www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall When unity is restored....

When the unity of the historic churches is restored, are the eastern churches in communion with Rome supposed to move to the jurisdiction of the geographically corresponding eastern patriarchs?

Wow, let's fantasize a little bit.

The integration of the Eastern catholic Churches will probably be a condition that the Orthodox would find necessary. Maybe this would have to come graduually, because both Churches have their hierarchs and no hierarch must be deposed from his status. In this case, I would propose Greek Catholic parishes and dioceses to remain as special administrations, such as the "Patriarchal Parishes" of the Moscow Patriarchate in the USA, that are in full communion with the OCA but not part of it.

Would the Ruthenian Byzantine churches then fall under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarch?

2nd Question: do the current Greek and Moscow patriarchs appear to have a cordial, cooperative relationship, or does it appear to be characterized more by open wounds and competitiveness? (Please pardon my ignorance!)

Why would there have to be so much reorganization? If the differences can be worked out, why couldn't we just start allowing inter-Communion and leave all the organization as it is, and just slowly let the differences between the Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox fade away over decades, or even leave them as is, and just have inter-Communion allowed?

To CopticOrthodox:

That's an excellent perspective!!
:p

Shlomo Prodigal Son,
To answer your question: Yes we are. There are two exceptions to that, one is the Maronite Church and the other is the Italo-Albanian-Greek Catholic Church. Since neither one has a sister Church in the Eastern/Oriental/Church of the East.

Poosh BaSlomo,
Yuhannon

In all honesty I cannot forsee a total reunion of all the churches happening at one time or in one continous process.

I am speaking only in my opinion here and I speculate about this but any such agreement is bound to provoke a backlash from segments of all the churches involved.

That said, if the particular churches within the communion of Rome are expected to restore their relationships with the Hierarchs of their related churches, (please help me if I am wrong here ) that would probably mean that the Byzantine Catholic Church would merge in some fashion with the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese and affiliate with Constantinople (if dialogue ever should proceed so far) and the Ukrainian Catholics would somehow have a new type of affiliation with the churches of Ky'ev.

IMHO I think that it would be nice if the Orthodox not-in-communion with Rome in (North America and South America and Europe) somehow finally find a working formula for a unified and clearly canonical church. Then the local Byzantine liturgical churches could affiliate with it and get over the ethnic hump that seems to plague Christianity in these parts.

Back to my first assertion, I can see conservative Latins and Greeks splintering off and everyone spitting fire if any major agreements are announced in the next couple of centuries. I hope and fervently pray that I am wrong.

Peace!!
Michael, sinner

Dear Michael,

I think your point is well-taken. The scandal of jurisdictionalism is just that, scandal and needs to be overcome in order to give a better witness to Christ. However, I think by your post you are implying that those in communion with Rome are not equally divided (organized?) jurisdictionally.

If that's the case, you are wrong. Remember there are multiple overlapping Catholic ethnic/ritual jurisdictions in the USA and other parts of the world and they are all in communion with Rome. Are there not, only among the Byzantines in the USA: Melkite, Ruthenian, Romanian and Ukrainian jurisdictions all overlapping? And then those couple of Russian parishes under latin bishops? And what about that Belarussian parish? There are two Byzantine bishops of Parma. (To pull in the non-Byzantine ECs and OOs is unnecessary it seems, their issue is more ritual than ethnic.)

Sure the Orthodox have, in addition to the above, other ethnic jurisdictions and all of them (besides the OCA) depend to some degree on the mother church in Europe or the Middle East, but again that is no different from the ECs in the USA, only the Ruthenians are sui juris (roughly corresponding to autonomous, someone pointed out there is not true autocephaly in the Roman communion) all others are connected to an overseas mother church somehow.

As for canonical, is that so different from the situation with the SSPX and other non-canonical Catholic groups? I don't know the numbers on either side. Perhaps part of the problem is that in Orthodoxy the non-canonical groups have been somewhat visible with publishing and other activities thus appearing more high-profile. I recall in one large city I lived in the local RC diocesan paper once published a list of churches that called themselves "Catholic" that were not indeed canonically affiliated with Rome. The list was not short.

I think that both sides, Catholic and Orthodox, are in similar if not the same sad situation in both these cases.

Tony

Orthodox multi-jurisdictionalism in America is not the norm elsewhere. Reunification in America is a goal within the orthodox east not in communion with Rome. It is not necessarily supported by patriarchal leaders elsewhere, however.

The Antiocheans have managed to get preliminary approval for autonomy, but it has to be worked out in detail by representatives of the patriarch and those of the American archdiocese.

The OCAs autocephaly is not officially recognized by churches under Constantinople itself, because it was granted by Moscow. Constantinople sees that as its exclusive right to grant or withhold.

All others remain firmly tethered to their national churches as far as I know. The Greek archdiocese has even lost some of its independence of late, depending on how you interpret their latest charter. Look for lots more political maneuvering within America but little in the way of results as long as Constantinople holds fast to its positions.

As for a restoration of communion between Rome (including its eastern churches) and the Orthodox, much more appears to depend on the willingness of Moscow, etc. than on Rome if most of the press reports are to be believed, IMHO. In any case, I don't look for a resumption of normal communion with other orthodox jurisdictions if Rome itself doesn't have it.

