’s something we can do in the meantime, to build up a sense of charity and brotherhood.”
How can we get a dialogue started on this topic?
“My own view is that “what we had in the first millennium” was not enough to preserve communion between the Churches. It seems obvious to me that there were very significant theological and ecclesial differences between East and West in the first millennium.”
Indeed “there were very significant theological and ecclesial differences between East and West in the first millennium.” The point is that those real and profound differences were not deemed sufficient to constitute a “diriment impediment” to communion, until political rivalries, and cultural differences which popular prejudice did not know how to differentiate from essential dogmatic divergences, had envenomed the atmosphere to the point where the two halves of Christendom were no longer united by reciprocal charity. The crime of 1204 was the tipping point.
Now, we may have reached a point in history where we can – if we wish and if we have the necessary intellectual honesty and critical distance – unravel these extraneous factors from the truly theological issues. Theological research devoid of apologetic bias should be the key to achieving this. If we succeed therein, then I for one do not see why these “very significant theological and ecclesial differences”, or indeed a fortiori the other differences which have arisen in the course of the 2nd millennium, should be an insuperable obstacle to communion any more than they were in the first 1000 years of the Church’s existence.
I think it would be fairer to set the tipping point at 1453.
But, be that as it may, I find it difficult to take talk of return to the first millennium seriously. We can’t go back. To begin with, like the liturgy, the ecclesial praxis of unity changed radically over this period (most notably between pre and post Nikaea, and again after the conciliar period). Then, even if we take the late 10th century as our loadstone, we have to confront the fact that its ecclesial pracxis of unity failed dismally in the following century–so catastrophically, in fact, that we have spent the last 900 years trying to put Humpty-Dumpty together again. We would have to be insane to want to go back there.
Insofar as the institutional manifestation of a united Church in the first millennium was a human construct (and much work remains to be done in distinguishing divinely mandated historical forms from purely prudential ones) it can at best serve as a guide for what MIGHT work in future and for what should be avoided at all cost. It can also serve to put the lie to claims over what is or is not dogmatically acceptable.
But as a model, it didn’t work then and there is no reason to believe it would work now. We have to be prepared to be creative and innovative to some degree, knowing from painful experience some of the pitfalls we can stumble into.
The differences are assuredly theological.
Not cultural differences.
Not matters of popular prejudice.
Not mere misunderstanding, although there is much of that.
Not political rivalries.
True and deep theological divides remain, and many more than at first meet the eye. (In fact, in my experience, most of our differences are usually invisible to Catholics.)
I very much appreciated this interview with His Eminence. Both the the Russian metropolitan and Pope Benedict are well versed in the ecclesiological issues that separate us and will probably not get resolved in my lifetime. We Orthodox need to develop a clearer theology of the Universal Church and how it functions within the consortium of Local Churches in Communion. The Roman Catholics, as far as I read and hear, need to continue with exploring the hermeneutic of continuity, and recover from the post Vatican II conflicting views of the church and its relevance in the Modern World. I read both the Catholic Register and the Nat Catholic Reporter, and am left wondering if this isn’t an indication of the type of factionalism that is destroying the Anglican Communion. Perhaps each church needs take a deep breath and heal the internal problems that face each Church internally.
igumen Gregory, the Nat Cat Reporter does not reflect the Catholic Faith. None of the contributors accept the Catechism, and most would even reject things mainline Protestants hold to in agreement toigumen Gregory, the Nat Cat Reporter does not reflect the Catholic Faith. None of the contributors accept the Catechism, and most would even reject things mainline Protestants hold to (in agreement with Tradition). Hans Kuhn would likely be a conservative in their book. This group is dying out. When you offer people little better than what society has to offer, society will “go to the highest bidder”, which almost always is the cheap thrills of the world, the flesh, and the pride of life.
It’s true there are problems in the Catholic Church. Thankfully Pope JPII lived long enough to orthodox bishops to replace the worldly bishops, and the current Pope is continuing the trend and asserting the hermeneutic of continuity as the only valid interpretation of VII. Pressure from both the Orthodox and SSPX and the new Anglican Ordiniariate will keep the True Catholic agenda on the front burner.
It’s not the first time the Catholic Church has struggled. It’s happened before and it’ll happen again. But in each instance, the Papacy has played a central role (mostly in making sure that saints such as St. Francis are protected and nourished and shepherding the Church into the path prepared for by the saints).
