The Unity of the Orthodox Church

Who is the head of the Orthodox Church? This is a question often asked, especially by Roman Catholics. No doubt they expect to find in the Orthodox Church an equivalent to the papacy. For Orthodox, however, the very existence of a visible head of the Roman Catholic Church indicates that, whatever its merits, the Roman Catholic Church is structurally a secular insti-tution. Visible heads are the symbols of secular corporations, companies or governments. Orthodox would argue that, ultimately, the Pope is the descendent of the pagan Roman Emperors: historically, when the Imperial Power disappeared from Rome, its authority and prestige were transferred, mainly by the Carolingians and their descendents, to the Papacy. In Roman Catholic ideology the Pope of Rome has been known as the "Vicar of Christ" ever since the Hildebrandine Reform of the late eleventh century. (Until that time, he had been known in Orthodox fashion as "the Vicar of St. Peter".) And since according to the "filioque" the Holy Spirit proceeds from Christ as from the Father, so the Holy Spirit must proceed from the "Vicar of Christ," i.e., the Pope. Is this not precisely the affirmation of the dogma of papal infallibility?

And there are others who assume the Orthodox Church must have a "head." Journalists quite often appoint a "head"-usually the Patriarch of Constantinople, which is rather ironic since he has one of the smallest flocks in the Orthodox world. But the truth is that the Orthodox Church has no visible head.

It is true that in history various figures have played an important role in the Orthodox Church, certain Emperors of Constantinople, for example; or, after the fall of that city in 1453, certain Russian Tsars. They worked to protect the Church from heathen invasions or heretics, gave generous donations to monasteries and church-building programs, sponsored missions, and issued laws in defense of the Church. But they were never "heads" of the Church, and those who tried to meddle in church affairs were always fiercely opposed by the faithful.

In church history other great and universal figures have stood up to defend the Church at critical times.
For example:

St. Anthony the Great, founder of monasticism;
St. Basil the Great, defender of the Orthodox teaching on the Holy Trinity;

St. Martin the Confessor, defender of the Person of Christ with St. Maximus the Confessor;

St. Theodore the Studite, defender of the teaching on the Incarnation and, so, of icons;

St. Photius the Great, defender of the Orthodox teaching on the Holy Spirit and the Holy Trinity;

St. Gregory Palamas, defender of Orthodox spirituality against humanist and atheist rationalism;

St. Paisius (Velichkovsky), defender of monasticism and prayer from impious rulers and the decadence of the Enlightenment;

St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, canonist, pastor and theologian; Blessed John of Shanghai and San Francisco, preacher of repentance and return to Orthodoxy on five continents (to be canonized in 1994);

Blessed Justin Popovich, confessor and defender of the theology of the Church (reposed 1979; his canonization is being prepared).

None of these figures ever claimed to be "head" of the Church. Indeed, several denounced the concept of the Church having a visible head, especially St. Gregory the Great, himself Pope of Rome!

For the Orthodox, there can only be one Head of the Church, Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, as is affirmed constantly in the Epistles (cf, 1:22, 5:23, or 1:18 Col. and Psalms).

Some may object to this: "You must," they say, "have a visible head; what about bishops?" Of course, a bishop is a visible head (or, in Orthodox language, an icon of Christ), but only of his own diocese, not of the Church as a whole. Local Churches are "headed" by a patriarch, pope (as in Alexandria), metropolitan or archbishop, but these are likewise heads of local churches, not of the entire Church of Christ. Moreover, any bishop is only "head" in an administrative and liturgical sense; he is an "icon" of Christ, no more.

How, then, is the Church governed if it has no visible head? A company would dissolve into chaos without a chairman, the Roman Church would vanish without a pope. How is it that the Orthodox Church can continue without a visible Head and does not break up? Where is the principle of unity and authority?

The answer is given by the Saviour in the Gospels. Knowing that He would ascend to His Father, He promised to send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit (John 14:16, 14:26). The Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth (John 16:13), for, in the words of Christ, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth.