Hi Tony,
No sir I did not mean to imply that the Byzantine Catholic churches are not also divided. I only meant to say (I implied actually) that the jurisdictional overlapping divisions in the Orthodox-in-communion with Rome are just that "in part due to" the jurisdictional overlapping in the Orthodox-not-in-communion with Rome.

I think that it would be highly improper for the Byzantine Catholic, Uktrainian Catholic, Romanian Catholic and Melkite Catholic churches (as one possible example) to be encouraged or coerced to merge their hierachies and streamline their administrations. And if this action were to come spontaneously from the local hierarchs and Rome had nothing to do with it the move would still be suspect and outsiders would not believe it. Everybody would have something to comment on in this forum for sure!

I think some people have good reasons to like their ethnic parishes, that should not have to change.

The precedent would have to be set amongst the Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions first. If a North American Byzantine Orthodox Church could emerge with credibility then the North American Byzantine Catholic churches could comfortably consider the possibility without incurring the charges of Vatican hegemony or Latinization or Modernist homogenization or religious colonialism or any of those other unpleasent word associations one might come up with.

If we ever reunify East-West before the Orthodox settle their jurisdictional issues here (in North America) then probably the proper thing would be the Rome-oriented churches would merge somehow with their parallel sister churches here (in North America).

Finally, to clarify things I think I actually agree with your post. In referring to Canonical I was not thinking of the vagante groups and all those little money-makers out there when I posted, just the principal authentic churches.

Peace!!
Michael, sinner

I've often wondered about this type of thing. Clearly a number of human, historic, and other considerations have to come into play. Every one of us looks to see "who is my bishop?" because the bishop is the center of unity and the one delegated as successor to the Apostles to "rightly divide the Word" for us.

That having been said, it might be that we would see some synodical form of government during some period of the process of re-establishing communion. I see the present structures staying in place so that no one would think himself subjected to another church or bishop. The bishops would be required to consult regularly on issues of common concern (orthopraxy): pro-life activities, help for the poor, supporting missinary activities abroad within the churches already in place, etc.

Liturgically and in the realm of historical discipline within sui juris churches, each bishop would continue as now: each one regulate his own parishes and his own clergy.

However, I would also like to see clergy formed so that they could help each other out. Now I know that the issue of Latin clergy serving Eastern churches is not popular in some quarters, but I believe that this is the case because of lack of training, experience, and sensitivity. What I envision is the type of cooperation where a priest could serve a parish of another liturgical tradition in cases where a group of Christians was in need of spiritual nourishment. This might also extend to bishops standing in for each other to show the unity of the Faith and the Church. We might also need to teach our people that this should be the norm in our practice as united Christians.

On the other hand, could you imagine some of those opposed to reunification in the first place coming to Liturgy and finding that their bishop was ill and a bishop of another sui juris church was the principal hierarch? I get the impression--perhaps inaccurate--that during the pre-schism years such back-and-forth was not uncommon. As I read about Sts. Cyril and Methodius going to Rome to seek the Pope's blessing on their mission and their use of the vernacular language--Slavonic, I can't help but think that St. Methodius presided in some cathedral at Rome during the time spent there. Now either the common liturgical heritage of the time was much more close than it is today--which I would believe--or people were not as stuck in the "us vs. them" mentality of today.

Maybe we need some new form of regional church government where bishops in a given region form a diocese that is composed of vicariates for each current group. That way no one would have to do any moving or be threatened. How hierarchs would be commemorated in the Liturgy would have to worked out by wiser heads than mine.

But the important thing is that we could share the Divine Life we already have on the eternal level that we reach when each of our churches enters via its regular Liturgy and we could finally share it with each other.

I heard an oriental proverb that says Hell is a place where there is a great feast and everyone starves because the chopsticks are six feet long and no one can get anything into his mouth. they also say that Heaven is a great feast and the chopsticks are the same, but everyone is happy because each one feeds his neighbor. We've got to get to the place where each of us can nourish his neighbor with the spiritual treasures we have received from our forebearers. You have, each and every one, nourished me here. Let's pray together for the day when we can freely move into each other's church to be nourished together by the One each of our priests is configured to and in Whose Place he stands.

BOB

BOB

Well said!

Michael

But it depends on the kind of unity that is being proposed, and the unity that some liberal groups within American Orthodoxy ask for, is a single American Pateriarchate, an Americanized Church with only-english liturgies, without any canonical subjection to the Church in Constantinople and the original Patriarchates in Europe. It is good that the EP decided not to give any autonomy to the GO Diocese.

At the local level, clergy from the various orthodox jurisdictions outside Rome collaborate together for inviting guest speakers, charitable fund-raising, co-ordinated pan-orthodox vespers services during Great Lent, and other activities. Interestingly enough, most of what they do together would be totally uneffected by any united jurisdiction. One priest said that reunification is most likely to happen from the ground up, with local congregations establishing it eventually in all but name.

And inside Rome's eastern congregations the same thing goes on, I believe.

Do you call His Beatitude, Metropolitan Theodosius and His Beatitude, Metropolitan +Herman of the OCA part of a liberal group? They advocate a unified Orthodox Church in the US and something which is very traditional in Orthodoxy in the example of the establishment of the Church of Russia, Romania, Serbia etc etc.
This is a good development within the traditions of Orthodoxy.