Getting back to unity, it’s the wrong time for complete unity between the Catholic and Orthodox for both Catholics and Orthodox as both face severe problems. Catholics currently ill with the heresy of modernism. The Orthodox are currently ill with the illness of nationalism, which is a deep issue that also has theological implications (e.g. in the US, if your Church denies you a divorce, you can walk down the street to a different patriarchate and have your divorce granted. What does this say about marriage?) and practical considerations (e.g. since there is no unified Orthodox voice, the Orthodox aren’t taken seriously when Orthodox people are butchered as in Bosnia). Unity can’t happen until Catholicism is restored and the Orthodox find their unity (an Orthodox Ecumenical Council is likely needed, though it needs to avoid the mistakes of VII). If that model of Orthodox unity comes to pass and is successful, unity with with Catholicism would likely mirror the model provided by the Orthodox.
But until that day, there is still room for drawing closer together, since estrangement is the biggest thing separating Catholics and Orthodox. There are several apolistic visitations going on within the Catholic Church. It would be wonderful of Orthodox bishops could be invited as impartial third party examiners. More than a few parishes have had their statues ripped out and their kneelers removed in favour of more protestant type worship arrangements (by liberal priests who used the hermeutic of rupture on VII), so that putting them back would be difficult. Using the Orthodox and Eastern Rite for consultants in restoring these spaces would be a wonderful way bring true worship back (e.g. proper placements of icons….if you can’t kneel then do prostrations;-]….).
Coming up with a new Catechism shared by both Orthodox and Catholics would also be a great step forward. I know the Eastern Rite has been longing for a new Catechism since it would prefer to use difficult terminology to understand the same doctrines. There are some aspects of the faith which Catholics and Orthodox would see as difficult to reconcile, but that’s okay. Both positions should be presented in honestly side by side for all to see, understand, and ponder. In time, resolution will happen if we don’t try to sweep them under the rug.
Amos,
Thank you for your post. In the main I agree with much of what you write. I too am quite critical of the manner in which we Orthodox deal with marriage, divorce, and even artificial birth control. I also believe the Orthodox churches should be only observers at the WCC, NCC, and the like. Unfortunately while Rome teaches in one manner, there are many within the raNKS OF THE R C hierarchy and clergy who teach modernism and the 60s theology with impunity. I have 2 Roman Rite churches near me. One is bounding with life and religious vocations; it has 4 Masses every day. Devout Liturgy and devotional practices. the other one– let;s say that it leaves me shivering. Let us work to clean up some of the inconsistencies within each of our households of Faith, and continue to be open, honest and above all loving with each other.
My new year’s resolution had been not to indulge in any more ping-pong like exchanges in comments boxes. Unusually it lasted beyond the end of January, and I have ’till now kept resolutely to the “hit and run” approach.
In breaking it now, I can offer the excuse that neither Michaël nor Anastasia has fully engaged the point which I was making. This was not that there are no real theological divergences between East and West, nor that they are not important (for they were both), but:
1) that they already existed in the first millennium and did not then prevent the Churches being in communion – so if not then why now? and
2) that these differences were increasingly seen as justifying schism only as political and cultural opposition hardened into hostility. I submit that the latter is the principal reason why “it didn’t work then”, insofar as that statement is true at all, and that this should make us do some painfully self-critical thinking about our current self-assurance on both sides.
And that, i promise, is all. If anybody agrees with me out there, then please feel free to take the ball and run with it.
Apologies for the convoluted syntax.
Fr. Paul,
If it gets you to abandon so harmful a resolution and prompts you to post more frequently again, I would gladly provoke you further. As it happens, however, I agree entirely (with your point, not your resolution). This is largely why I haven’t engaged your post.
While resolving historical “political and cultural differences” would make matters easier in laying the groundwork for unity, what we would really need is agreed structures that can resolve doctrinal and ecclesial issues despite political and cultural differences.
Let’s be clear here. Schism can exist even when there are no doctrinal issues involved at all: witness the Great Schism in the West, and the current state of Orthodoxy in Ukraine.
I don’t despair, and I think it is doable. And while the existing historical doctrinal differences can’t quite be swept under the carpet, they need not prevent us from discussing key ecclesial issues such as how to resolve local schisms, how to ensure that agreed canon law is articulated in conjunction with natural justice, how to determine who speaks for the Church and with what authority, how to define an ordinary ecclesial community, etc…
So far most both sides seem more concerned with criticizing the other’s internal ecclesiology, as if this were the root of the problem. Orthodoxy is a mono-ritual but pluri-cephallic Church while Catholicism is a pluri-ritual but mono-cephallic one. A united Church would, of necessity, be pluri-ritual and pluri-cephallic, and so would resemble exactly neither of our existing models. So we have to develop a new one, carefully defining the appropriate practical juridical extent and limits of the universal primate’s authority in a way that respects the pre-Nicene understanding of the dominical and providential basis of tu es petrus.
But, as bashing current ecclesial praxis has become a bit of a blood sport, something can perhaps be gained if we, stepping away from type, focus our gaze on our respective failings. I would guess that by now my views about the failings of Orthodox ecclesial praxis should be clear. So let me step back and apply a critical spotlight on what I consider crying failures in Catholic praxis.
