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.
Interesting, but not applicable to the Orthodox Church.
Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about Orthodoxy:
838 "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter." Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church." With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound "that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord's Eucharist."
What about the filoque?
The filoque would not need to change. The Eastern Rites would continue to use their variant of the Nicene Creed, and the Western Rite theirs. There is no "filoque" in the Apostle's Creed at all, yet both halves of the Church, Catholic and Orthodox, use it without damage to the faithful.
This is one of the distinctive differences between East and West, but it is not an excuse to keep sundered the Church that Christ made whole and called to be united.
Of course if any Pope were to ever overreach his authority again, the option of schism always remains again. The true problem in today's Western Church is not papal authority anyway. It is the wholesale disregard of standards by the clergy in the parishes and the dioceses.
The only objective really needed to be sought is to bring the Churches back into full communion one with the other, so that Catholic and Orthodox are all "catholic", and presumably each "orthodox" in the practice of his particular rite. There is no good reason anymore to bind a practitioner of the Greek rite to the Roman rite. All of the rites are Holy and one of the lessons of the Schism ought to be an end to the insistence on one holy liturgy at the exclusion of others.
A Vatican III is certainly needed, to correct the excesses of Vatican II, and to make possible full communion between the two halves of the Church. One can only expect that the clear, traditional lines of the Orthodox bishops and metropolitans in such a grand Council would act as a lifeline for the beleaguered traditionalists of the West today.
The two halves of the Church need each other.
The price of unity in communion would be to leave each others' rites alone. All admit that Latin, Greek, and Russian rite are Holy. No one need be bound to abandon what is holy simply because of a demand for genuflection to a principle of obedience. Indeed, the principle of obedience that needs to be asserted by the Pope is that these holy rites shall be respected and retained, and that the Pope, as primus inter pares, will not permit the more politically minded of the various churches from stirring up these tired and destructive old sources of dissension. Scoring points against each other over matters that are within the scope of authority of the leaders of each rite is to lose points with God.
Example: filioque. This was a CHOICE. That choice need not be reversed in the West. And it need not be imposed in the East.
Huge BUMP for an excellent, expansive, Catholic post!!!
What you speak of is earnestly to be prayed for, but in all honesty, what do you do with the different phronemas of the East and the West? Our relationship with our priests and hierarchs, even our Patriarchs, is at base, conciliar. The Church belongs to and is operated by all of us. Because of our mindset with regard to the Faith, this has not been a source of trouble theologically but does mean that, for example, an Archbishop perceived by the Laos tou Theou, the People of God, to be oppressive and intent upon reducing them and their national hierarchs to the position and role of vassals to the Patriarch of Constantinople was driven from his position and replaced by one more acceptable to the people, the clergy and the national hierarchs. This very recently happened right here in America, friend. Would Rome countenance such a thing? Would Roman hierarchs in America rise up against the Pope and demand the removal of the senior national prelate? I actually participated in the first Diocesan Council in America in which, in the presence of our Metropolitan and the offending Archbishop himself, we, clergy and laity together, stood on the floor, denounced the man and called upon the Patriarch to remove him. The Council voted almost unanimously for this. This is just one, albeit rather dramatic, example of how different the Churches are in function and mindset. Your formulation, "...need not be imposed in the East." It speaks to the very phronema problem about which I have written. If a Council of the whole Church chose to accept the fillioque, it would not be "imposed" on the Church, it would be the will of God as expressed by the Church in Council. Without a Council, no one or group should feel it is being generous, or concessionary by agreeing not to "impose" it on the Church. Getting into the fllioque argument here is pointless. We've beaten that dead horse to a pulp. Suffice it to say that the Nicene Creed of the Council does not contain fillioque. If at a Great Council, the whole Church (and that means including you and me, not just hierarchs and priests, chose to insert those words, fine.
Very interesting. We could have used such muscularity when the pederast scandal first broke. Instead we kept our voices down and our wallets open. Nothing worse for the Faith than a flaccid, go along to get along, Laity.
ping
The Western Church is in serious trouble, it's membership roster notwithstanding. Large numbers mean nothing, when the Faith has been diluted in the attempt to gain these numbers. Not addressing the corruption from the bottom up has assured the Church's continued demise. If the Laity had any rigor, any vigor, some of those Bishops would have been dragged by their collars, down the flight of stairs of their respective parishes.
Moving a pederast from one Parish to another is a much graver Sin than the Pederast's sin. His is a sin of the perversion of the flesh, those who moved him around are guilty of Sins of perversion of the Spirit. They knowingly exposed young, innocent boys to the horrors of pederasty. Allowed, facilitated the ruination of their lives. And what does such a man say when it is found out, 'I'm getting the blame for someone else's wrong doing', that is supposedly Bishop Law's latest lament. And yet, he sits in Rome at the right hand of the Holy Father, living not a meagre life of repentence and redemption, but a full, $140,000 worth of a cushy life. How can any sane Catholic not howl in rage and disgust? How?
