The Middle East
in the eyes of Benedict XVI - Part 1
by Samir Khalil Samir, SJ
Oct. 11, 2010
Vatican City, Oct. 11 (AsiaNews) - At the beginning of the Synodal assembly involving the Churches of the Middle East, it is very important to analyze the address Benedict XVI gave yesterday during the solemn liturgy in St. Peter’s basilica.
Some of his emphases are essential in order to understand the social and ecclesial situation in the region.
The Pope first mentioned the fact that the Middle East has seen "ever since the days of Jesus until today, the continued presence of Christians."
The apostolic Churches
The Pope wants to emphasize the apostolic nature of the churches in the Middle East and the fact that churches are alive.
- The Church of Antioch, where Christians for the first time received this name (Acts 11:26).
- The Church of Jerusalem, which experienced the historical fact of Jesus and knew the Apostles.
- The Church of Alexandria, where St. Mark the Evangelist was martyred.
These churches did not receive the faith by missionaries sent from Rome, but from the Apostles themselves, and thus are witnesses to the original message. For these Churches, that is an important spiritual force. If these Churches should disappear, it would be a loss for Christians everywhere.
Cultural and religious pluralism
The Pope continues: "In those lands, the one Church of Christ is expressed in a variety of liturgical, spiritual, cultural and disciplinary traditions."
Then he talks about the variety of traditions. This variety must be emphasized: we have no less than seven Patriarchs in the East and seven liturgical, cultural, spiritual, disciplinary, and I would add theological traditions.
Dogmatically there is unity, theologically there is a great variety which are its greatest treasure. In exegesis for example, with the two great schools of interpretation: that of Alexandria, more allegorical and mystical, and Origen at the end of the second century; and that of Antioch, more grammatical and literal.
Even the theological positions are multiple from the outset. The variety of the liturgy is well known; however the
spiritual is seldom deepened[????], even as the cultural variety means a wealth of languages and traditions.
The East’s great cultural diversity is also a source of political and theological conflict.
In the West there was only Rome, as a capital of great culture. All other Western capitals had no weight, neither political nor cultural, compared to Rome. But the East, even well before Christianity, already had important cultural centers: Alexandria, Edessa, Jerusalem, Antioch.
This variety comes from the historical structure of the East. And the consequences are felt to this day. Unification in the West (and perhaps its homogeneity) came about over the course of time, but in the East, each Church remained distinct - each one proud of its past, even pre-Christian, all very conscious that they are the heirs of prestigious civilizations!
So the variety also leads to particularism or nationalism in the Churches, as well as internal divisions that weaken.
The Papacy and Church unity
The problem of the papacy will also be raised, I know, by some bishops. Some feel that Rome is overly involved in their affairs, without needing to be, simply out of a habit of centralism, or sometimes out of the conviction that the Roman practice is of a higher level than that of the East.
[How exactly can Rome be 'overly involved in their affairs'? Each of the Churches in the Middle East is sui juris, operating as they have for centuries except for using a common Code of Canon Law for the past 20 years, and the Vatican's Congregation for Oriental Churches acts has a coordinating rather than supervisory role. The only Eastern Church jurisdictions in which Rome has a direct hand are those in Eastern Europe under apostolic administration or that have the status of apostolic exarchates.]
Others point out that it takes a single leader, especially in cases of conflict, to solve problems. But everyone agrees on one point:that Rome must respect their differences and their cultures. In the Catholic East, for example, there are married priests and celibate priests.
[Hasn't Rome always recognized that? Is there a specific instance when the Vatican has failed to respect the Eastern Churches and the specific characteristics arising from their particular history and culture?]
And this is one of the things that the Pope wants to address. If there is no communion, there is no witness. Our witness is our communion. As the Gospel says: By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (John 13, 35).
If each rite stresses its own specificity, it could led to division or neglect of others to save their own culture. The East insists on its particularity rather than unity: a balance is needed.
Even the West is returning to the particular: Germany, France, Spain, are claiming specific beliefs and ways of governing the Church, not to mention the African and Asian traditions.
In the U.S. there are particularistic tendencies with regard to male-female relationships, which put many things in question. Anglicanism has split in recent decades because the African churches have refused to accept American or British decisions on this point. How can you maintain the unity of the Church, while respecting the culture of each?
This is a fundamental problem: it concerns schism or unity, and this is where the Eastern Churches can make a contribution. Because we are Eastern, with are many traditions, but we are Catholics, recognizing the principle of unity that is represented by the Bishop of Rome.
This model of the Eastern Churches could be a suggestion for the world of Orthodoxy. If the Orthodox see that the Catholic reality is lived in a rich and positive way, then they could move closer to unity.
{But if I have learned anything from the historical overview of the Eastern Churches recently provided by the Vatican - see post in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread - it is precisely that the sui iuris (''under their own management'] Catholic churches of Eastern Europe that resulted from local Orthodox churches deciding for full communion with Rome, were, in effect, the models for the ordinariate plan proposed to Anglicans in Anglicanorum coetibus. And that these in turn were modelled in part after the Church's bimillennial experience with the Churches of the Middle East. In Eastern Europe, entire Orthodox communities moved over to full communion with Rome while maintaining the Byzantine rite and other Orthodox Church practices like married priests. The autocephalous Orthodox churches have at least a dozen such examples to consider, dating from the 16th to the 20th centuries! Since the membership of each of this Eastern-rite Catholic Church ranges from a few thousand to as many as 4-5 million, it would seem the model works - with little interference from Rome.]
And vice versa: A bishop confided to me yesterday that
the Orthodox see unity at a bureaucratic level, not as a relationship between the patriarchs and the Pope, and that this distances them from eventual unity with Rome.
[Obviously, it is a serious philosophical and psychological obstacle for the Orthodox Churches to think of their eventual relationship with the Pope in a reunified Church as 'bureaucratic', i.e., in terms of the Pope as necessarily exercising authority over them. But the Roman Church prefers to define the relationship between the Pope and local churches as communion - spiritual accord, rather than bureaucratic enforcement, an accord exercised in collegiality among all the bishops including the Bishop of Rome.]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/10/2010 16:43]