1. I think there is far too much episcopal translation. Bishops should serve their communities until retirement (and preferably beyond). If we want to recognize extraordinary performance in the episcopate, let it be through grant of honorific archiepiscopal designations and red hats.
2. There is a strong historical canonical basis for provincial jurisdiction and it should be revived.
3. The bulk of monastic communities should be brought back under episcopal jurisdiction. Exceptions can be made for orders with truly international vocations and missions.
4. The application of canon law in particular rites should be harmonized throughout the world.
5. Those Eastern Catholic Churches too small to maintain and develop organically their own jurisprudence should rely on that of their Orthodox counterparts rather than have Rome do it for them. If individual resolutions prove unsatisfactory, they can always appeal to Rome afterward.
6. Let’s do away with titular bishops and simply recognize auxiliary bishops for what they are. Better yet, let’s rely primarily on retired bishops as auxiliaries. Curial bishops should be given oversight of at least one parish to ensure that they remain conscious of the fundamentally pastoral dimension of their office. Much of the current work of titular bishops could be just as well performed through the revival of the archdiaconate.
I could go on…
“While resolving historical “political and cultural differences” would make matters easier in laying the groundwork for unity, what we would really need is agreed structures that can resolve doctrinal and ecclesial issues despite political and cultural differences.”
I still don’t follow you here. How can we talk about “agreed structures that can resolve doctrinal and ecclesial issues” when it is impossible to reach any kind of agreement to put these structures into place?
More structure will not solve anything. Most people don’t care about structure. Most people don’t care … period. Fix this problem, and the rest will fall into place.
Perhaps most Orthodox don’t care, but most Catholics do and feel the wound of a divided Church. This is certainly a problem.
The issue I am addressing, however, is not HOW to put eventually agreed structures into place. Once they ARE agreed, implementation will depend on the actions and level of commitment of the individual Churches.
An agreed programme for new structures, however, would help address some of the fears of both sides regarding how a reunited Church would function and affect them and their respective traditions. This fear is an important component in the “political and cultural differences” that separate us.
I am not dismissing your call for joint action and mission at the local level. But given that most Catholics and Orthodox live precisely where the other is rather thin on the ground, leaving little scope for large-scale local cooperation, I am not as sanguine as you are that local cooperation will provide the missing glue once doctrinal agreement is achieved. Unity requires agreed mechanisms for resolving differences and for structuring and articulating common mission beyond the local level, and it is not too early to discuss what these mechanisms might look like.
“…but most Catholics do and feel the wound of a divided Church”
Certainly in the Middle East, and probably in Europe, India, USA and Canada. Whether this can be said of the great majority of Catholics in Latin America, Africa and much of Asia is anybody’s guess.
In my country with its 70+ million Catholics, the “Church” is purely and simply the Roman Catholic Church, and even educated laypeople and a lot of clergy are ignorant of the Eastern Catholics, let alone the Orthodox. I’ve been told by someone in the know that an attempt to establish an Eastern Catholic presence here in the ’90’s was actually shot down by the Roman Catholic hierarchy because it would “cause too much confusion”. And, permit me to tell this anecdote: I once gave a talk to a Catholic charismatic group a couple of years ago — a relatively prominent one in Manila, with members drawn from the elite — and in the course of the open forum I casually mentioned the Eastern Catholics. Apparently their very existence was unknown to these people, and so I gave a brief explanation of who the EC’s are. The response? “Rome should abolish them! Permitting them to have their own rites and laws is scandalous!”
There are admitedly only perhaps 600 Orthodox in all the Philippines, bu tthe wound is in the body of Christ and is not limited to the East-West schism. If you were to tell me that Filipino Catholics are untroubled by the divide with the Aglipayans and the ACC (or even with Evangelicals), for example, I would be very surprised.
As to reflexive intolerance towards Eastern Catholic rites, this is hardly new and is simply the product of ignorance and lack of familiarity. Even there, this hardly amounts to a suggestion that they would be complacent about seeing Eastern Catholics leave the Church.
Michael, We have had our sharp disagreements, but I am with you on your general point about the deep wound in the Church. It’s effects, for both east and west, are obvious, and it cannot be ignored, by either side. Joe
I would disagree that “most Catholics” really care that much about the Orthodox Church, assuming that they are even aware of it at all. Only a quarter even attend Mass regularly, and those who do are far more concerned about the visible scandals within the Roman Catholic Church than the historical “scandal” of a divided Church.
