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December 14, 2006
East and West
Archbishop Christodoulos and Pope Benedict, today.
This morning, the Holy Father received His Beatitude Christodoulos, archbishop of Athens and of all Greece, who is making an official visit to the Vatican. Prior to his audience with the Pope, the archbishop visited St. Peter's Basilica where he prayed at the tomb of John Paul II.
In his address, the Holy Father recalled how "following the advent of Christianity, Greece and Rome intensified their relations" and how "this gave rise to very different forms of Christian communities and traditions in the regions of the world that today correspond to Eastern Europe and Western Europe. These intense relations helped to create a kind of osmosis in the formation of ecclesial institutions. And this osmosis - in safeguarding the disciplinary, liturgical, theological and spiritual peculiarities of the Roman and Greek traditions - made the Church's evangelizing activity and the inculturation of the Christian faith fruitful."
Pope Benedict highlighted how "our relations continue today, slowly but deeply and with a desire for authenticity." This has made it possible "to discover a new range of spiritual expressions, rich in significance and joint commitment." He also recalled John Paul II's "memorable visit" to Athens in 2001, "a defining point in the progressive intensification of our contacts and collaboration."
Catholics and Orthodox, said Benedict XVI, are called "to make a cultural and, above all, a spiritual contribution. They have the duty to defend the Christian roots of Europe, which have formed the continent down the centuries, and to enable the Christian tradition to continue to manifest itself and work with all its strength in favor of the defense of human dignity, the respect of minorities, avoiding that cultural uniformity which could lead to the loss of the immense riches of civilization. At the same time, it is necessary to work to safeguard human rights, which include the principle of individual freedom, and in particular of religious freedom. These rights must be promoted and defended in the European Union and in each member State.
"At the same time," he added, "we must increase collaboration among Christians in all European countries in order to face the new risks that challenge the Christian faith: growing secularization, relativism and nihilism, which open the way to forms of behavior and laws that damage the inalienable dignity of man and threaten such fundamental institutions as marriage. It is vital to undertake joint pastoral activity, as a joint testimony to our contemporaries and an expression of our hope."
VIS has an edited version of their joint declaration.
Here's everything they said in French and Greek.
And while we're talking Pope, here's his liturgical schedule for the next few weeks, released today.
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
I know so little about the East/West situation, so please pardon my ignorance in this post. How close or far away are the various Eastern Orthodox churches and Rome from reunification? I just have no idea when I read these articles whether they indicate a real thaw that could manifest a reunification, or whether they're kind of window dressing and the chance of reunification anytime in our lifetimes is a reasonable thing to expect.
What would have to happen, concretely, in all these meetings and declarations for unification to happen?
I have similar questions about the Anglican church and Rome, and the Russian church and Rome, but would be satisfied just to understand more about the Eastern thing.
Posted by: MarkAA at Dec 14, 2006 10:44:52 AM
Praise God for this meeting!
For Mark AA.....
While the relationship between the "East and West" is extremely complex due to many significant factors and issues, I believe that both Catholic and Orthodox Churches would consider this meeting between the Pope, the Bishop of Rome and the Archbishop of Athens and Primate of all Greece as highly highly significant and yes indeed, even a thaw.
The various issues and factors are very complex not only historically and theologically [for example the famous 'Filioque issue' in the Western Nicene Creed] but also in the ecclesiology (faith understanding of Church) in the West and the East. Let me see if I can explain this.....
In the West, even among Anglicans and Protestants, there is no question that one speaks for the Roman Catholic Church and that is the Pope [all might not like this or agree with what he says but it is an 'accepted axiom']. This has developed slowly over two thousand years of both acceptance and development and non-acceptance, as well as various struggles within the Church and with exterior forces-mostly emperors and kings etc trying to control the Church
In the East, however, the emphasis is fundamentally on the local church [diocese] based as it is on Eucharistic Communion with the local bishop as 'sign of unity'. In the Orthodox Church [not in the so called Monophysite or Nestorian churches] the relationship between Church and Empreror [in Constantinople until 1453, then between the Church and the Russian Czar until 1917] was less struggle. The "Emperor/Czar was seen to be a unifying force of the "Orthodox World".
What I am getting at is this-the Church in the East lived a very different historical experience which raised far different questions and thus answers, than the Church in the West-even while both remained rooted in and transmitted the Apostolic Faith and that of the Fathers of the Church.
