www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Question: What would the Orthodox have to do to have unity

Dear Andrew you said:

I say:

I believe the governance would remain basically the same. I don't see how it could change. In the mean time, the Orthodox would continue to try to unite in this country. I always believed that unity among the Orthodox in this country would only come about if we were to first unite with the RCC.

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Dear Amado you said: I say:

Hey Amado, what about me? I'm not even worth a mention. Shame on you! :p :p :p

Zenovia

Zenovia

Oddly enough Zenovia, this is actually what I think is really only feasible. I don't see a grand, structural reunion happening; really more of a loose assocation. The fact is however, that would I think be a major change in RCC ecclesiology and there would be Catholic traditionalists who would fear a "domino effect".

Andrew

I agree with everything Fr. Hopko states. I do have some corrections and clarifications to his analysis of what Western Catholics would require of the Orthodox:

1) I just reread the Vatican decree and it does not say anything about believing that St. Peter is the first bishop of Rome.
2) The Council of Sardica gave such rights to the bishop of Rome. Namely, that UPON REQUEST, the bishop of Rome can be arbiter or choose the arbiters to retry a case appealed to him. Apostolic canon 34 also gives a head bishop the right of veto power. Naturally, this does not preclude the notion that the Pope can change his mind, as has happened many times in the history of the Church with the persuasions of his brother bishops. Even Vatican I left open this possibility when to the decree that "there is no recourse to an ecumenical council from a decision of the Pope," it added the mitigation "as to an authority superior to the Pope."
3) This is not exactly true. What is not "from the consensus of the Church" is not the matter of morals and doctrine, but rather the infallibility of the statement. When it comes to the matter itself, history has shown - with the examples of the promulgation of the dogmas of the IC and the Assumption - that the Pope indeed depends on the consensus of the Church.

4) This is not true. Vatican II states that bishops gain their very episcopacy/authority directly from God himself, and not from the Pope.

5) Brother Memo has already sufficiently made the necessary clarifications to this statement earlier in the thread.


Dear brother Ilian,

From my understanding, in light of what I wrote above, not much would change from the Western Catholic standpoint at all. What needs to change, as you have said, is merely the perception of more traditionalist/polemic Catholics about what the papacy actually is (not to mention a complementary change in the perception of more traditional/polemic Orthodox about what the papacy actually is). Let's pray even more for understanding and unity.

Blessings,
Marduk

Dear sister Zenovia,

I agree with you. The Pope relinquishing the title "patriarch of the West" will also help matters much, for it will give more opportunity for Eastern Christians to create new jurisdictions in the territories traditionally regarded as part of the Western Patriarchate.

But as I asked in another thread, "what to do?" since the Orthodox are now expressing objections to the Pope giving up this title.

Blessings,
Marduk

mardukm

I believe Fr. Thomas is actually correct. Canon 77 of the CCEO reads

You could say he received his authority from God, but for all practical purposes he's a lame duck until Rome gives him the green light. You may recall the Melkite Patriarch said the following (and he notes Vatican II):

He's talking about the same thing, and you may also recall he recently complained about interference in Melkite episcopal elections.

I can only repeat, that there would be "change", even if there wasn't "change". Up until this point Rome has managed communion with the Eastern Catholics by having them integrate in to a system of Latinized ecclesiology. It is used to communion with autonomous ritual churches, not autocephalous churches. Churches that don't control their flocks outside of the patriarchal boundaries.

Being in communion with churches that aren't in this framework would be a change in and of itself, but would also have to be supplemented for some type of framework for the RCC and Orthodox bishops to meet and agree on this when there is a reason to, which I don't think would be very often.

Andrew

I beg your pardon! It was merely a slip of the mind!

On second thought, that "slip" might have been caused by the fact that, among all the Orthodox posters here, you are the most "Catholic" in perspective!

