[Kolokotronis]

Well, there you have it. Many of us have tried, and failed, to express what Orthodoxy means by primacy. +John has laid it out more clearly than I have ever seen it. One point which Roman Catholics reading this may not fully appreciate is the great influence that Russian theologians have had on this theory of primacy. Usually the Russian Church is seen as being terribly conservative and ontologically anti-Rome. It is not. Some years back, it was the Russian Church which felt most strongly that we allow inter-communion with Rome as a matter of economia, hardly an anti-Roman attitude. In some areas concerning validity of Roman sacraments, the Russian Church was the first to recognize their full validity. The present problems between Rome and Moscow rest solely on the matter of Uniatism and jurisdiction which is completely consistent with the ecclesiastical view advanced by +John.

Thanks so much for this piece which I think will help all of us interested in this issue come to a better understanding of the proper ecclesiology of The Church.

[siunevada]

John has laid it out more clearly than I have ever seen it.

How is it that the great intellects speak so clearly and directly?

A very good interview.

[kosta50]

Primacy withing synodality -- yes. That has been the case in the Undivided Church as well. The nature of that primacy was more that of an essential honor than of jurisdiction.

If the Church is where the Eucharist is, then every church with valid priesthood is a catholic church, with or without a pope or a patriarch. Obviously, the need for primacy is, as +Ioannis points out, in synodal matters.

Of course, agreement on the nature of the primacy in the Church is only one hurdle -- full communion cannot take place, whether we agree on the role of the "universal primate" or not, until our theologies become identical.

Kolokotrnis, I must say that between all of us Orthodox here we have said pretty much the same thing, but much less skillfully then +Ionanis.

[Agrarian]

Your comments about the Russian Church and its past history of often being more open to a more "flexible" approach to the non-Orthodox are correct.

This is perhaps best seen in the context of a tendency that has been commented on by some scholars of the Orthodox world: i.e. that the more secure a particular part of the Orthodox Church is, the more flexible it can afford to be.

The Russian Church was not flexible during the Tartar yoke, but reached a zenith of flexibility at the height of the power and reach of the Russian empire. It's flexibility again contracted after the fall of the czars, then expanded at the height of strength of the Soviet Union. It has again contracted during these economically and politically uncertain times after the breakup of the Soviet state.

Similar things were apparently true of the Greek-speaking Church: e.g. much more flexible during the powerful days of the Byzantine empire than it was under the Turkish yoke.

This can be seen as vacillating, but it is not -- it is a reflection of the fact that appropriate economia varies from place to place and age to age. The Russian Church never recognized the "validity" of Western sacraments in the sense that Western theologians think about the concept of "validity." To the extent that they did or do, this was and is the reflection of a Western captivity of thought.

The question is not whether non-Orthodox sacraments are considered to be "valid," but how a particular part of the Orthodox Church will, through the exercise of economia, treat non-Orthodox approaching the Orthodox Church desiring reception into communion or pastoral ministry of some sort.