The other point on which we seem to be talking past each other is the whole concept of “agreement”. You seem to imply that if the Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch could sit down and sign a piece of paper then some sort of agreement would be in place. In Orthodoxy, that is not how it works at all. Roman Catholic bishops may be in a position to dictate doctrine and practice to their flocks. In Orthodoxy, this just is not the case. There will be no effectual agreement, regardless of what joint statements were signed, until a overwhelmingly significant number of Orthodox parishes begin to act in accordance, as we see looking back at Florence. If such an agreement were put forth today, it simply would be rejected wholesale.
I just don’t see how anyone can seriously consider a “top-down” approach to reconciliation between East and West. It’s just a non-starter. No amount of arm-twisting and cajoling is going to get the Orthodox people to accept a drastic change. Such a change must arise from within. This is both their strength and weakness, and we must take it into account.
“You seem to imply that if the Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch could sit down and sign a piece of paper then some sort of agreement would be in place.”
Seriously, I cannot imagine what I wrote that would have given you that impression. You must think me incredibly naive. While I take issue with your understanding of what exactly what happened after Florence (the idea that all or even the overwhelming majority of Orthodox lay folk were against the union is a post facto myth), if the hierarchs involved in the current discussions on both sides become convinced that sufficient unity of faith can be discerned, they would presumably then bring this to their respective Churches for synodical discussion. Each Church would then give a thumbs up or down, or ask for further clarifications, and if ultimately satisfied would agree to extend communion as appropriate. Only the very last step would involve implementation of structures and mechanisms for the collective governance of a united Church, but that need not prevent discussion at this stage of what such mechanisms might involve.
Granted, securing general agreement would be simpler on the Catholic side, at least as far as doctrine is concerned. But if you think tucking in the Eastern Catholic Churches juridically into their Orthodox counterparts would be simple and straightforward, or merely a matter of a wave of the papal hand, you are deluding yourself.
That said, it is unreasonable to expect that Orthodox Churches, themselves subject to internal schism over relative trivialities such as competing territorial claims or what liturgical calendar to use, will be able to join new structures intact and without internal division. This is all the more true as “anti-papalism” appears to rank right up there for some Orthodox next to belief in the Trinity and the incarnation. So you are right, Orthodoxy can most probably not be brought as a block into accepting union. I don’t see how joint mission at the parish level in Ukraine, Bosnia, Romania, Slovakia, Albania, Kosovo, the Middle East and urban North America (the only parts of the world where Orthodoxy and Catholicism significantly overlap on the ground) would appreciably change this.
Be that as it may, the issue is not either/or but both/and. We can talk and chew gum at the same time.
Catholics feel the wound of a divided Church because they lost the most when they separated from the Church. Orthodox seem to not care because it wasn’t them who provoked the Schism and lack the guilty conscience of the Catholics.
wow, seraphim, that’s so helpful. And so Christian!
[…] Taken from The National Catholic Register here , but I initially saw it on the Eirenikon blog (here): […]
Res we Orthodox christians have our divisions, and our scandals, Michael. However,I would not trade ours for what I see happening in the Roman Communion. Your divisions resemble ours but mixed with a lot of modernist/heretical teachings. And yes I know, Rome is clear on its position and that is all that counts. However, Rome has in the past been often collaborative with some of these schools of thought. Thank God that the present Pope is seeking to apply corrective measures, which still go unheeded in many quarters. As i wrote in a previous report: Let each church work on its own problems first, and then we can greet each other more effectively.
I grant your point. The Catholic Church has severe problems in its heartlands of Europe and North America where it is beset by the forces of secularization, and Latin America where it is critically under-resourced.
This doesn’t alter the fact that, despite these difficulties, there would be far less resistance on the Catholic side to eventual prospects for reunion. We each have our own set of problems, but these are different in each communion (though there is, of course, some overlap). Cleaning house would obviously make visits by friends and family a more appealing and compelling experience for all concerned.
Igumen Gregory–I have just revisited OCANewsorg after an absence of many months, and all I can say is–I’ll take Catholic problems over Orthodox ones any day of the week and twice on Sundays. I-yi-yi!!!
I guess we can all take comfort in our willingness to bear our own respective crosses rather than seek or prefer that of the other. :-)
There is something to be said, perhaps, for both the greater willingness of Orthodox bishops to go at each other with hammer and tongs, and for the more dignified if less refreshing reserve of their Catholic counterparts who can count on the Holy See to resolve such difficulties for them.
Wow, Diane, that’s so helpful. And so Christian!
>This was not that there are no real theological divergences between East and West, nor that they are not important (for they were both), but:
1) that they already existed in the first millennium and did not then prevent the Churches being in communion – so if not then why now? and
With all due respect, Fr. Paul, I must disagree with you somewhat here. Certainly there were theological “divergences” in the 1st Mil., but the divergence has grown much wider post-schism. This is the result of the churches developing in isolation from one another. In my opinion, a repair in communion must be preceded by *some* repair in common faith/theology. Joe
Proverbs 10:12 “Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs.”