Posted on 09/22/2004 11:38:26 AM PDT by Vicomte13
Christ prayed for the unity of His Church. Collectively, we have made quite a hash of it. What divides us? How far are we apart, really? Is reconciliation and reunification really impossible? I don't think so.
Doctrinally, there is more that separates the liberal and conservative wings of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches than separates Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Many of the doctrinal differences that there are date back to the early centuries, but were not a bar to us all being One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church for more than half of the history of Christianity.
Historical missteps, and more than a little stubbornness, divide us, but this division is unnatural and indeed unholy. We cannot simply ACCEPT it as a given. It is not what Jesus wanted of us, and we have a duty to try and put back together what He made whole but what we have sundered.
But how?
For starters, look at how very much unites us still. The Orthodox Church is Holy. The Catholic Church is Holy. Both are apostolic, in unbroken lineage back to the apostles. We share the same sacraments. We believe the same things about those sacraments. In extremis, we can give confession too and take extreme unction or viaticum from one another's priests. Because somewhere, at the bottom of it, we each really do know that it's the Latin, Russian, Greek, Syrian and Coptic rites of the same Holy catholic Church.
Indeed, within the Catholic Church proper, in union with Rome, are Byzantine and other Eastern Rite churches that are for all appearances Orthodox. That the Orthodox Liturgy of St. John Chysostom is beautiful, and sonorous, and long, should be no barrier. There is no reason that the Orthodox rite should not remain exactly as it is. Indeed, there is a very good reason to revive, in the West, the old Latin Rite of the Catholic Church: many people want it back. Why should they be denied it? The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and the Liturgy of the Tridentine Mass were Holy and are Holy. There is no reason at all they they cannot all be practiced within a reunited Church. There is no reason for Russian Orthodoxy to cease using Slavonic, and Greek Orthodoxy to cease using Greek, just as there is no reason that Latin Rite Churches should not be able to reassume Latin if their parishoners desire it. For over a thousand years the different parts of the Church used different languages, and yet we were all one Church. Today, with the vernacular, the Catholic and Orthodox Churches use many, many, many languages. None of this diminishes their Holiness. Latin, Greek and Slavonic are not holy, they are old. And there is nothing wrong with old.
So again I ask: what really divides us? There is nothing of the liturgy of either Latin or Greek or Russian rite that would need to change were the Churches to come back into unity.
All that divides us, really, is the question of authority. It is a political question, about the office of the Pope. Cut through it all, and that is what is at the heart of it.
And this can be resolved. Indeed, the tension ALWAYS existed, and flared up at different times during the long millennium of Church unity. Our spiritual ancestors had the wisdom to settle for an arrangement of metropolitans and patriarchs, with the Bishop of Rome considered one of them, but primus inter pares at the "round table". Like the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, he sets the agenda and "assigns cases", but each preserves his dignity as a co-equal justice. In order to maintain Christian unity, it was necessary for the Pope to exercise discretion in this role. And most handled it well. It also required discretion on the part of the Eastern Patriarchs. And most handled it well. It is the contrivance of the Devil that the time arose whereby stubborn (and corrupt) Pope encountered stubborn (and beleaguered, by the Muslim invasion) eastern Patriarch, and the Schism erupted.
Surely we can repair this wound in the visible Body of Christ on Earth. Indeed, it is not really optional. It is our DUTY to attempt it.
What is it that the East wants? Surely it is not to compel the Cathedral of Notre Dame to start conducting masses in Slavonic! No. It is to be recognized in its liturgy and in its territorial area. Should Latin Rite missionaries be attempting to sieze Russia for Catholicism? No. Russia should be under the Russian Rite, subject to the Metropolitan of Moscow, sovereign in his sphere, who is in union with the Bishop of Rome. I should be able to give confession and take absolution in a seamless Church from Gibraltar to Vladivostok.
What is it that the West wants? Too much, probably. At the Council of Florence, the last moment of unity in the Church, the West acknowledged the customs of the East, and the East acknowledged "the traditional privileges of the Bishop of Rome", which is to say, primus inter pares.
Now, if there were deep and abiding spiritual and doctrinal divides, such as there are between the Catholic Church and, say, the Anglican Communion or the various Protestant Churches, reunification would be out of sight. Primus inter pares would lead directly to Papal interference. But the Orthodox and the Catholic are each so doctrinally close that there need not be ANY real interference in the West by the East, or the East by the West. Indeed, it would immeasurably help the post-Vatican II Western Church to have a Vatican III at which the Metropolitan of Moscow and the Patriarch of Constatinople and their affiliated Bishops, and the Eastern Cardinals, sat, spoke, voted. The Church needs the counterweight of Orthodox Tradition to offset some of the less propitious "modernizing" elements that have run unchecked in parts of the West.
