Replies

"You make an interesting point. The verb in question "thoso" (long O, long O") is a momentary future form. It means that something will happen at a discrete moment in the future. The only other time there is any mention of the power to bind or loose is 2 chapters later when all the apostles get that power together. As far as I know, there is no other mention of the keys as in when Christ actually does give the keys to Peter alone."

I thought the verb in question was "doso" not "thoso", but then I will readily admit that my grasp of Greek is at best rudimentary (crap in fact ;-)), and will bow to your knowledge of your ancestral vernacular!

However, I do not question in the least that Jesus is referring to an event that will happen in the future. Simply because Jesus had not yet come into His Kingdom and therefore had not yet "obtained the keys" Himself to give to Peter, or any other apostle for that matter. Jesus Himself would only fully receive that authority after His death and resurrection when all things were put under His feet.

Although the grammar may not reveal it, the passage from Matt 18 is similarly referring to an event that will happen in the future. We see this fulfilled in John's Gospel with Christ's post-resurrection appearance to the apostles where He breathes on them and empowers them to forgive and retain sins.

It is interesting that you should see in the power of "binding and loosing", that the donation of "the keys" is an implicit part of this. While the two are obviously closely connected, we see them as being separate issues - "the keys" being the authority to govern the house of God on behalf of its King - determining who will and who will not have citizenship - while the "binding and loosing" relates to the forgiveness of sins. The first we see specifically entrusted to Peter, whereas the second is given to all the twelve.

It seems improbable that if Jesus had intended to give "the keys" to all twelve that He would have used the singular second person pronoun to Peter in the presence of the rest! We see this singular appointment of Peter being fulfilled at the end of John's Gospel when Christ commissions him alone as the Chief Shepherd of His flock.

Nevertheless we do not see Peter's position as precluding lively debate and disagreement among the successors of the apostles. Nor does it negate St. Ignatius' ecclesiology that "Where the bishop is , there is the Catholic Church." We see the Church as being simultaneously both universal and local - a compenetrating reality in which ideally there should never be a conflict between the two.

I realise that we will have different understandings of these passages, because ultimately this issue is the major stumbling block in the way of communion between East and West. If this issue didn't exist I suspect full communion could be achieved relatively quickly.

However, it would help us to appreciate your position better if you could give us a clearer understanding of what you mean by "Primacy of Honour". To us that has the ring of a "lame-duck president" i.e. nice to have but no effective use to anybody!

You may think that we have a Patriarch who claims too much jurisdiction, but perhaps we think that you have a Pope who has too little. :)

P.S.:

"As an interesting aside, +John Paul II is mandating a renewal of the concept of a Eucharistic Community as the image of the Church right now, I believe."

There was a meeting of the Eastern Catholic Patriarchs a few days ago which could presage a dramatic change along the lines you suggest.

"I thought the verb in question was "doso" not "thoso", but then I will readily admit that my grasp of Greek is at best rudimentary (crap in fact ;-)), and will bow to your knowledge of your ancestral vernacular! "

Ah, Deacon. I get to play teacher! In Greek, the letter we call in English "Delta" is actually pronounced "Thelta", with a "th" sound. The "D" sound in Greek is designated by two Greek letters "NT". The "B" sound is not made by the Greek letter "Beta" but rather by the Greek letters "M" and "Pi" (which this post will not allow me to show but which looks like the symbol in the equation for the circumference of a circle). Beta sounds like the English letter V. In any case, I think "doso" is a Japanese word!

Your comments on the relevance of the use of the future momentary in Matthew is interesting...it also makes sense theologically. As you know, Orthodoxy does not reject the Papacy at all. Clearly St. Peter was the First among the apostles and it is appropriate, as the Ecumenical Councils make clear, that his successor, the Pope of Rome be the First among the bishops. What being first means is where the problem arises.

"However, it would help us to appreciate your position better if you could give us a clearer understanding of what you mean by "Primacy of Honour". To us that has the ring of a "lame-duck president" i.e. nice to have but no effective use to anybody!"

