Archbishop Hilarion
Related Thread: Catholic-Orthodox Reunion Reported "Within a Few Months"
Posted on 09/15/2009 9:51:18 AM PDT by NYer
.- The Russian Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches have improved relations under Pope Benedict XVI, and in a sign of a growing closeness, the Vatican announced today that Archbishop Hilarion, the Russian Orthodox head of External Church Affairs, is paying his first visit to Rome.
Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk is visiting Rome at the invitation of Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. His trip began today and will last until September 20.
Archbishop Hilarion's post was previously filled by then-Archbishop Kirill, who was elected the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia this past January.
This week's visit to Rome will be Archbishop Hilarion's first since he was appointed as president of the Department for External Church Affairs of the Patriarchate of Moscow after the selection of Kirill.
The archbishop will be received by the Holy Father and will meet, among others, Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone; Cardinal Walter Kasper; Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, and Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture.
"In the wake of the many meetings and conversations with the Patriarch in the past," says a statement issued by the Council for Christian Unity, "this visit will confirm the ties of friendship between the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church, on the solid basis of mutual understanding and respect, with a view to closer collaboration and to favor the presence of the Church in the lives of the peoples of Europe and the world."
At a meeting with the ambassador from the Dominican Republic to Russia, Archbishop Hilarion said that relations between the two Churches are good and have particularly improved under Pope Benedict.
“We have frank and rather efficient dialogue and its objective is to present the Christian vision to our present world and give answers to the questions raised by today’s reality,” the Orthodox archbishop said according to Interfax news agency.
Is there a chance of reunification between Orthodox and Catholic? I know Orthodox priests are permitted to marry which could be a sticking point.
Oops, the Protestants won’t be too happy about his.
Excellent!
Certainly possible, but unlikely any time soon.
I know Orthodox priests are permitted to marry which could be a sticking point.
That's not really an issue at all. And the reality is (and if I'm wrong someone will correct me) an Orthodox priest cannot get married; however, an married man can be ordained an Orthodox priest.
Also, the Catholic Church has been ordaining married clergymen who convert from Anglicanism for about thirty years.
Rome already permits Eastern Rite Catholic priest to be married (prior to ordination), same as the Orthodox rules, so that will not be the sticking point.
There are plenty of other doctrinal sticking points, however: concilliarity, the filioque, original sin, immaculate conception, etc.
It would seem to me that if the Mass, the Catechism, the Liturgy, and the Sacraments are roughly compatible, there could at least be grounds for a reunification.
In the US, married priests who convert from Orthodox to Eastern Rite Catholic (and sometimes to Roman Catholic) are permitted to remain married. Elsewhere, where an Eastern rite is the predominant form of Catholicism, married Eastern Rite Catholic parish clergy are common.
If there is a formal reunification of Catholic and Orthodox, the issue of married clergy would no doubt be finessed on similar lines by allowing each to keep their own traditions.
I think this was the reason for the Catholic and Orthodox Churches to lift the excommunications against each other, but there are still some genuine theological issues before reunification and these would require at least one side to admit that it has been in error for a thousand years.
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