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The question of authority of the Pope certainly does divide us. One way to deal with that would be to have the Roman Church "simply" come to a great and holy council of the Church and put all the innovations of the West since the Seven Councils on the table for discussion. But you know, the "phronema", or mindset of the Church in the East and the Roman Church are almost at opposite poles. The Orthodox Church, heirarchs, clergy and people in "syndesmos", make up the Body of the Orthodox Church here on Earth with Christ the Pantokrator as its head. We all count, all have a say. Being Orthodox, living Orthodox, is nothing like being and living Roman Catholic. Half of my family is Irish Roman Catholic. They live in a world where the Church says "Do this or you'll go to Hell"; Pay, Pray and Obey. In the Orthodox world, as my good convert wife says, the Church says "Do this and you will become like God." See the difference? Centuries of conditioning lead to this and a Great Council won't change it, though its a good start. For myself, resident in the West, 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.

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.

"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!

;)

They live in a world where the Church says "Do this or you'll go to Hell"; Pay, Pray and Obey. In the Orthodox world, as my good convert wife says, the Church says "Do this and you will become like God." See the difference?

I know this is from pretty early in this thread, but I wanted to voice my appreciation for how you put the Orthodox position. My own minister put it this way: "Faith in Jesus Christ brings salvation. Obedience to God's commands brings His blessing."