Pope again stresses ecumenical dialogue with Orthodox

Catholic World News ^ | December 15, 2005

[Petrosius]

Vatican, Dec. 15 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI once again underlined his commitment to ecumenical progress-- particularly in talks with the Eastern churches-- as he met on December 15 with Catholic and Orthodox officials planning the resumption of formal theological dialogue.

The Holy Father met with 21 people-- 10 Catholic and 11 Orthodox-- who are making plans for the next meetings of a joint theological commission. The commission, established in 1979, has not met since 2000, when talks in Baltimore broke down in disagreement over Orthodox complaints of Catholic "proselytism," particularly in Eastern Europe. In June 2004, Pope John Paul II called for resumption of the commission's work, and with the approval of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in September of this year, active planning has begun for a new round of talks.

The Pontiff welcomed the resumption of theological dialogue after what he acknowledged were "serious internal and external difficulties." He urged the planners to recognize the importance of "eliminating the remaining differences" between the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and called upon them to 'do verything possible to re-establish full communion."

"We must achieve full unity of the Church and reconciliation among Christians, even at the cost of submitting our own will to the will of the Lord," the Pope said. He added that prayer is the indispensable first step toward Christian unity.

The committee to which the Pope made his remarks is composed of 10 Catholics, led by Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity; and 11 Orthodox members, led by Metropolitan Ioannis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Those two prelates are also expected to co-chair the meetings of the joint theological commission.

The joint commission will include 60 members, with 2 representatives of each of the 15 leading Orthodox churches, and 15 Catholics participating. The next session is expected to be held in 2006 or 2007, probably in Serbia. The joint theological commission was set up after a November 1979 accord between Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Dimitrios I of Constantinople. The first meeting took place in July 2000.

[siunevada]

I meant to post a similar article yesterday:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Catholics and Orthodox have a responsibility to work toward full unity in accordance with the will of Christ, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Meeting Dec. 15 with a committee preparing for a full meeting of the international Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, the pope said he rejoiced at the desire to "take up again and pursue the dialogue which, over the past few years, had known serious internal and external difficulties."

The last meeting of the international Catholic-Orthodox dialogue was held in 2000 to discuss the role and theological implications of the agreements that led to the formation of the Eastern Catholic churches. That meeting ended without any conclusions or decisions agreeable to Orthodox and Catholics.

Fifteen autonomous Orthodox churches, meeting at the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in Turkey, agreed in September that the dialogue should be restarted.

The decision, the pope told Orthodox and Catholic members of the preparatory committee, "constitutes a great responsibility. It is indeed a question of achieving the will of the Lord who wants his disciples to form a harmonious community and to witness together to the brotherly love that comes from the Lord."

Pope Benedict said, "in this new phase of dialogue," Catholics and Orthodox must work to eliminate the differences remaining between them and resolve "to do everything to re-establish full communion, which is an essential good for the community of Christ's disciples, as is underlined in the preparatory document you are working on."

The committee was meeting in Rome Dec. 13-16; a statement providing a brief history of the dialogue was released by the Vatican Dec. 15, but it was not clear if further information would be published immediately.

Metropolitan John of Pergamon, the Orthodox co-chairman of the dialogue and the Ecumenical Patriarchate's officer for relations with the Catholic Church, said Dec. 16 that the group had decided to pick up where the theological dialogue left off in 1990.

The 1990 theme, which will be taken up again, was the "ecclesiological and canonical consequences of the sacramental nature of the church -- authority and conciliarity."

Metropolitan John said, "My position all along has been that we have exhausted the discussion" about the Eastern Catholic churches, but other Orthodox churches insisted on further investigation into the topic because the matter divided Catholics and Orthodox.

The formation and existence of the Eastern Catholic churches, he said, would be discussed in the theological framework of the organization of the church, the exercise of authority and the role of the bishop of Rome.

Metropolitan John said the majority of Orthodox churches had decided to relaunch the dialogue before Pope John Paul II died, but "the election of Pope Benedict has strengthened our resolve because he is very committed to dialogue."

Pope Benedict told the church officials and theologians that the full communion Catholics and Orthodox seek with one another is "a communion in truth and charity."

"We cannot be satisfied to remain at an intermediate stage," he said. Rather, "without ceasing, but with courage, clarity and humility, we must seek the will of Jesus Christ, even if it does not correspond to our simple human plans."

The reconciliation of the Christian community, he said, will come only "at the price of submitting our wills to the will of the Lord."

Pope Benedict said human efforts alone would not be enough, which is why all Catholics and Orthodox must pray for the gift of unity.

The Vatican statement said the 21-member coordinating committee for the dialogue was led by the co-chairmen of the international dialogue commission: Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and Metropolitan John.

In addition to choosing a theme, the coordinating committee decided that the full dialogue commission would meet in September 2006 in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Montenegro. The Orthodox Church of Serbia has offered to host the meeting.

Explaining the 15 years of difficulty in Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, the Vatican statement said the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the freedom it brought to Eastern-rite Catholics in territories with a majority Orthodox population "reopened wounds in Catholic-Orthodox relations that had never healed."

The Eastern Catholic churches share the liturgical and spiritual heritage of their Orthodox counterparts, but the Orthodox tend to see their union with Rome as a splintering of the Orthodox community.

The five years that have passed since the last meeting of the commission, the Vatican statement said, "were years of patient hope."

"Pope John Paul II never let an opportunity go by to underline the importance of reactivating the theological dialogue while taking into account (the) need to overcome difficulties deriving from psychological attitudes, a lack of mutual knowledge" and differing developments in the churches of the East and West, the statement said.