For its part, much of Eastern Orthodoxy is subject to, and under the thumb of, Islam. And abused. We see this right now even in secular Turkey. There is no religious voice on earth more powerful than Rome. And no other religion has its own seat in the United Nations. The lot of Eastern Christians would be bettered by having the full weight of Western Christianity brought to bear within the Church.
I do not believe that this is a pipe dream. Reuniting the Pentecostals and Rome might be, but bringing Moscow, Constantinople and Rome together again at the same round table should not be. It is what Jesus intended from the beginning. What God has joined, let no man sunder. With God, everything is possible. There is nothing that goes on in Orthodox Churches that would not be able to continue in unity with the West, and nothing that goes on in Latin Churches that would have to stop to be in Union with the East.
Perhaps the fears of the East would be quelled if the Patriarchs were favored for election to the Papacy.
Just a thought.
Thanks for the exposition. I'd always wondered who they were, beyond being a faction in the civil war in the eighties.
Phronema. Your definition is pretty good. But try on these:
"Phronema is a Greek term that is used in Eastern Orthodox theology to refer to mindset or outlook; it is the Orthodox mind.The attaining of phronema is a matter of practicing the correct faith (orthodoxia) in the correct manner (orthopraxia). Attaining phronema is regarded as the first step toward theosis, the state of glorification."
The Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Australia has written, "Phronema comes from the verb 'frono' ('I believe'). In the religious and theological vocabulary of the Christian Church this term, like so many others, took on a much deeper and richer meaning. Thus phronema does not simply mean a steady orientation towards certain enduring moral values, which people knowingly profess and wisely struggle for throughout life. Rather, it means the completely self-sacrificial trust and faith in religious and ethical truths which derive not from human experience and wisdom, but from the voice of God through revelation, which is self-evident and does not undergo censure or doubt. This super-subjective origin of phronema is expressed in the New Testament with the well-known term 'mind of Christ', which is almost synonymous with phronema.
In terms of one's spiritual life, therefore, we must admit that phronema is not the same as conscience. For while phronema is identified as super-subjective with the 'mind of Christ' and unites us with those of like faith who came before us and will come after, conscience is the sum total of completely subjective ethical and spiritual powers, i.e. the most individual part of a person.
Of course, the faithful try to harmonise their conscience with the phronema of the Church, in order to grow into
'the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ' (Eph.4:13),
yet this effort remains unfulfilled until the end of our lives. That is why, strictly speaking, the Orthodox faithful -and especially the theologian- are never entitled to call upon their conscience as the final criterion of truth, although for the humanist or the Protestant, this would be the cornerstone of honesty and ethics in general.
According to the above meaning, the phronema of the faithful in general, and the theologian in particular, is an unshakeable certainty about the truth of Faith. Even when this cannot be contained in linguistic or other formulations, it remains undiminished and vibrant throughout life, a continually verified daily experience. Precisely for this reason, phronema ceaselessly upholds and characterises in summary the spiritual physiognomy of the faithful, no matter what the external conditions may be, without ever degenerating into an ideology.
Therefore, faith and phronema are the charismatic power of the inner person which steadily and selflessly connect him or her with God, as well as with fellow human beings (as images or icons of God) and the whole creation (as the work of God). This selflessness is what radically differentiates phronema from ideology, since, as is known, the latter is never free of worldly interests."
Any help? I grant you its not easy stuff. You need to experience it rather than define it.
"I think our differences can be hashed out in a council. That may actually be the easy part. The hard part will probably be with the Orthodox Laity. But I'm just guessing here."
You may well be right, but at least on the Eastern side, the laity will probably be involved and in any event, they had better be. In the East, as you know and as the last attempt at union showed, without the consent and acceptance by the whole Church, hierarchs, clegy and laity, the decisions of a council will not be valid or stand.
Given this edifying statement, then I would have to wholeheartedly admit, that it was God who led me to the Maronite Catholic Church. Furthermore, it is through their 'tradition' that my faith has blossomed and I have formulated a greater appreciation of christian community. Much of this is summed up in the prayer during the Commixture ...
You have united, O Lord, your divinity with our humanity
and our humanity with your divinity;
your life with our mortality
and our mortality with your life.
You have assumed what is ours,
and you have given us what is yours,
for the life and salvation of our souls.
To you, O Lord, be glory for ever.
"Exactly my point"
I was kidding, Cronos.
"Phronema is a Greek term that is used in Eastern Orthodox theology to refer to mindset or outlook; it is the Orthodox mind.The attaining of phronema is a matter of practicing the correct faith (orthodoxia) in the correct manner (orthopraxia). Attaining phronema is regarded as the first step toward theosis, the state of glorification."