In this way, although the Church has no visible head, and has no need of one, she has an invisible Head, which is Christ our God and King, present through the Holy Spirit, sent by Christ from the Father (John15:26). This inner sense of Christ's presence as Head of the Church has always prevented Orthodoxy from elevating a human being to this position. True, it would be more convenient to have a human Head: decisions could be taken more quickly, the Church would have a more efficient organization, cooperation and coordination would be easier. Jurisdictions, i.e., dioceses of different local Orthodox churches on the same territory, could be organized into branches of the Church, just as the Roman Church in Great Britain absorbed Polish, Italian and other national groups into one Roman Catholic Church. A visible head would be able to centralize a global Church. Local states would think twice before meddling in local church matters. In general, administration, communications and management would be enormously facilitated. And yet, for Orthodox such an arrangement is unacceptable. The purpose of the Church is not efficiency, it is holiness.

This explains why, to the outsider, Orthodoxy presents a paradoxical, even chaotic face. The human face of the Orthodox Church is indeed chaotic-because it is living in the world. Internally, however, the unity and authority of the Church is maintained by the Holy Spirit. The Church is the Body of Christ. The unity of the Church is apparent to the extent that we are partakers of the divine nature (II Peter 1:4), to the extent that we participate in the Holy Spirit. This is why the outsider fails to see the unity and authority of the Church but only human drama, because, being outside the Church, he cannot be a partaker of this divine life, of the actions and movements of the Spirit of Truth. The unity of the Orthodox Church is a spiritual unity, not a secular one.

The unity of the Church is apparent wherever there are those who are striving to live in Christ through the Holy Spirit. Unity becomes visible and tangible to the degree that the invisible Head of the Church, the Saviour Jesus Christ, becomes visible and tangible in our lives by the Holy Spirit. Where there are those who refuse the Church, where there are schisms and heresies-for whatever doctrinal, political or nationalistic reasons-penetrating Church life from the world, there unity no longer exists. It is for this reason that the unity of the Church is most apparent in the Lives of the Saints, where there is no difference between "Greek" or Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian or Scythian, bond or free (Col. 3:11); for by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body...and have all been made to drink into one Spirit (I Cor. 12:13). This spiritual unity, which is provided by Christ as the Head of the Orthodox Church, is stronger than time or space, for the saints are united regardless of century and nationality, education or background, and those in prayerful communion with the saints are similarly united. This unity in the Holy Spirit, in the Person of Christ, this unity of the Church is its Orthodoxy and its Catholicity. It is Orthodox for it confesses the Orthodox teachings, but it is also Catholic since it is universal, beyond time and space. Indeed, the two are inseparable, for Orthodoxy which is not Catholic would be but a local opinion or custom, and Catholicity which is not Orthodox would be a form of monolithic totalitarianism. This is why the term "Roman Catholic" is contradictory: one cannot be "Catholic" and "Roman" at the same time.

The Catholicity and Orthodoxy of the Church is best witnessed at the councils, whether local or ecumenical. It is here, at gatherings of bishops-and often saints-that the Holy Spirit inspires understanding of God and reveals spiritual realities that are then expressed in dogmas and canons. Here the authority and teaching of the Church is expounded by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In this divine-human action, spiritual truths are often revealed which strengthen the bonds of unity, Orthodoxy, and Catholicity in the Church. In the case of local councils, truths have been expressed which sometimes become universally accepted by the Church. A good example is the First Council of Jerusalem, when St. James, who presided at the Council, said, "For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and us... (Acts 15:28)," when speaking of the decision of this Council concerning the question of circumcision. So too, there have been meetings of bishops and others which were prematurely termed "councils" and whose decisions were later rejected by the Church as not being inspired by the Holy Spirit but rather by human passions; for example, the Council of Florence in the fifteenth century. Characteristically, such "councils" bring not unity but disunity; they weaken the Church's authority. At various periods in her history, centrifugal forces, schismatic or nationalistic, have threatened to undermine the unity of the Church. Such is the case today with the so-called Macedonian Orthodox Church which, with Communist and Vatican aid, was separated from the Serbian Orthodox Church.