Well, we sure don't mean lame duck! Following is an Agreed Statement (from the SCOBA Website) of the Orthodox hierarchs here in America and the American Roman Catholic Bishops meeting with the permission and authority of Rome and at least the Patriarchates of Antioch, Alexandria, Antioch, Belgrade, Sofia, and Bucharest, as well as the Church of Albania, the OCA and the Carpatho-Russians in October 1989. I thnik it lays out the current view on the Papacy from the Orthodox viewpoint quite well, certainly better than I could.

"For the past three years, the Orthodox/Roman Catholic Consultation in the United States of America has been studying questions related to the theology and practice of councils and to the exercise of primacy in our churches. Our papers and discussions prompted the following reflections, which we now offer in the hope that they will advance the work of the international Orthodox/Roman Catholic dialogue, and the wider relations among the churches, as they have advanced our own understanding of these issues.

1. In both Orthodox and Roman Catholic theology, the Church is the mystery of God-given unity among human beings, who are bound together by their faith in the risen Lord and by the transforming gift of the Holy Spirit into the divine and human fellowship (koinonia) we call the Body of Christ (I Cor 12.13). Joined by the Holy Spirit to the Son in his loving obedience to the Father's will, the Church manifests redeemed creation within the embrace of the Triune reality of God, calling God "Abba! Father!" by the gift of the Spirit of his Son (Gal 4.6), as it strives towards the fullness of his Kingdom.

2. Individual human persons become sharers in this mystery through sharing in the Church's profession of the apostolic faith and through baptism "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt 28.19). "Born" there into the Church's life "by water and the Holy Spirit" (John 3.5), they may now "consider themselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Rom 6.11). So the Church, in its most extensive and inclusive sense, genuinely comprises all those who profess the apostolic faith and are baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, recognizing them as "fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" (Eph 2.19).

3. When it gathers, under the life-giving impulse of the Holy Spirit, to celebrate in the Eucharist the Son's "obedience unto death" (Phil. 2.8) and to be nourished by participation in his risen life, the Church most fully expresses what, in God's order of salvation, it is: an assembly of faithful human persons who are brought into communion by and with the persons of the Holy Trinity, and who look forward to the fulfillment of that communion in eternal glory. So the clearest human reflection of the Church's divine vocation is the Christian community united to celebrate the Eucharist, gathered by its common faith, in all its variety of persons and functions, around a single table, under a single president (proestos), to hear the Gospel proclaimed and to share in the sacramental reality of the Lord's flesh and blood (Ignatius, Eph 5.2-3; Philad. 4), and so to manifest those gathered there as "partakers of the divine nature" (II Pet 1.4). "If you are the Body of Christ and his members," proclaims St. Augustine, "your divine mystery is set on the table of the Lord; you receive your own mystery...Be what you see and receive what you are." (Serm. 272)

4. The mystery of Christ's Church, in its fullness, is therefore most directly and clearly encountered in the Eucharistic community. Each local Church, recognized in its celebration of the Eucharist, is a full sacramental realization of the one Church of Christ, provided it remains within the full apostolic faith and is bound in love and mutual recognition to the other communities who profess that faith. The Church in each place expresses its participation in the universal Church through its celebration of the one Eucharist and in its concern for the worldwide spread of the Gospel and for the welfare and right faith of its sister communities, as well as in its prayer for their needs and the needs of the world.

5. United with Christ and within itself by the divine gifts of faith and love and by the other charisms and sacramental events which enliven it, the Church is also "set in order," as St. Basil reminds us, "by the Holy Spirit." (On the Holy Spirit 39) This ordering of charisms within the community is the basis of the Church's structure, and the reason why permanent offices of leadership have been divinely established within the Eucharistic body, since apostolic times, as a service of love and a safeguard of unity in faith and life. Thus the same Spirit who unites the Church in a single universal Body also manifests his presence in the institutions which keep local communities in an ordered and loving communion with one another.