What we just witnessed within the last month was the Pope meeting with:
a) the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate (leading Church figure) of the Church of England and leader [not sure if he could be called head] of the Anglican Communion in the world
b)the Patriarch of Constantinople, also known as the Ecumenical Patriarch. He has the honor of being considered 'the first among equals' of Orthodox Bishops throughuot the world-but does not have within Orthodoxy the ability to speak with the same authority as the Pope. For example if he got up tomorrow morning and said "All the Orthodox are going to unite with the Catholic Church" some would follow but not all. If you read back in history, this has already happened at two Ecemenical Councils before the Reformation: Lyons and Florence. Actual unity was 'forged' [that's a main reason we now have Eastern Catholic churches united with us-also called Uniate] but the two councils were not generally accepted by the Orthodox so we won't repeat their mistakes.
c)Today's wonderful meeting with the Archbishop of Athens and primate of all Greece. This is a significant Church within Orthodoxy [with tremendous influence in the West-America etc] At one time great 'tensions' could be felt between Rome and Greece but Pope John Paul's Pilgrimage and warm welcome in Greece and especially Athens began and this continues the 'thaw'
Now another significant encounter needs to take place-how and where exactly it will first take place we are all awaiting. This is between the Pope and the Patriarch of Moscow. Remember that until 1917, the Czar (Caesar) played a very significant role in the life of the Church in Russia. Moscow was considered the Third Rome (and successor to Constantinople after it fell to the Moslem Turks). The present Patriarch of Moscow, now liberated from atheistic Soviet constraints has reasserted himself within the whole Church world. Great tensions arose between the Catholic Church and Moscow because of the reemergence of the Catholic Church in the Ukraine etc that had been forced by Stalin into the Russian Orthodox Church-these are somewhat subsiding thanks to a great deal of work on the part of the Vatican and openess of the Patrichate in Moscow. However tensions also exist between the Patriarch of Moscow and the "Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople about who really leads Orthodoxy........
I know this went long Mark-but I hope I have given you some insight and understanding into the complexities yet the very present thaw and progress that has ecumenically taken place :)
UT UNUM SINT THAT THEY MAY BE ONE
Posted by: Father Elijah at Dec 14, 2006 11:45:56 AM
Fr. Elijah,
Thanks very much for the insights. It sounds like major events then, indeed are taking place and this isn't just window dressing.
Is it reasonable at this point to pray with expectation that something akin to the fall of the Berlin Wall/Communism might happen in years not too distant, regarding Christian reunity, at least btw Rome and more of the East? (Not too many people predicted the fall of Communism, but when Eastern Europe became free, many could look back and see that the dominoes actually were in place to have made it happen.)?
Posted by: MarkAA at Dec 14, 2006 12:00:00 PM
For Mark,
I should add another wonderful and historical meeting that took place in Istanbul within this last month-between the Pope and the head of the Armenian Church. This Church is not part of the Orthodox Church as such for mostly historical and political reasons from the ancient past.
Since Vatican II much hard work has gone into forging relations and dialogue with what are commonly called the Ancient Churches of the East-long distince from the Catholic and Orthodox Churches over the Council of Ephesus [431 AD] and Chalcedon [451] but primarily as a rejection of the politics of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople
It IS confusing for those who might be confused, so much has happened over the centuries that need to be healed-but even more so much has happened recently-within our life-times for which we can be thankful to God
UT UNUM SINT THAT THEY MAY BE ONE
Posted by: Father Elijah at Dec 14, 2006 12:02:29 PM
LOL we must have been typing at the same time lol I promise this will be my last post lol
Mark,
The analogy of the Berlin Wall is a fascinating one...:) I can say this--'stuff like this' has not happened since the First Millenium!!!!! All of these encounters etc are highly significant. It is all the working of the Holy Spirit and YES we definitely need to pray--with what we call 'expectant faith'! :)
UT UNUM SINT THAT THEY MAY BE ONE
THAT THE CHURCH MIGHT ONCE AGAIN FULLY BREATHE WITH TWO LUNGS [East and West]
Posted by: Father Elijah at Dec 14, 2006 12:08:12 PM
When I tried to access the first link in Amy's post, I got the following message:
SSA Access Restricted
Due to SSA policy limiting personal use of government office equipment including information technology, access to the web site you requested is restricted. Examples of sites considered inappropriate are:
Hate sites which contain material that ridicule on basis of race, color, sex, national orientation, or sexual orientation.