In the past whole local Churches have left the Orthodox Church. Such was the case with the Nestorians, the Monophysites and later the Western Church (whose leaders envisioned the reestablishment of a Western Roman Empire). At other times the Church has been menaced by centripetal (centralizing) forces which threatened to enforce unity at the cost of diversity. Such was the case with certain emperors who wished to Hellenize or Russify local populations. For example, the Bulgarian Church under the jurisdiction of Constantinople was not allowed to celebrate in Church Slavonic. Similarly, the Volga Germans in Russia were denied permission by the Moscow Patriarchate to celebrate services in their native German (they have since been received into the Free Russian Church where, under the omophorion of Archbishop Mark, they now serve in German). In spite of these two anti-ecclesial tendencies, the Church remains undivided, for even the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.

The Orthodox Church, then, is a commonwealth of local churches, a community of unity in diversity, which is founded on the Orthodox Christian theology of the Holy Trinity. The unity of the Church is the expression of the common Orthodox Faith, which is itself an expression of the experience of the Holy Spirit common to her members. The principle of unity and authority is the Son of God, the Head of the Church, the Body of Christ, expressed in the Holy Spirit. This can best be seen among her saints, those who, having acquired the Holy Spirit, are partakers of the divine nature, especially when they are gathered together, as, for example, in a council-for, as Christ promised, where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them (Matt. 18:20).

The nature of the Church's unity is spiritual, not secular, not organizational, but ascetic. The unity of the Church is manifest when each one of us, individually and collectively, roots out from within us all that is contrary to the free and untramelled working and movement of the Holy Spirit. If we fail to do this, our unity with the Body of Christ, the Church, is weakened.

The clearest sign that the Orthodox Church is not a secular but a divine-human institution is the fact that she has no visible Head, but the invisible Head of the God-Man, Jesus Christ, present in the Church through the Holy Spirit, Who is "everywhere present and fillest all things, the Treasury of blessings and Giver of Life."

THE UNIVERSAL PATRIARCH

Saint John the Faster (celebrated by the Church on September 2) was most likely the inventor of the alarm clock. This sixth century Patriarch of Constantinople was a most meek and gentle soul, a man of prayer and fasting, a true monk. He was also a wonderworker who, among other things, gave sight to a man who had been born blind.

As we mentioned above, he probably also invented the alarm clock. The saint used to sleep prostrate on his knees. Just to make sure that he wouldn't oversleep, he used to place a beeswax candle nearby and then press an iron nail into the side of the candle. When he was about to rest, he lit the candle, and as he took his brief nap, the candle burned down slowly until it reached the nail. When the heat of the flame had warmed and loosened the wax, the nail fell with a loud clatter onto a metal pot that was placed below the candle, thereby awakening the saint. Obviously, the saint was here following the advice of the Desert Fathers who used to say, "He that wishes to be saved contrives means."

Aside from being a wonderworker and an inventor, this saintly and unassuming hierarch is remarkable for possessing yet another distinction: He was the first Patriarch of Constantinople to be called "Ecumenical Patriarch." Emperor Maurice gave Saint John this title in the year 586.

The Byzantines loved titles. The general feeling seemed to be that the more, and bigger, titles you had, the happier you were. And evidently, as the empire shrank, the titles became proportionately bigger. Hence, Sebastos (honorable) became Isosebastos, which in turn evolved into Protosebastos which finally developed into the dread Panhypersebastos (All Supremely-honorable).

