The surprise announcement on the Church's new opening to Anglicans and the wide play it is gettign universally in the media simply highlights how the Anglophone media, in particularly, has not been paying attention to the theological dialog with the Orthodox churches,
which had its biennial session in Paphos, Cyprus recently [quite a few significant posts about it posted in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread from the OR and from other sources outside the Anglophone world]... Luigi Geninazzi in Avvenire places the dialog with the Orthodox in the right perspective.
Between Catholics and Orthodox -
a dialog that is advancing
by Luigi Geninazzi
Translated from
October 28, 2009
The wind that blows impetuously from the extreme confines of Christianity in the West with the announcement that the Church is ready to welcome various Anglican confessions wishing to return en masse to the Church, stirs up old problems as well as new hopes even on the Eastern front.
From the point of view of the Orthodox Churches, it is very significant that Benedct XVI's gesture of rapprochement with the Anglicans avoided any hint of 'uniatism', i.e., returning Anglican communities will not be 'a Catholic Church of the Anglican rite' but personal ordinariates within the universal Catholic Church.
It is one of the signs that the commitment self-assumed by Benedict XVI from the first day of his Papacy "to work without sparing any effort to reconstitute the fill and visible unity of all the followers of Christ" is bearing good fruits.
A new ecumenical era is flourishing in the East. Earlier this week, in a message to Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians, Benedict XVI expressed the wish that "the good relations between our churches may continue to be further reinforced in the coming years".
But even among Catholics and Orthodox, "dialog has become a consolidated reality on the basis of equality and reciprocal trust", in the words of Metropolitan Ioannis of Pergamon, one of the greatest contemporary theologians in Orthodoxy and prominent supporter of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
In an interview with
Avvenire, Ioannis gladly explains his point. He starts with a date, June 29, 2006, when it was his turn to lead the Orthodox delegation to visit the Pope for the annual celebration of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul.
It was a gesture that had become traditional since 1965, when Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras jointly revoked the mutual excommunication by the Roman and Byzantine Churches in the Great Schism of 1054.
But Ioannis still treasures reliving the emotion of that day when he heard his old friend Joseph Ratzinger speak to him more as a fellow theologian than as the Bishop of Rome.
And to teh Orthodox delegation, Benedict XVI said: "We should work in order to advance more expeditiously on the road to full unity". Two weeks earlier, speaking in his weekly catechesis about the Apostle Andrew - considered the founder of the Orthodox Church - the Pope said "the Church of Rome and the Church of Constantinople are truly sisters" in udnerscoring the special relationship that links the two Sees.
Papa Ratzinger's 'ardent desire' to reach reunification with the Church's separated Oriental brothers echoes the 'all-consuming nostalgia' expressed by his predecessor John Paul II in his encyclical
Ut unum sint in 1995.
But John Paul II had to face a 'Cold War' with the Orthodox Churches, particularly the Patriarchate of Moscow, who saw in the rebirth of Catholic communities in Russia and the Ukraine, a threat to the canonical satus and the prestige of the 'Third Rome'.
Russian Orthodoxy, the sleeping giant, was waking up. And as it is with someone who has slept badly and too long, in this case, also narcotized by Communism, the awakening was marked by mumbling, grumbling and accusations.
Even Benedict XVI at the beginning was seen with suspicion.
"Doing away with the title Patriarch of the West, one of the titles that the Heads of the Church of Rome had embellixshed themselves with, stirred up a lot of ill will," recalls Gennadios, Metropolitan of Sassima and close collaborator of Bartholomew I.
[But the Patriarch himself did not express any misgivings at the time, as I recall. The more thin-skinned POthodox prelates maintained that by rejecting the title 'Patriarch of the West', Benedict XVI was thereby proclaiming himself Patriarch of both the East and the West!]
"But the most important fact," Gennadios underscored, "was the start of a well-defined theological dialog which is now confronting the crucial issue of the primacy of the Pope".
For the first time since the schism of 1054, the entire Orthodox world has agreed to discuss this main obstacle to reunification.
And it is the task that has been taken on by the Mixed International Commission for Theological Dialog which held its 11th plenary session in Cypurs recently and will meet again in Vienna next year. [Previously, the meetings were biennial].
"Its objective is the re-establishment of full communion between our Churches," says the Joint Statement signed by Benedict XVI and Bartholomew I in November 2006 in Istanbul, when the Pope visited Turkey.
The two have established a deep personal friendship which has been fortuitous for the ecumenical dialog.
"To tell the truth, there is very little that divides us today from the Catholics," says Prof. Nikolai Losskij, professor of Church history at the St. Sergius Institute in Paris, a famous theological center founded by intellectual Russian emigres in 1924.
The Orthodox share with Catholics virtually identical contents of the faith, sacramental doctrine and their vision of man.
What separates them is the role of the Bishop of Rome, whose historical primacy was recognized in the Ravenna Document of 2007 (statement from the 10th assembly of the Mixed Commission), but agreement must be sought on the prerogatives that go with this primacy.
Even the dificulties that marked the relationship between Rome and Moscow during the Pontificate of John Paul II had to do with history and psychology
[historical Russian mistrust of Poles, aggravated when the Polish Pope sent Polish missionaries into Russia after the collapse of the Soviet regime] rather than with theology and doctrine.
But calm has been restored on that front. And that is confirmed by Archbishop HIlarion, right arm of Patriarch Kirill and head of the Moscow Patriarchate's department of foreign relations.
"We have an excellent relationship with the local Catholic community led by Mons. Pezzi. But other problems remain, starting with the Ukraine. Only when these problems are resolved can there be a meeting between the Patriarch of Moscow and the Bishop of Rome".
[I've always thought this hard line is a very un-Christian attitude, by which Moscow is transforming ecumenical relations into a political power play.]
Actually, Kirill needs time to convince ultra-conservatives in his Church who oppose ecumenism in general. Also, he needs to re-establish a less confrontational relationship with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the other national Orthodox churches that emerged after the break-up of the Soviet Union.
To his credit, one of his first acts after being elected to succeed the late Alexei-II was to go to Istanbul [on the occasion of a pan-Orthodox meeting of Patriarchs], which was much appreciated by the rest of the Orthodox world.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 29/10/2009 20:19]