It seems that phronema is similar to the Latin concept of "sentir cum ecclesia" i.e. thinking with the Church, or thinking with the mind of the Church.
In theory this is of absolute necessity for theologians, however, it is also the call of all the baptised in order that our "minds be transformed in Christ." It is part of our being fully converted to the Lord.
However, I particularly like the statement:
"Attaining phronema is regarded as the first step toward theosis, the state of glorification."
There is enough material for a couple of homilies in that one sentence - I can see myself getting into trouble again!!
;)
Its good stuff, isn't it? In Greece, the phronema in many senses, defines everything in life. It certainly isn't just for theologians.
"Attaining phronema is regarded as the first step toward theosis, the state of glorification."
Theosis...another great Greek word.
No we don't. Sorry.
Do you deny that We CAtholics are Christians? Do you deny that Assyrians, Chaldeans, etc. are Christians?...
Nosense! The fact is that the Catholic Church added to the faith that is immutable. Consequently, it no longer teaches the same theology it taught with us before the Schism.
The Church is not an organization -- it's an organism.
The incredible work of SS Cyrill and Methodius, who created Church Slavonic, the only other lyturgical language besides Greek and Latin, in the 9th century, never cease to amaze me. In Slavonic, each word in the Lyturgical Greek has a direct and unambiguous counterpart.
That is soooooo right on target, NYer. That prayer says it all -- how we think. No dogma. Just plain self-evident truth.
It's not more ancient than the other Creed really and is not what the Ecumenical Councils deifned as the profession of our faith. The Apostle's Creed is good, but incomplete.
Why is everyone trying to find a way to go back to something other than the Councils to which both Orthodox and Catholic Churches agree and were part of?
"The incredible work of SS Cyrill and Methodius, who created Church Slavonic, the only other lyturgical language besides Greek and Latin, in the 9th century, never cease to amaze me. In Slavonic, each word in the Lyturgical Greek has a direct and unambiguous counterpart."
Well, there is Syriac/Aramaic too. And for theology, of course, Hebrew. Your comment about Church Slavonic is right on the money. There are no theological translation differences worth talking about between Greek and Slavonic, unlike with Latin where there are such problems (Omoosios vs Consubstantialem, for example).
Combined with the description posted earlier of the priest's actions during the Commixture, would you then say this prayer (which, of course, is chanted), exemplifies phronema?
Tantumergo, your description: "the call of all the baptised in order that our "minds be transformed in Christ.", is most appreciated. When we seek God with a sincere heart, He cannot turn us away. It has been such a joyful and profoundly spiritual experience discovering the eastern traditions.
I arrived midway through Lent. Each Friday evening, Father held the 'Adoration of the Cross' service. It begins with a series of prayers and chants for each of the five wounds of Christ. It culminates with the priest holding aloft the crucifix, facing the congregation, two acolytes incensing both him and the crucifix, as the congreagation chants this hymn, that expresses the deep anguish of our Blessed Mother.
O My Son
O My Son O My beloved
See the plight Love brings you to
What distress and What affliction
Wicked men have Laid on you.
O My Son O what transgression
Or what evil Did you do that you
Should be vexed and wounded
with no hope for any cure!
Look on me Daughter of Sion
Crushed beneath this mighty wave
Anguish fills my very marrow
And it leads me to the grave
There is none to be a friend now
And this angry mob to brave
Coming forward to console me
For the suff'ring I endure
No one ever suggested it was. This explanation from Stephen Ray, makes the distinction:
"Each bishop, in his own diocese, has the equivalent authority of the Pope over his jurisdiction. When the Pope acts in his capacity as Bishop of Rome, he is no different, other than a "first among equals," than the rest of the bishops over their own jurisdictions. The Pope does also have another title, "Vicar of Christ" wherein he stands in Christ's place here on earth, over Christ's Church. This authority is clearly given to St. Peter when "The Good Shepherd" told Peter, "Feed My lambs...Tend My sheep...Feed My sheep" (John 21:16-17). In this sequence, Jesus is speaking directly to Peter, and not to any of the rest of the Apostles, all of whom are also present (minus Judas). So there is something special about Peter, and the see that he would occupy. This isn't the position of a tyrant, a king, or a dictator, but a shepherd. Clearly Jesus left one of the Apostles "in charge" to "tend (His) sheep," and that one Apostle is St. Peter. This is not an exclusive authority over the other Apostles - just an added responsibility for Peter and his successors. Having one Apostle to hold this position is the unifying factor for all true Christians.
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