Subconsciously, I considered you an orthodox Catholic! :p

Amado

Dear brother Ilian,

I only partly agree with your point here. I'd like to ask why you quoted the first part of Canon 77? Are you (and perhaps others) under the impression that a bishop's enthronement depends on the Pope? This is not the case at all. The bishop's enthronement occurs within the context of the Patriarchate, and has nothing to do with Rome. ONLY the second portion of the canon has any relevance to the point you are making.

IMHO, the second part of the Canon is a very wise law. It was given for the protection of the Church, not for the diminution of the Patriarchal authority. In truth, it MAY happen that a Patriarch has become enthroned by uncanonical means. It may also happen that the Patriarch is unorthodox. Both circumstances have occured in the history of the Church. The Pope is safeguarding the canons and integrity of the Church with this part of Canon 77, which provides a waiting period of investigation before the Pope grants formal communion. Among the Oriental Orthodox, this has hit home very recently and very starkly in the ousting of the Eritrean Patriarch by a politically motivated synod. Not only is this canon sensible, but it is necessary for the good order of the Church, wouldn't you agree?

There is a very important unwritten corollary to this canon that should be mentioned. Note that this canon DOES NOT forbid nor prevent any other Patriarch from taking the same action towards the new Patriarch - launch an investigation to discover the propriety of the election. In the Catholic Church, such a patriarchal investigation would be submitted to the Pope. There is nothing to prevent EVERY PATRIARCH, not just the Pope, from getting involved in the actions that canon 77 authorizes the Pope to do.

Now, before someone complains "well, it seems unfair that the Pope has a say in the election of a Patriarch, and not the other way around," keep in mind that there are several Eastern/Oriental cardinals who are involved in papal elections. They can do their own investigations on the Pope, have informal colloquies with other cardinals, and then vote on the appropriate candidate. It is not one-sided at all.

As for the "lame duck" comment, I believe that is an inapplicable term to this situation. The Patriarch certainly HAS the divine authority/prerogatives ALREADY to exercise his patriarchal powers, even before the Pope grants communion. It is simply that if he does so before such communion is granted, he might be considered a schismatic.

Consider also that the Pope not only has an obligation to the Church as a whole, but as Patriarch of the Latin Church, the largest body of Christians on this planet, he has a great responsibility to determine the canonical fitness and orthodoxy of the new Patriarch to whom he will say to this largest body of Christians, "it is OK to commune in his Church."

I agree with you completely that the extraordinary occasions when such an arrangement would be fitting would be few and far between , which is how the Fathers of Vatican I intended it to be.

Blessings,
Marduk

I agree with you, Andrew. I also think that this would represent a small but deeply significant shift in the eccesiology of both Orthodox and Catholics. But I doubt that either side really wants to make that shift because (to many people and leaders in each church) it would seem to be an abandonment of each church's defining principles.

Anymore, I am pessimistic about reunion now or in the foreseeable future between the Orthodox and the Catholics. I think neither side is willing to give up enough of its defining principles in order to have union with the other. But, we'll see.

-- John

Marduk

It�s just one I�m familiar with. It seems to me to fit with the problem the Melkite Patriarch expressed, namely that of the Eastern patriarchates being valid in their own right and not as a result of conceded privilege. There may be other provisions in the CCEO that are related or similar in nature, but I�m just not aware of them.

I would think there would be other ways of dealing with the rare occasion of an irregular election or a case of heresy than by making the exercise of patriarchal ministry dependent on Rome. To me, this fosters more of a parent child relationship than it does one of an elder brother. JMHO.

I would echo my previous comments.

I think they would form the proverbial drop in the bucket though. Personally, I don�t believe Eastern prelates should be Cardinals or even be in the Curia. That�s just my feeling.

Initially though, I think there would be a lot to sort out. It would be, as I�ve said before, a major change for the RCC to be in communion with Orthodoxy outside of the existing framework of governing the church. It is not in an existing relationship with autocephalous churches now, that would be a major change right there. Orthodox churches would not participate in the Curia, etc. Those things right there actually seem like monumental changes to me.

