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>>>Since reception into Orthodoxy requires rejection of Catholic communion, the person is declaring by entering
Orthodoxy they indend to "ex- communicate" themselves from Catholicism. The Church is simply noted their own
statement, not making one of her own.<<<

What then can we make of the case of Lev Gillet, the Monk of the Eastern Church?

Thanks.
I don't exactly see why the Catholic who officially converts to E. Orthodoxy should thereby be excommunicated from the Catholic Church, because didn't Pope Paul VI declare that the excommnications between the two Churches are null and void?

[This message has been edited by charl99byz (edited 08-10-2001).]

Paul VI declared the active excommunication by Cardinal Humbert of the Patriarch of Constantinople null and void.

I would suppose that in the act of being received into the Orthodox Church, the individual declared to the Orthodox authority that by entering the Orthodox Church, he or she in no way was breaking his or her communion with the Catholic Church, and this did not cause the Orthodox to interrupt the reception, then the person would not be an excommunicated Catholic.

Right?

K.

One thing I am wondering; if one is excommunicated by converting to Eastern Orthodoxy then why would we ( as Catholic )be concerned if the Orthodox recognized our Baptism or not? If we considered the converts excommunicated than what is the big deal ? I just recieved a book that has all of the documents from the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. The title is "The Quest for Unity". It is published by St Vlad's. Makes for very interesting reading. Also if we consider the Eastern Orthodox to be sister churches than again what is the big deal if someone converts ? Are they only sister churches on certin days of the month? But, on other days of the month not so ?
O Lord , I wish that a New Pentacost would come so this schism would be finaly healed and that we would honor your last wish that we would be one as the Father and You are One !!
Ted Perkoski


[This message has been edited by theodore perkoski (edited 08-11-2001).]

We are estranged sister churches, who do share (from a Catholic standpoint) the baptism which is common to all Christians, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox.

K.

To Ted's prayer: a resounding AMEN!

It seems to me that the situation is this: Both Catholic and Orthodox churches are united to the Church of the Apostles. As a result of 'excommunications', we were in schism to each other for a thousand years. When Paul VI and Athenagoras mutually lifted the excommunications, the 'schism' officially disappeared, but for some reason the 'authorities' did not come to the conclusion that it was over. Thus, we still fret over people from one or the other 'jurisdiction' crossing back and forth over recently erased borders.

I would prefer to understand this like a Roman Catholic who comes to the Byzantine Church to pray. He/she is still a member of the Roman community, but is now an active participant in the Byzantine community. One can do the paperwork to officially transfer, but one doesn't have to. So, if a Byzantine who has no parish worships in an Orthodox church, he/she is NOT leaving his Byzantine Catholic community ('excommunicating one's self') by worshipping with the Orthodox. The sacraments are valid; the 'patrimony' is maintained; the person is going to church. It's just the administrative structure that's different. Same for the Orthodox who come to Byzantine churches to pray.

Perhaps I'm just being hyper-simple and really naive, but I just don't see this as a big issue. Excommunication? From Christ's perspective, is this ever justified? I thought we were supposed to work towards peoples' salvation and not toss 'em out when they become inconvenient? Just like the Master.

"O loving Father of ALL mankind, send forth the Holy Spirit to disabuse us of our Fascist tendencies in dividing Your people into the elect and the condemned. Be merciful to us and forgive, we beg You, our past actions of condemnation of our brothers and sisters. Lord, be merciful to us, sinners."

Blessings!

In the book Morality and Reality; The life and times of Andrei Sheptytskyj. Brian Keleher writes in his monograph, "Sheptytskyj and Three Converts from the West" that:
On Sunday, 25 May 1928, Gillet concelebrated the divine liturgy in a small chapel at Clamart, newar Paris, with Metropolitan Evlogii Georgievskii (1921-1946) of the Russian Orthodox Church in western Europe. The service involved some famous Orthodox names, including Nikolai Berdiav, Sergei Bulgakov, and Georges Florovski. Gillet was not required to undergo any act of reception or conversion, nor recant anything, and Metropolitan Evlogii formally invited Gillet to continue commemorating Sheptyskyj in the divine liturgy. ...
Georgiadis had this to say in her obituary for Gillet:

Those with knowledge of his ecclesiastical background were puzzled by his canonical status: a priest recognized as belonging to the Orthodox Comminion who wet insisted that when he joined the Russian Orthodox Church in France in the 1920's he had never been asked to abjure his Roman Catholic faith. Nor was he ever to do so.
The evident paradoxes in his situation were all the more striking because he has a very precise and tenacious adherence to the forman requirements of ecclesiastical canon law...
David Balfour, with some evident reluctance, supports the account and interpretation presented by Geogriadis and adds the information that Gillet conitued to avail himself of sacramental confession at the hands of Roman Catholic priests
This was taken from David Balfour's "Memories of Fr. Lev Gillet"from Sobornost,IV,2(London 1982)
Does any one know how he was able to do this?