Sex sites of an adult oriented or pornographic nature
Nudity
Criminal behavior
Gambling
I wonder what was at that site which could have been construed by a filter as of that nature. I once got blocked from "Feminists for Life" by this program...
Going back now to read the comments.
Susan Peterson
Posted by: Susan Peterson at Dec 14, 2006 12:23:23 PM
There is nothing I long for more than unity with Orthodoxy. But when I talk to Orthodox people, the barriers seem very high.
I was speaking to a fellow Catholic about the Orthodox positions. He said, of the development of the authority and centrality of the Pope, "But, if it is wrong, then it is grotesquely wrong. And that can't be." But many Orthodox people do feel that it is qrotesquely wrong.
And if the Pope were somehow to decree that the Eastern churches need to accept no more about the position of the bishop of Rome than was accepted in the undivided church at the end of the first millenium (a paraphrase of something he is reputed to have said as Cardinal Ratzinger) then there would be Catholics who would cry loudly tht it is necessary for salvation for every human creature to be suject to the Roman Pontiff. One wouldn't think that, saying that, they could take themselves into schism from that same Roman Pontiff, but history suggests that they could and would.
With men it is not possible, but with God, all things are possible. Please pray!
Susan F. Peterson
Posted by: Susan Peterson at Dec 14, 2006 12:36:15 PM
I hate to be a killjoy, but until an manner of worship that is historically recognizable again becomes normative in the Roman Church, the Orthodox will never consider us more than a den of iconoclasts.
The notion that Vatican bureaucrats can discard the ancient traditions of the Church to their liking at any time is exponentially more offensive to the Orthodox mind than any historical greivance, and all the diplomatic gestures in the world will not change that.
The best hope for unity is in among Roman Catholic traditionalists who, having seen the ill effects of granting the Papacy undue pastoral clout over tradition, have become much more Orthodox in their thinking than they ever were in the Tridentine era. It is here that the necessary ideas will emerge.
"Him who rejecteth any written or unwritten tradition of the Church, let him be anathema!" - Thus infallibly declared the Second Oecumenical Council of Nicaea, the last great triumph of a united Christendom before Irene put out her son's eyes, Charles took the Crown, and it all went awry. It is here - in the Spirit of Nicaea II - that we might again find unity, but very few people in the Roman Church are willing to take that teaching seriously.
Posted by: Daniel Mitsui at Dec 14, 2006 12:37:04 PM
I'm wondering. . . do all Eastern bishops change their name when they are elected (like the Pope does)? I ask that because Christodoulos seems like an unusual name to have been given at birth. Also, Orthodox author Timothy Ware is now known as Bishop Kallistos Ware. What is the reason behind the name change?
Posted by: Aaron at Dec 14, 2006 12:39:20 PM
Susan P: What you are missing is that all the de fide dogmas Catholics now believe were also held by the undivided Church of the first millennium. They were all contained within the primitive deposit of faith, after all. Development of doctrine has further clarified our understanding of those dogmas...but it hasn't added new dogmas or altered old ones. That is impossible, of course.
When Cardinal Ratzinger made that famous statement, he had all of this in mind, I guarantee. :) You can bet your bottom dollar that a reunited Church would not repeal Vatican I.
Posted by: diane at Dec 14, 2006 1:03:24 PM
I am not sure if these meetings are momentous or not, but to me, the neat thing is that since September 12, I've become much more aware of the fascinating issues surrounding the beginnings of Christianity, the Orthodox
schism, the Orthodox Churches, its liturgy, etc. etc. A Moslem commentator (I think from Qatar) said critically in the aftermath of Regensberg that Benedict had an ulterior motive in that speech-he was using a theological/philosophical argument about the Hellenist influence in Christianity for(to him)a political purpose- to move Orthodoxy toward unity with the Catholic Church, so that Christianity would form a united front from
Moscow to Rome, against Islam. Polemics aside about the competition between the faiths, his comments were quite perceptive. Pope Benedict's great mind and profound insight seem more brilliant to me every day.