Consider what all could come up though. How do you handle converts? What do you do about overlapping territories? What if the Melkites said they want to become fully autocephalous like their Orthodox counterpart and control their overseas flock? What if they said they wanted to merge their synod and join with their counterpart, departing from the dicastry that oversees them now? There�s a whole lot in my mind that would need sorting out, and those are the types of things I can actually say I�ve never heard people on either side talking about.

John

You�ve probably got a combination of this, plus just the fact that when you have big organizations, you have inertia that works against change. Change will likely be slow though. I do think change in some form is inevitable though. Like Ben Franklin said �hang together, or hang separately�.

Now aside from all of that, I think there are a lot of internal issues within Orthodoxy that are problematic. Some apparent, some not. It�s something I�ve been coming to terms with in my own way over the last couple of years.

Andrew

A few thoughts based on Andrew's last post, from someone who definitely is NOT an ecclesiologist.

How would this be a problem? If you're talking about converts from non-Catholic/Orthodox religious, we receive them just the same. If you're talking about converts from/to Catholicism to/from Orthodoxy, then as far as Catholicism is concerned there is no problem. Orthodox already are considered members of the Church by virtue of their baptism, chrismation & al. and can freely partake of the Mystery of Confession and Eucharist. [whether or not they should is up to their bishop, who has every right to say "no" and who should be obeyed]

What does Orthodoxy intend to do with overlapping territories in non-Orthodox lands? I think this is definitely a big "problem" if you like nice clean organizational charts. However, within reason, I don't see multiple bishops in one area as a huge problem.

The worst that can happen is Rome would say "we can no longer maintain communion with you". If we [i.e. us Melkites] then withdrew any of these initiatives that you mentioned, it would have very interesting and negative ecumenical effects. If we continued, it would have even more interesting ecumenical effects. I see no reason we can't implement or submit ultimata for these kinds of things now; the only thing lacking is the will.

[Note that when I say this I do not at all advocate this, since such unilateral actions would probably create more problems than they solve, and are extremely problematic from many angles.......]

MarkosC

Actually, I made a mistake in terminology. What I really meant was more akin to what takes place when someone transfers rites in the Catholic Church. There are norms for how this happens and so on. Marriage and Divorce I would think would be issues as well, assuming nothing would really change. That�s what I�m thinking about.

Ha, ha. Good question.

I think it just compounds the existing problem.

All of this is in the context of a hypothetical restoration of ecclesial union though.


Now, I noticed one thing that has been on my mind that was mentioned by Fr. Thomas

I believe Father is referring to coming to a common understanding between Catholics and Orthodox. To be honest, I think the Orthodox have to come to a consensus amongst ourselves. There is to me, a rather worrying trend of a theological fracturing within the church, and in places a rather radical re-interpretation of some basic ideas.

Andrew

Andrew,

I would be curious to know what you are referring to. I'm not up on the internal issues in Orthodoxy besides the perennial ones (and I mean no disrespect; Catholicism has its own perennial problems). I'm thinking of issues in the Orthodox Church such as overlapping jurisdictions in places like the U.S., calendar controversies, ecumenism controversies, a tendency (sometimes) to become overly rigid in defining praxis, or defining who is Orthodox on the basis of praxis, etc. Are you referring to these kinds of things? Or are you referring to something else, something that might even affect inter-religious relations between Orthodoxy and Catholicism ?

Also, I should clarify what I wrote in my earlier post. Yes, I am somewhat pessimistic about reconciliation between Orthodoxy and Catholicism anytime soon (for the reasons I wrote above). However, I also think that there is more realistic hope for reunion eventually now than there has been in centuries. For the last several decades, hierarchs and laity of both Churches are showing a genuine, if somewhat tentative, desire to reconcile. That in itself is a real development, and it is a basis for hope for the future.

-- John

Fr Thomas's comments are brilliant! I have, at numerous times, tried to compose a post on unity and basing it on the essentials of the Faith, but have never been pleased with my results. I was never able to put into words what I felt. Thanks to Father Thomas I don't have to!

Господи Ісусе Хрїсте, Сыне Божїи, помилуй мя грѢшнаго.