Fr Serge (n� Brian) Keleher told me personally that Fr Lev was, in fact, a Catholic priest in good standing, involved in a top-secret agreement between Mets Andrew (Sheptytsky) and Evlogy. He did go to Catholic Confession. Other than that he functioned solely as an Orthodox priest, on a kind of permanent loan. He wasn�t on some kind of undercover mission to hurt the Orthodox by soliciting conversions, but rather really wanted to minister to the Russians in the part of France where he lived. I imagine he would have liked this forum.

Serge

<a href="http://oldworldrus.com">Old World Rus�</a>

Thanks, Rusnak, for the information.

What this says to me is: the priest is chosen by God from among the people, to serve the people in the things that pertain to God.

Interestingly enough, St. Paul did not make any distinctions about jurisdictions and being a member of a 'specific community'.

Is there a lesson for us here?

(Funny, but all the talk about 'babas' being the ones who help choose who is to serve seems to be quite germane. A man who is truly dedicated to serving God's people is a legitimate priest. Catholic? Orthodox? Oriental Orthodox? Who really cares when one's soul is in need?)

Blessings to all God's children!

". As to whether the former Catholic in question would be allowed to receive communion in a Catholic Church, I believe that current canon law does not permit that (I assume as a means of preventing scandal), but canon law may be waived for pastoral reasons."

Yes, that is of course true -- almost any canon can be waived for serious reason.

I think we have to distinguish, however, between (1) born Orthodox (or converts to Orthodoxy from another non-Catholic communion) and (2) ex-Catholic Orthodox. The former have not rejected Catholicism by their own choice, whereas the latter (if truly converts) do -- and so it is the latter who are "excommunicated" from Catholicism -- in a sense, they have "excommunicated themselves" by voluntarily breaking communion with the Catholic Church. Someone in that position ought not approach the Catholic chalice and receive communion.

"Since reception into Orthodoxy requires rejection of Catholic communion, the person is declaring by entering Orthodoxy they indend to "ex- communicate" themselves from Catholicism. The Church is simply noted their own statement, not making one of her own."

Yes, that is the way I look at this as well. Now isn't that interesting ... Kurt and I actually *agree* on something! :-)

"What then can we make of the case of Lev Gillet, the Monk of the Eastern Church?"

A fascinating, exceptional case is what I would make of him. He truly appears to have wanted to be both Catholic and Orthodox, and the ecclesiastical authorities seemed to let him do exactly that. I wouldn't place a lot of emphasis on "what he was *required* to reject", etc., because most of the receptions I have seen have not required people to recite any negative statements about prior beliefs at all -- I've heard that thif formula (the Hapgood formula) is employed at times in the Antiochian Archdiocese, but I've never seen it in the OCA dioceses here on the East Coast. However, the act of reception has an objective character, whether one recites the words or not, and the act of being received by a Church that, as a general matter, rejects communion with Catholicism and forbids its members from partaking in such communion.

For Fr. Lev, the situation was somewhat different, because it appears that he had ecclesiastical approbation to be both Catholic and Orthodox at the same time -- and that is very rare indeed. One can wonder what his own views were on these matters, however. One thing that sticks in my own mind about Fr. Lev is a quote included in Bishop Kallistos' autobio in which Fr. Lev noted that it is required for one to be under the authority of an Orthodox bishop to be Orthodox -- a statement that seems to have had a profound impact on then Timothy Ware's decision to enter the Orthodox Church, but is yet rather curious coming from someone who reportedly maintained a state of dual communion himself. I see Fr. Lev as an enigma -- a very interesting case, to be sure, but far from the norm.

"didn't Pope Paul VI declare that the excommnications between the two Churches are null and void?"

Not really relevant, because that related to the *personal* excommunications of 1054. 1054 was only one scene in a play of many acts which resulted in the lasting schism between our churches. Rescinding the unfortunate acts of 1054 was a tremendous act of goodwill, but has nothing to do with the present lack of communion.

"if one is excommunicated by converting to Eastern Orthodoxy then why would we ( as Catholic )be concerned if the Orthodox recognized our Baptism or not?"