The Holy Father has made some progress in establishing his desire to see all of us united. More importantly, though, it is the desire of Christ and His blessed mother.
It is what Jesus intended from the beginning. What God has joined, let no man sunder. With God, everything is possible.
The main message Our Lady of Soufanieh and Our Lord tell us is: UNITY OF HEARTS. UNITY OF CHRISTIANS.
This book is a new voice that presents the deeper message of Soufanieh for the universal Church which is called to unity, especially the call for Orthodox and Catholics to become one as they were for the first 1000 years of Christianity. The Author explores not only unity for all Christians but love and unity for each family. Soufanieh is a call for Christian Unity and for love and unity in millions of families which will lead to Christian Unity. Father Fox went to Damascus and grasped the reality that Soufanieh is to the East what Fatima is to the West. Those of the Soufanieh Community reviewed this book before going to print and were amazed and thrilled that finallly the truth and love for unity between East and West as called for by heaven will be made known to millions more by a priest from the West who accepted those of the East with love. Finally a sensitivity to the East is shown in presenting the Mother of the East as the Mother of us all who wants her children one in her Son Jesus Christ.
"I suspect that a reunited Church would mean that I would be part of the Roman Church. Given the present state of the Roman Church and the history of that Church for the past 1000 years or so, I am compelled to say that I don't trust Rome to allow me, here, to continue to worship and believe as my people have for the past 17-1800 years. I'd like to be convinced that I'm wrong."
You must be joking! If any such reunion were to take place, the only problem you Greeks would have would be trying to accommodate the vast numbers of disaffected Latins that would come knocking on your doors!
Another good reason to keep things as they are!
;)
Wouldn't bother this Catholic one bit. I would love to see a reunification of God's Holy Church. Now, more than at any time in the past 700 years we need for ALL Christians to be speaking with ONE voice. I realize our Protestant bretheren wouldn't like what many Catholic priests have to say....Hell, I don't like what many priests say, but the respect I have for the word of the Holy Father overrides that. Many priests are living sinful, and indeed wicked lives. Perhaps if all of Christ's disciples were speaking with one voice, some of the evils of the clergy AND the laity might be stopped....and maybe His church would be able to aid its oppressed children in the mohammedan world.
What Vicomte suggests may be very close to what the Pope suggests -- two fully autonomous "lungs" in the same body. There is a political element of resistance by those who see this as "concession" to the East and a diminishing if not outright insulting the primacy of the Pope. There is probably an equally adamant element among the Orthodox who cringe at the though of "becoming" Catholic.
I also think that all of you who participated correctly identified the very cause of continued split: the papacy. It is not that the Orthodox do not recognize the Pope as the first in honor, it is that they refuse to recongize him as their sovereign lord to whom they submit, not out of reverence, but out of juridical authority. I think the example of the Supreme Court is an excellent parallel to understanding how the Primitive Church was organized and how the orthodox Church is still organized or disorganized, whichever you prefer.
Kolokotronis made an excellent point when he mentioned that the Orthodox Church is truly the gathering of all believers (ekklesia) and that the laity have a duty to co-govern the Church instead of being passive and obedient spectators. Incidentally, Saint Cyprian proposed that the faithful should have the right to "depose" a bishop -- a view that earned him rejection and scorn by the Roman Pontiff, along with the charge of heresy. Cyrpian was a great proponent of princely popes, but he also had a profoundly 'eastern' view of the limits of that princely office.
My two cents' worth is a basic understanding of the word communion. Churches that profess the same faith are theologically in communion with each other. A Church is where the bishop is and any two bishops whose ekklesia profess the same faith are in spiritual communion.
What Vicomte purposes, in good faith and with a good heart, is a political communion of churches that, despite their proximity in many things and common roots and Apostolic tradition and valid clergy, are neither spiritually nor administratively identical or even close enough to be able to simply state that what Rome teaches and what Constantinople or Moscow teach is one and the same theology, or one and the same concept of the church.
I agree with Kolekotronis that a Vatican III should place all issues on the table and let the clergy and the laity decide if we can come to a common faith and a common vision of the Church. I share Kolokotronis's skepticism that we can for all the reasons mentioned above and in the endless debates that have taken place since the Vatican II and even before that.
The Church can be one if, for the start, the Church of the West were to return completely to the Church of the Seven Ecumenical Councils and re-open for discussion all the additions and innovations to the faith (which would of course hold for the Church of the East equally). That would mean (perhaps temorarily) disengaging one thousand years of Roman Catholicism (which leads in such inniovations) and everything the RCC taught since the Great Schism. Frankly, no matter how much we all may wish that, it will never happen. No church will ever have to admit that it was wrong.
ping
Excellent observation! Orthodoxy is all about relationship, not rules. Unfortunately, trying to explain or argue a point with someone schooled in "rules" with feelings is not very effective. Thus, sometimes, we (Orthodox) have to use the method understood by the receiving party.
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