We must be careful, however, in understanding the implications of this new title, "Ecumenical Patriarch." In those days Constantinople was the "ecumenical" city, that is to say, it was the religious, political, spiritual, economic, and legislative center of the oecumene (literally, "the inhabited" world) - that is, the Roman Empire. The title "ecumenical" was not used exclusively by patriarchs alone. There was also, for example, an "Ecumenical Librarian" in Constantinople. Since the oecumene was the empire, the word "ecumenical" carried the significance of "imperial." Therefore, the Ecumenical Librarian, despite his intimidating title, was simply the chief librarian of the Imperial City. He did not, by this title, assume authority over all the other librarians of the empire. Thus, too, the Ecumenical Patriarch was simply the bishop of the Imperial City. He was not, as we sometimes hear today, the "leader of World Orthodoxy." Likewise, the Ecumenical Councils were not local diocesan councils, but councils of bishops from the whole oecumene, i.e., the empire, imperial councils called together by imperial decrees.

By mistake - or was it perhaps by Divine Providence? - Saint John's new title "Ecumenical Patriarch" was translated into Latin as Universal Patriarch.

Here is where some of the papacy's trouble began. Today's papacy, that is.

To begin with, Saint John didn't ask for the new title. It was imposed on him by the emperor. Saint John didn't even want to become patriarch, and initially he had resisted strenuously against receiving the office even after he had been elected. He just wanted to be a simple monk; he had been near the patriarchate long enough to know what a thankless and all-consuming task being a bishop is.

Pope Saint Gregory the Great did not know Saint John personally; he did not know that Saint John had not assumed this title himself, nor that he had not even wanted to become patriarch, and that he was not the power-hungry, ambition-driven despot that his supposed new title "Universal Patriarch" seemed to imply. Alarmed at the thought that one bishop was claiming to himself authority over all the other bishops, Saint Gregory wrote to Saint John. Thus, history has bequeathed to us these incredibly beautiful letters written by the saintly pope, letters which gently but firmly demolish the foundations of the papacy in the West as it later came to be known and hated.

Behold how Saint Gregory the Pope of Rome wrote to Saint John the Patriarch of Constantinople:

"I pray you, therefore, reflect that by your bold presumption the peace of the whole Church is troubled, and that you are at enmity with that grace which was given to all in common. The more you grow in that grace, the more humble you will be in your own eyes; you will be the greater in proportion as you are further removed from usurping this extravagant and vainglorious title. You will be the richer as you seek less to despoil your brethren to your profit. Therefore, dearly beloved brother, love humility with all your heart. It is that which insures peace among the brethren, and which preserves unity in the Holy Catholic Church…What will you say to Christ, Who is the Head of the universal Church - what will you say to Him at the last judgment - you who, by your title of universal, would bring all His members into subjection to yourself? Whom, I pray you tell me, whom do you imitate by this perverse title if not {Lucifer} who, despising the legions of angels, his companions, endeavored to mount to the highest?…"

And in another letter:

"But if anyone usurp in the Church a title which embraces all the faithful, the universal Church - O blasphemy! - will then fall with him, since he makes himself to be called the universal. May all Christians reject this blasphemous title - this title which takes the sacerdotal honor from every priest the moment it is insanely usurped by one!"

We cannot say, as some have contended, that Saint Gregory was, after a manner of speaking, reserving to himself the prerogative of "Universal Bishop." An African council, in an ill-considered decision, had offered a like title to the bishops of Rome, so to honor, the holy Apostle Peter, as they supposed. And what was the response of the See of Rome? It refused this unfitting title! Saint Gregory explained that the See of Rome had refused the honor "lest, by conferring a special matter upon one alone, all priests should be deprived of the honor which is their due. How, then, while we are not ambitious of the glory of a title that has been offered to us, does another to whom no one has offered it, have the presumption to take it?"

Thus, letter after devastating letter, like a deadly artillery barrage, Pope Saint Gregory the Great's epistles to the Orthodox bishops of his day fall with point-blank accuracy upon today's "infallible" popes, with their claims to supremacy as "successors" of Saint Peter's throne in the Vatican City.

In his monumental book The Papacy, Abbe Guettee - a French Roman Catholic priest and scholar of the last century who later joined himself to the true Catholic Church, the Orthodox Catholic Church - deals with this and many other historical incidents which bring into sharp relief the contrast between the ancient See of Rome and today's Vatican. No Orthodox Christian home should be without this valuable and informative book.

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