Other things we disagree on? Unleavened bread…Communion in one kind. Communion from reserved Sacrament. Celibacy of the clergy. We don’t think that’s a good rule… I don’t. I have 15 grandchildren. Baptism by pouring water… we believe baptism involves immersion. Multiple Masses by the same priest. Confirmation as a separate ritual. Holy Communion for children. Issues about divorce and remarriage. There are plenty of issues that don’t fall into the category of “absolutely essential” or “absolutely non-essential.” This is a wonderful article; thank you for posting it!
As a Roman Catholic parishioner in an Eastern Catholic Church, there are some 'corrections' , or perhaps these are simply misunderstandings, in the above text.
First of all, the Holy Father is pope of the Catholic Church - west and east, which includes the Roman Catholic Church. There are 22 different Catholic Traditions, including Byzantine, Armenian, Coptic, Chaldean, Melkite, Maronite, Ukrainian, and Ruthenian.
Fr. Hopko gets bonus points for acknowledging 'attachment to liturgy' as a stumbling block. Correct me if I am wrong, but I get the impression from some of my Orthodox friends here at FR that their respective churches fear Vatican imposition. This has been a problem in the past, where well intentioned representatives from the Vatican burned the liturgical books of certain Eastern Churches (I speak here of my Maronite Catholic family which went along in order to remain faithful to the Magisterium). Much has changed since then. We now have the example of the Anglicans who re-united with the Vatican, on the stipulation they could retain their liturgy, derived from the Book of Common Prayer. The agreement was concluded with the understanding that certain aspects of their liturgy needed to be updated to bring it into conformity with the teachings of the Magisterium. This is also true of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church which reunited with Rome during the past century. Some of us were truly blessed to witness their liturgy, live on EWTN.
As for 'unleavened bread' and 'confirmation as a separate ritual', the majority (if not all) of the Eastern Catholic Churches have restored 'chrismation' along with the Sacrament of Baptism. There are also certain Eastern Catholic Churches that use unleavened bread - no problem whatsoever. Married clergy? All of the Eastern Catholic Churches allow for married priests, while some strongly encourage celibacy, for practical reasons.
My impression is that Father Hopko has not yet fully explored the Eastern Churches in full communion with Rome. Should he do so, he would gain great insight into how eastern theology blends perfectly into the Catholic Church. The Eastern Churches, like their Orthodox neighbors, fall under the leadership of a Patriarch.
I treasure this photograph of Mar Nasrallah Cardinal Peter Sfeir, Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, meeting with Pope John Paul II. He serves not only as Patriarch of the Maronite Church but also as Cardinal. Following the death of JPII, (then) Cardinal Ratzinger called upon Cardinal Sfeir to organize and lead the 'Novendiale Mass' for all the Eastern Catholic Churches. Naturally, the reunification of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches would open the door for a future pontiff, from the (former) Orthodox Churches. What a glorious celebration that would be!!
Hi. Thank you for your kind words. A few thoughts on your post...
First of all, the Holy Father is pope of the Catholic Church - west and east, which includes the Roman Catholic Church.
Well that's the Roman position. It is not the opinion of the Orthodox. We of course believe that we are the Catholic Church in its entirety. In the first millennium it was customary in both the East and the West to refer to the Church as Catholic and the faith as Orthodox. Hence correctly speaking we are Orthodox Catholics.
There are 22 different Catholic Traditions, including Byzantine, Armenian, Coptic, Chaldean, Melkite, Maronite, Ukrainian, and Ruthenian.
On a personal note I am aware of the Eastern Rites since it was a stop off for me on my road to Orthodoxy.
Fr. Hopko gets bonus points for acknowledging 'attachment to liturgy' as a stumbling block. Correct me if I am wrong, but I get the impression from some of my Orthodox friends here at FR that their respective churches fear Vatican imposition.
That would be accurate to a degree.
This has been a problem in the past, where well intentioned representatives from the Vatican burned the liturgical books of certain Eastern Churches...
This was not limited to the Maronites. And even today efforts by Vatican bureaucrats to extend the blessings of the Vatican II liturgical reform to the Eastern Rite churches have not gone unnoticed though so far they have not enjoyed much success.
We now have the example of the Anglicans who re-united with the Vatican, on the stipulation they could retain their liturgy, derived from the Book of Common Prayer.
That's not entirely accurate. The Anglican Use is not a rite and permission for its use is up to the local ordinary. Its application thus far has been quite limited. It is true that a handful of former Anglican clergy who entered into communion with Rome have been re ordained with a dispensation for their being married. Some of them have been allowed to use the so called Anglican Use liturgy. But there is no provision for this being a permanent arrangement. There are no Anglo-Catholic seminaries or bishops and there is no one training priests in the Anglican liturgical rites.
