All for One? The idea of unity divides Catholics and Orthodox Christians.

All for One? The idea of unity divides Catholics and Orthodox Christians. Posted on Thu Jul 14 2005: BY FREDERICA MATHEWES-GREEN

"The need is felt to join forces and spare no energies" to renew dialogue between Catholic and Orthodox Christians, said Pope Benedict XVI. In comments to delegates of the Patriarch of Constantinople on June 30, the pope explained that "the unity we seek is neither absorption nor fusion, but respect for the multiform fullness of the Church."

Outsiders may wonder: Why don't those two venerable churches just kiss and make up? From the outside, they look a lot alike. Each church claims roots in earliest Christian history. The dispute that split them is a thousand years old. Isn't it time to move on?

It is my own Orthodox brethren who appear to be the cranky partners. Catholics have been making friendly overtures for more than a decade now. Pope John Paul II even said that the extent of papal power--over which the two churches split in the 11th century--could be "open to a new situation." Both churches hold as ideal a united body with Rome as "first among equals." Yet the Orthodox drag their feet, sometimes seeming downright rude. A Catholic friend tells me that the attitude seems to be: "Take this olive branch and shove it."

The Orthodox Church is smaller and less powerful, so we don't get much opportunity to explain how things seem from our perspective. But it comes down to two words: "unity" and "chaos."

From a Roman Catholic perspective, unity is created by the institution of the church. Within that unity there can be diversity; not everyone agrees with official teaching, some very loudly. What holds things together is membership. This kind of unity makes immediate sense to Americans: Whatever their disagreements, everyone salutes the flag, and all Catholics salute, if not technically obey, Rome's magisterium.

When Roman Catholics look at Orthodoxy, they don't see a centralized, global institution. Instead, the church appears to be a jumble of national and ethnic bodies (a situation even more confused in the U.S. as a result of immigration). To Catholics, the Orthodox Church looks like chaos.

But from an Orthodox perspective, unity is created by believing the same things. It's like the unity among vegetarians or Red Sox fans. You don't need a big bureaucracy to keep them faithful. Across wildly diverse cultures, Orthodox Christians show remarkable unity in their faith. (Of course there are plenty of power struggles and plain old sin, but the essential faith isn't challenged.) What's the source of this common faith? The consensus of the early church, which the Orthodox stubbornly keep following. That consensus was forged with many a bang and dent, but for the past millennium major questions of faith and morals have been pretty much at rest in the Eastern hemisphere.

This has not been the case in the West. An expanded role for the pope was followed by other theological developments, even regarding how salvation is achieved. In the American church, there is widespread upheaval. From the Orthodox perspective, the Catholic Church looks like chaos.

This is hard for Catholics to understand; for them, the institution of the church is the main thing. If the church would enforce its teachings, some adherents say, there would be unity. The Orthodox respond: But faith must be organic. If you have to force people to it, you've already lost the battle; that wouldn't be unity at all.

So we've got two different definitions of "unity." Is "unity" membership in a common institution or a bond of shared belief? The Orthodox take their cue from Christ's prayer to his Father, "that they all may be one, even as we are one." What kind of unity do the Father and the Son have? They are not held together by an outside force; they are one in essence and have a common mind. If we are "partakers of the divine nature," as St. Peter said, then, the Orthodox believe, we'll participate in that mind. That's what makes us the "body of Christ," the church.

Thus the Orthodox hesitate at a phrase like the pope's "multiform fullness." Catholic diversity makes it easy for Catholics to embrace us: When they look at us, they see the early church. We fit right in. But when the Orthodox look at Catholics, we see an extra thousand years of theological development, plus rebellion in the pews. What kind of unity do Catholics have, at present, that we could enter?

There are plenty of good reasons for the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches to talk. Discussion clears away misunderstanding, and common causes can benefit from the energies of both churches. But we can't be fully united until we agree on what "unity" means.