6. The two institutions, mutually dependent and mutually limiting, which have exercised the strongest influence on maintaining the ordered communion of the Churches since apostolic times, have been the gathering of bishops and other appointed local leaders in synods, and the primacy or recognized preeminence of one bishop among his episcopal colleagues.

a. Synods - whether held at the provincial, national or universal level, whether standing bodies (such as thesynodos endemousa of the Ecumenical Patriarchate), regularly convened gatherings, or extraordinary meetings called to meet some historic crisis - are the faithful community's chief expression of the "care for all the Churches" which is central to every bishop's pastoral responsibility, and of the mutual complementarity of all the Body's members.

b. Primacy - whether that of the metropolitan within his province, or that of a patriarch or presiding hierarchy within a larger region - is a service of leadership that has taken many forms throughout Christian history, but that always should be seen as complementary to the function of synods. It is the primate (protos) who convenes the synod, presides over its activities, and seeks, together with his colleagues, to assure its continuity in faith and discipline with the apostolic Church: yet it is the synod which, together with the primate, gives voice and definition to the apostolic tradition. It is also the synod which, in most Churches, elects the primate, assists him in his leadership, and holds him to account for his ministry in the name of the whole Church (Apostolic Canons 34).

7. The particular form of primacy among the Churches exercised by the bishops of Rome has been and remains the chief point of dispute between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, and their chief obstacle to full ecclesial communion with each other. Disagreement has often centered on the way in which the leadership exercised by Peter in expressing and confirming the faith of the other disciples (Matt 16.17f.; Lk 22.32; John 21.15-19) is to be realized in Church life. The Orthodox have emphasized that the role of Peter within the apostolic college is reflected principally in the role of the church. Roman Catholics have claimed for the bishops of Rome, since the fourth century, not only the first place in honor among their episcopal colleagues but also the "Petrine" role of proclaiming the Church's apostolic tradition and of ensuring the observation of canonical practices.

As our Consultation has suggested in its earlier statement, "Apostolicity as God's Gift in the Life of the Church" (1986; par. 12), "There is no intrinsic opposition between these two approaches." The Orthodox do accept the notion of universal primacy, speaking of it as a "primacy of honor" accorded to a primus inter pares; at the same time, they cannot accept an understanding of the role of the primate which excludes the collegiality and interdependence of the whole body of bishops, and in consequence continue to reject the formulation of Papal primacy found in Vatican I's constitution Pastor Aeternus. Engaged since the Second Vatican Council in further development of the doctrine of Papal primacy within the context of a collegially responsible episcopate (see especially Lumen Gentium 22-23), the Roman Catholic Church is presently seeking new forms of synodal leadership which will be compatible with its tradition of effective universal unity in faith and practice under the headship of the bishop of Rome.

8. The fullest synodal expression of the Church's universal reality is the gathering of bishops from various parts of the world in "ecumenical council," to deal with questions of urgent and universal importance by clarifying and defining the "ecumenical" faith and practice of the apostolic tradition (see the statement of the International Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, "The Sacrament of Order in the Sacramental Structure of the Church" [New Valamo, 1988] 54). The Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches agree in recognizing the seven great councils of the early Church as ecumenical in character and import. Because the circumstances of their convocation, their preparation and membership, and the process of their subsequent recognition by the Churches vary, history offers us no single juridical model of conciliar structure as normative. Still, the acceptance of the binding authority of certain councils by the apostolic churches in worldwide communion - however and whenever that acceptance becomes clear - constitutes for the whole Body of Christ an event of charismatic unity at the highest level. It is in the reception of a common faith, especially as that faith is formulated by the ecumenical councils, that the Churches experience most authentically the unity in the Lord that is the foundation of Eucharistic communion."

Please note the emphasis on what the Church is and the Eucharist. Very current isn't it? But then again, and this is for our protestant brethren, this is what the Church has ALWAYS taught. Questions?