Posted by: Rose at Dec 14, 2006 1:34:44 PM
Aaron,
It is a canonical requirement in the Orthodox Church that a bishop must be a monk. Ideally, the bishop would be elected from those who already are monks, but in actuality, sometimes an unmarried secular priest is elected. He then takes monastic vows before he is consecrated as a bishop.
Be that as it may, when a man becomes a monk in the Eastern Church, it is customary for him to take on a new patron saint and, thus, a new name. That is the reason why Orthodox bishops most often bear names different from the names by which they were baptized.
Posted by: Chris Jones at Dec 14, 2006 2:25:56 PM
Diane,
I think maybe the idea is that the Orthodox would agree to the formulation as stated ie "what was held in the undivided church at the end of the first millenium." They would be content with this formulation because they say that is what they believe now. And we would be content with it because we believe that VI etc were contained in acorn or seedling form in the first millenium. (It would be naive to think they were contained in fully developed great oak-tree form in the first millenium.) The Orthodox would not be required specifically to sign on to VI...the idea is to let them go on as they are, pretty much, but just in communion with us. But, as I understand it, then Cardinal Ratzinger said that the Orthodox would have to "acknowledge as legitimate the form which the faith has taken in the Western Church." (Anyone who knows the precise words, please correct me.) They wouldn't have to live within that development themselves, but they would have to say it is ok for us, not heretical. And I don't think they can do that. This makes me very sad; it has actually brought me to tears in discussions with Orthodox people.
And yes, Daniel, our worship, most of it, anyway, is not something the Orthodox recognize themselves in. Having worshipped in a Byzantine Catholic parish for close to a year now I am beginning to see regular (Novus ordo western rite as commonly celebrated in the parishes I know) Catholic worship with something somewhat akin to Orthodox eyes and it is almost shocking. One church in our area which has a well attended 6:30 am mass has a nun in street clothes who functions as altar server, reader, extraordinary minister...and more. She prepares the eucharistic vessels, unfolds the corporal etc, while the priest sits, then he gets up and begins. Seeing this woman in street clothes standing behind the altar during mass performing what I always thought was part of the priest's actions during mass almost makes it impossible for me to go there. I try to keep my eyes on the large crucifix above the altar, and not look at her.
And just the plain ugliness of so many of our churches, what seems like deliberate ugliness, is distressing to those who "love the beauty of Your house."
I truly believe Pope Benedict is trying to turn the church around and get us back to more traditional and more beautiful worship, in a way which does not cause a major uproar and perhaps a schism. But it is very hard to wait. Thank God for the Eastern rite!
On both of these fronts, we all need to keep praying.
Susan Peterson
Posted by: Susan Peterson at Dec 14, 2006 5:29:24 PM
"having seen the ill effects of granting the Papacy undue pastoral clout over tradition"
So if Bishops had more power there would not have been any changes in the liturgy? If the Pope gave up his "undue pastoral clout" Mahony would become a traditionalist in his thinking?
Posted by: reluctant penitent at Dec 14, 2006 5:33:58 PM
reluctant:
If we had never allowed a false mentality that the Pope can change whenever he wants without rebuke, there would be no new Mass (which was indeed forced upon the Church on Papal initiative) and Mahoney would be irrelevent.
The problem is less about governing structures than mentality - for all their problems, the Orthodox still have a faith that in its normative expression is recognizable as that of the saints. And that is because they recognize that their faith has an objective content that does not depend on a Pope to sustain at its every moment. We don't have that. It is staggering to think how often people need to be reminded that the Roman Catholic tradition has an objective content and is not just an expression of Papal power.
The new papalism is the result of worrying too much about liberal Catholics instead of acting on principle. Any admission that the Pope has erred is unallowable - just think of what the horrible liberals will do if we admit that!
Yes, it's comfortable to fantasize about an all-powerful imperial papacy that will stamp out the Mahoneys of the world. But it probably will not happen. And that fantasy will not survive the first genuinely wicked Pope it encounters.
We might rememeber that the Catholic faith survived in times and place when the Pope was a reprobate, was at war with the kingdom, was on the other side of an ocean that took three months to cross. I can accept a dogma about the charisms of the Papal office, but the manner in which its authority has been pastorally applied is irreconilable with Catholci History.
Posted by: Daniel Mitsui at Dec 14, 2006 5:57:15 PM
Chris Jones: Thanks!
Posted by: Aaron at Dec 15, 2006 11:03:11 AM