Ms. Mathewes-Green is the author of "At the Corner of East and Now: A Modern Life in Ancient Christian Orthodoxy."

John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, §18
Taking up an idea expressed by Pope John XXIII at the opening of the Council, the Decree on Ecumenism mentions the way of formulating doctrine as one of the elements of a continuing reform. Here it is not a question of altering the deposit of faith, changing the meaning of dogmas, eliminating essential words from them, accommodating truth to the preferences of a particular age, or suppressing certain articles of the Creed under the false pretext that they are no longer understood today. The unity willed by God can be attained only by the adherence of all to the content of revealed faith in its entirety. In matters of faith, compromise is in contradiction with God who is Truth. In the Body of Christ, "the way, and the truth, and the life" (Jn 14:6), who could consider legitimate a reconciliation brought about at the expense of the truth? The Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae attributes to human dignity the quest for truth, "especially in what concerns God and his Church", and adherence to truth's demands. A "being together" which betrayed the truth would thus be opposed both to the nature of God who offers his communion and to the need for truth found in the depths of every human heart.

Thank you for the posting. I recognized her name from her very fine book, FACING EAST, which I had a number of seminar students read for an insight into living-Orthodoxy-as-a-convert.

While that is her strength in THAT book, I think that is also her weakness in this article. And I say this respectfully, since we have the same phenomenon in Roman Catholicism. She looks at the Orthodox Church, I think, through something of the rose-colored glasses one would expect a convert from Episcopalianism to use.

For example: "Cranky" is a VERY charitable adjective to use with reference to some hierarchs (Alexy II, pops into mind), and "rebellion in the pews" is hardly a Roman Catholic phenomenon (the vitriolic struggles in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, the turmoil at the Hellenic seminary in Boston, and the mutual refusals of intercommunion between some Orthodox groups, all challenge that vision of Orthodoxy as a 'peaceable kingdom').

I wonder if an Antiochene parish, founded by converts, is really an ideal setting in which to take the pulse of contemporary Orthodoxy. I've heard quite challenging opinions on a number of issues (including women's ordination) from students and graduates of St. Vladimir's for instance, that you surely wouldn't expect to hear from a priest and his wife who had fled [P]ECUSA and founded their own Orthodox congregation.

"for the past millennium major questions of faith and morals have been pretty much at rest in the Eastern hemisphere"

Isn't this a clear mark of discontinuity between the Eastern church of the first millennium and that of the second? If, for example, there had been no martyrdoms in a millennium, would it be right to assume that this was the result of the church fully converting the country, or would it be right to wonder if the church was somehow failing in its mission?

For Roman Catholics, the history of the Christian Church has continued without any such discontinuity. Our faith and morals are regularly assaulted by new and ever cunning devices of the enemy, and the assaults are regularly repulsed.

The quote which you presented refers only to the doctrine of the Orthodox. It does not preclude persecution. In fact the Orthodox have suffered particularly cruel persecutions for the last 1000 years. First under militant Islam and within the last century under militant atheism. While Catholics have generally experienced persecution only sporadicly and usually in mission lands the Orthodox have been living with it in their homelands for the better part of a thousand years. They are often called the church of the martyrs. It is only in the last century that serious persecution on a large scale has touched the western church.

Here are some of my reflections about this article. I note the conflicting opinions such as "whether one agrees with the Orthodox or Catholic points in the theological divide, these observations about the nature of the divide itself and some of the very real problems in the Catholic Church are extremely insightful". Another critic said "This article is sheer balderdash. To portray the Western Church as chaotic and the Eastern Church as settled is to fly in the face of 2000 years of history". In the light of these criticisms, we begin to read a different "golden thread" into this article.