I think the reason why this is a concern from the perspective of the ecumenical discussion is that it is seen as an important way of describing what Catholicism considers to be the unity that already imperfectly exists between Orthodoxy and Catholicism.

"If we considered the converts excommunicated than what is the big deal ?":

That is really unrelated to the baptism issue. The excommunication of a convert is a choice that the convert makes to remove himself from Catholic communion -- so that's an objective excommunication. It's not that Catholicism views Orthodoxy as a bad place to go -- but rather that Catholicism views the personal act of severing communion with the Catholic Church -- wherein, per Catholicism, the fullness of grace and truth resides to a greater extent than anywhere else, even Orthodoxy -- to be an excommunicatory act.

Brendan

Dear Friends,

Just my two cents' worth on this fascinating discussion on Lev Gillet.

I met a Studite Father who knew Lev Gillet personally.

He said that Fr. Gillet never considered himself to be excommunicated from the Roman Church.

However, when he did "go over" to Orthodoxy, he did acknowledge that he wasn't going to a "different light, but to a clearer light."

He also informed Met. Andrew Sheptytsky of his decision in this regard and his former Metropolitan did not argue with him.

An Orthodox priest of the OCA once invited me to consider joining Orthodoxy.

He told me not to worry about abjuring anything of the Catholic faith, that I would not have to do that.

A pastoral consideration, this?

God bless,

Alex

Alex writes:

[An Orthodox priest of the OCA once invited me to consider joining Orthodoxy.
He told me not to worry about abjuring anything of the Catholic faith, that I would not have to do that.]

Alex my friend:

This makes absolutely no sense to me. What would you then be gaining by becoming Orthodox in name only? There would be no need for you to change if what he is telling you is true. Better to stay where you are rather than pretend to be Orthodox when you are not (dogmatically). This OCA priest needs to go back to the seminary.

Bob

I think a distinction needs to be made between (1) the formula used and (2) the intent, explicit and implicit, of the act.

It is quite common not to use the formula that requires the convert to specifically renounce "x,y,z" belief of one's prior faith community. Perhaps that is what the priest meant when he said what he did to our friend Alex.

However, regardless of what one says, in terms of formula, the act has an objective aspect to it as well -- and that involves, on the one hand, embracing a church which, according to Catholicism, does not possess the same fulness as Catholicism does -- and intentionally doing so, and, on the other hand, embracing a church that rejects certain aspects of Catholic doctrine. That is the objective aspect of it, and no formulary can get around that fact.

I often find it puzzling how much emphasis is placed on the means by which one is received. It seems like so much reading of tea leaves, trying to discern from a particular means (baptism, chrismation, confession, words in a formula) a certain attitude on the part of Orthodoxy regarding where one has come from, and what one is doing by converting. The truth is that regardless of the formula used, one is (or should be) embracing Orthodoxy in its fulness, and rejecting those aspects of where one came from that are not consistent with Orthodoxy -- not in one's own personal view, but in terms of what Orthodoxy teaches. The form of reception is secondary, and has changed over time, and may continue to do so. The objective character of the act, its intrinsic meaning, will never change, however.

Brendan

Dear Friend,

The definition of "excommunication from the Catholic Church" would be up to the Orthodox jurisdiction one is joining, would it not?

If I converted to the ROCOR, then they believe that none of the sacraments of the RC Church are valid, that I was in total darkness etc.

Orthodoxy believes Roman Catholicism is cut off from the True Church. To join Orthodoxy would mean that you accept this definition. Therefore, you are indeed "cut off" or excommunicated from the RC Church.

From the Catholic point of view, someone who denies the Petrine Primacy of the Pope and other doctrines and formally becomes attached to another body outside the Catholic Church is most definitely excommunicated.

Neither Church would have people have it both ways.

Alex

Alex --

I think no Orthodox jurisdiction believes that the Catholic Church's view of the action is relevant for Orthodoxy. However, it is relevant for Catholicism, and that's what I think was being discussed here.

For Orthodoxy, conversion to Orthodoxy means embracing Orthodoxy and rejecting that in your prior tradition which is not accepted by Orthodoxy. The conclusions one draws about the character of your former community are open, in Orthodoxy -- and a range of opinion on this is Orthodox. But the core -- that is, that only Orthodoxy is fully true -- is common to all jurisdictions.

I would say *generally* no one allows someone to have it both ways. There are cases that are exceptions to this -- like Fr. Lev Gillet for notable example. But for the most part, your statement is correct, I think.

Brendan