The agreement was concluded with the understanding that certain aspects of their liturgy needed to be updated to bring it into conformity with the teachings of the Magisterium. This is also true of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church which reunited with Rome during the past century.
What parts of our liturgy do you anticipate will need to be updated? It has worked quite well for us I think.
As for 'unleavened bread' and 'confirmation as a separate ritual', the majority (if not all) of the Eastern Catholic Churches have restored 'chrismation' along with the Sacrament of Baptism. There are also certain Eastern Catholic Churches that use unleavened bread - no problem whatsoever. Married clergy? All of the Eastern Catholic Churches allow for married priests, while some strongly encourage celibacy, for practical reasons.
These are not minor issues, though they are not beyond resolution. I think that it is in the matter of ecclesiology that you will find the problem. That is where the rubber is going to hit the road. Many of the claims of the papacy are simply not going to be accepted by Orthodoxy. I would suggest reading Fr. Hopko's other essay on the papacy for some ideas about our concerns. I don't agree with all of it. But many of the points he raises are serious issues. That article is linked in my #1 above.
My impression is that Father Hopko has not yet fully explored the Eastern Churches in full communion with Rome. Should he do so, he would gain great insight into how eastern theology blends perfectly into the Catholic Church. The Eastern Churches, like their Orthodox neighbors, fall under the leadership of a Patriarch.
I think Fr. Hopko is aware of the existence of the non Latin Rite churches in communion with the Pope of Rome. In fact I will go out on a limb here and say he probably knows more about them and their history than either you or I. That's just an educated guess based on his background though. The history of the Eastern Catholic Patriarchates is not a source of good feelings for Orthodox. since most of them were erected by the papacy to draw off Orthodox Christians and to challenge the authority of the Orthodox Patriarchs. It was a serious and very un-canonical intrusion upon the rights of the Eastern Churches (the real ones) which has been a source of ill feelings for a long time. The so called Unia remains a stumbling block to the restoration of communion not an aid to that end.
Naturally, the reunification of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches would open the door for a future pontiff, from the (former) Orthodox Churches. What a glorious celebration that would be!!
I think that the word "former" in front of the word "Orthodox" is quite telling about where we are both coming from. Orthodoxy is the faith of the undivided Church of the first millennium. You see Orthodoxy as something to be abandoned or made to conform to the Roman Church's magesterium (the end result would be the same). We see the process as not one of reunification but of the restoration of communion based on the return of the Latin Church to Holy Orthodoxy. In that future situation the Pope of Rome would again claim his place as primus inter pares among the Orthodox Catholic Hierarchs of the world.
But it would be without most of the theological baggage of the last thousand years that has cropped up in the west. The canons of the First Vatican Council especially are heresy to Orthodox Christians. This doesn't mean we don't want to revive the undivided Church of the first thousand years AD. Any Orthodox Christian who says he does not want that is in need of some serious spiritual counseling. But we believe that we are the Church. We don't see ourselves as a part of two halves. Orthodox Christianity is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ whole and complete. And you believe the same thing to be true of your church. That creates a problem.
Herein is the great tragedy of the present situation. There are for the first time in a thousand years honest people in both churches who are looking at each other and saying "How did this happen? This is not what God wanted." But the reality I think is that it has gone beyond the point of no return. Trent was a massive blow to any hope of reunification because of the theological innovations it codified. But IMHO the final nail in the coffin was Vatican I. That's a show stopper. The language in those decrees (see #3 above for one example) is flatly heretical to us. And it is so crystal clear that it just leaves no room for wiggling and parsing words. In so many ways our churches have grown apart. Your theology is now heavily based on the medieval scholasticism of Aquinas and Augustine, which is so inimical to Orthodoxy. This is true of your Eastern Churches too. They may have retained the outward forms of Eastern worship. But they are Roman Catholic in faith. In faith, ecclesiology, spirituality, and theology we have grown apart so far that we can't just put things back they way they were. Patriarch Bartholomew probably said it best when he noted that our two churches have become ontologically different.
You quote the fathers in an effort to support the papal monarchy. We quote the fathers to disprove it. We will never agree. If Rome agreed to anything even resembling Fr. Hopko's terms laid out in the other essay I linked it would cease to be the Roman Catholic Church. For us to restore communion with heretics would be to cease to be Orthodox. "Reunion" would mean that one or the other of our churches would wind up with the word "former" in front of its name. That is why I believe that absent a miracle of God there will never be a restoration of communion. And I weep with the angels because of it.