The real issue is what constitutes the unity of the Church. Let us leave the Eastern Orthodox to one side for the moment and consider the conflicts within Roman Catholicism. The "neo-conservative" would say, "Unity means primacy of Rome, period", meaning that if you are subject to a diocesan bishop in canonical union with the Pope, you are a Catholic. Otherwise you are outside the Church however orthodox you are in terms of your profession of faith. The traditionalist, however, would say that the bishops, patriarchs and the Pope can create the conditions in which faithful Catholics are legitimately forced to adopt an "independent" position in order to preserve the unity of the Faith and the Sacraments. The writer of the article clearly understands the issues of Tradition and Authority, but clouds this understanding with other and less appropriate terms. The purpose of authority in the Church is to uphold Tradition, and this is what Archbishop Lefebvre and others have said all along.

The author resumes everything in two words, unity and chaos, political conformity under a single authority or a kind of ecclesial anarchy. Is political conformity to institutional authority the only criterion of the unity of the Catholic Church, as some Orthodox would maintain? No, certainly not, because Catholics - at least those who have not embraced some heresy - remain as united in the doctrine of the faith and the Sacraments to the same degree as any Orthodox. Have the Orthodox patriarchs and bishops absolutely no authority or rules by which they govern their flocks? Orthodox priests are also disciplined by their bishops if they fall into heresy or fail in the disciplinary standards expected of them.

Thus, we cannot see this problem in a absolute and dualistic way. It is a question of degree. The Orthodox may seem less interested in organisation and authority, and the Roman Catholics (at least the "run-of-the-mill") may seem less interested in Tradition and the contemplative life. The article author maintains that the Orthodox see the Catholics as chaotic and vice versa. From the Orthodox point of view, "For them [the Catholics], the institution of the church is the main thing. If the church would enforce its teachings, some adherents say, there would be unity. The Orthodox respond: But faith must be organic. If you have to force people to it, you've already lost the battle; that wouldn't be unity at all". Do you have to be Eastern Orthodox to hold this conviction? The traditionalist phenomenon is evidence that a Roman Catholic's profession of faith is not conditioned by the degree of constraint to which he is submitted. We believe the Church's doctrine, not because anyone forces us to do so, but because we are convinced that it is true. I certainly need no constraint to force me to believe in the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, the Virgin Birth, the Seven Sacraments and so forth!

Much of this bickering between Orthodox and Roman Catholics is due to deep-seated prejudice on both sides, and not on account of real differences. Many traditional Catholics are forced to relativise the primacy of the Pope when something like the post-Vatican II crisis and the pontificates of Paul VI and John Paul II happens. In this, how are we different from the Eastern Orthodox, at least in practical terms, whilst assenting to the teaching of the Council of Trent and Vatican I?

The key to reconciliation between the Roman Catholic Church and the various Orthodox Churches of the East will be understanding within our own Churches the relationship between Tradition and Authority. If indeed the Pope is dispensed from his purpose of upholding orthodoxy and Tradition, then the Orthodox would be right, but this is not the case. The issue is therefore, not an issue of unity against chaos, but the relationship between authority and tradition that is present to differing degrees in both Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The fallacies must be stripped away so that the essential issues can be seen.

We have seen the mechanisms of divisions between Christians in our own ranks. Typically, a big unjustice is committed by an authority against a group that is differing on account of a refusal to change, and having good reasons for this refusal - Paul VI in regard to Archbishop Lefebvre, the Old Catholics refusing what they perceived to be a theological novelty - right the way back in history. For how long were Christians expected to tolerate corrupt Popes and bishops before they revolted, fell into heresy, and produced Protestantism in the sixteenth century? The Council of Trent closed the stable door after the horse had bolted. When these divisions occur, they usually have to be justified in theological terms. This happened with the Orthodox, the Protestants, the Old Catholics - and the traditionalists and sedevacantists are no exception. The same mechanism worked in exactly the same way.

For me, unity means admitting the real causes of divisions between Christians and firmy placing the authority of the Pope, patriarchs, archbishops and bishops in the service of upholding orthodoxy and Tradition. We have then to escape the stereotypes and prejudice, and look at these matters head-on. When we begin the perceive reality, and not the figments of our imaginations, then progress may be made.

Fr. Anthony

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