www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Moscow to Rome: Yes to cooperation, no to communion

Some of the commits on the post worry me. I guess we Eastern Catholics need to purge ourselves of "crypto-Orthodoxy."

Commits like the ones I read make me realize how much more work we have to accomplish in terms of educating the faithful and moving past the childish, "I'm right, your wrong" attitude prevalent in many circles. But then again most of the posters there think Vatican II was a virus and Uniatism was a good model because it submitted Orthodox Christians to the Roman Pontiff.

Let us pray during this fast for "the Holy Churches of God and the Union of all" and for understanding and peace.

I'm not really sure why the roratecaeli article merits a sad face as nowhere in it does Met. Hilarion actually say they communion is off the agenda and only strategic collaboration will ever happen; in fact he distinguishes them as quite separate issues.

The sad face was to the commits below the article. The article itself was honest, well written, and hopeful.

The possibility of communion between Orthodoxy and Catholicism can't even begin until the Nicene Creed is restored to it original setting, that is, without the Filioque. One can go to Rome still and see on a Church entrance a bronze plaque made in the 10th Century in Latin where the Filioque is not there. We know why it was added and it may have been good reasoning at the time, but does it need to be there today?? On top of all that, there was a specific anathema in the Council that finalized the Creed prohibiting any changes to the Creed. In essence, the Spanish bishops, in adding the Filioque anathematized themselves, and the rest of the Catholic Church did the same to itself!

Pope John Paul II considered removing the Filioque and restoring the Creed, but he didn't. I was disappointed.

Secondly, the Primacy of the Pope of Rome must be settled.

Until those questions are settled, one cannot even begin on the question of Communion between the Catholics and Orthodox.

No doubt these are issues, but insisting that Rome capitulate on these two issues before any other discussion seems very one-sided. If greater Orthodoxy doesn't recognize the Catholic sacrament of Chrismation (confirmation)or have any respect for the Eastern Catholic Churches what is the point?

We need to pray and talk and allow the Holy Spirit to guide both East and West.

I think the first thing the Orthodox must do, first of all, is having an agreement what "Primacy" means among themselves.
http://www.aoiusa.org/blog/2011/03/pan-orthodox-synod-postponed-over-differences-between-churches/

Here are the words of Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) who is the doyen of Russian theologians and always heads our delegations to Orthodox-Catholic dialogue.
.

Metropolitan Hilarion, speaking to "Inside The Vatican", 15 November 2007:

"We do not have any theology of the Petrine office on the level of the
Universal Church. Our ecclesiology does not have room for such a concept.
This is why the Orthodox Church has for centuries opposed the idea of the
universal jurisdiction of any bishop, including the Bishop of Rome.

"We recognize that there is a certain order in which the primates of the
Local Churches should be mentioned. In this order the Bishop of Rome
occupied the first place until 1054, and then the primacy of order in the
Orthodox Church was shifted to the Patriarch of Constantinople, who until
the schism had been the second in order. But we believe that all primates of
the Local Churches are equal to one another, and none of them has
jurisdiction over any other."

From
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1925822/posts

But if there is order of primacy, then how this primacy need to be understood and what it entails.
From what I gather, there are 2 understandings of what primacy means within orthodoxy, for the Ecumenical Patriarchate do not have identical understanding with the Moscow Patriarchate.

What you quote, Father Ambrose, I think it is fair if I say that is the understanding of Metropolitan Hilarion, or perhaps, of the Moscow Patriarchate. But I cannot attribute that as the position of the whole Orthodox Church.

That would carry some weight if we could point to instances when the Primates and Synods of any of the Orthodox Churches have submitted to the primacy/jurisdiction of Constantinople over the last, say, 500 years. There may be instances but my brain refuses to divulge any.

The paper we are all really keen to see is the official one prepared in Moscow at the
request of the Synod of Bishops. Composed in the 3 years between Belgrade 2006 and Cyprus 2009. It is the Russian study of the role of the Archbishop of Rome in the Church.

Metropolitan Hilarion distributed copies to all 60 participants at the commencement of the Cyprus meeting.

However it has been kept under an embargo and nobody has leaked it. A great pity!

Hi VA_country_gent.

The Latin Church has an iron grip on the filioque, making change very difficult. To put it in perspective, I think it would be much, much easier for the Latin Church to switch to the Apostles' Creed than it would be to switch to the creed-without-the-filioque.

Don't get me wrong: hopefully things will be different some day. I'm just saying that for the time being, removing the filioque seems practically impossible.

But Father, we are talking about primacy, not jurisdiction.

Does primacy in the Orthodox Church entail jurisdiction or not, is not important.

But the question, is there a definition of primacy that is agreed by all and exercised as agreed by all?

Here one must be careful, because I do not believe that Met. Hilarion is saying that there is an "order of primacy" as a separate ministry within the episcopate. Instead, he is talking about a "taxis" (i.e., a ranking of the hierarchs) in honor of their sees, but this must not be confused with the spurious notion that one bishop alone solely succeeds St. Peter, or that there is a super-bishop within the universal episcopate who can unilaterally decide disciplinary or doctrinal disputes.

To put it another way, there is no separate or additional ontological ministry within the mystery of episcopacy held by one bishop alone. Primacy in synodality, which always involves reciprocity, is the key to understanding episcopal authority in the Eastern tradition, and this sobornicity does not allow for a unique sacramental petrine ministry held by only one bishop. Besides, in the Eastern tradition all the bishops are sacramentally the successors of St. Peter, since they are the successors of all the apostles.

Not in the sense that Rome talks about it. The primate only functions within his synod, and can do nothing in separation from it, or without its consent, and vice versa. Although, the synod does have the authority to judge the primate and remove him from his position should he abuse it, because there is no "doctrine" in the Eastern Church that the primate is above the synod, and that he can be judged by no one on earth as is the case in Roman Catholicism. Moreover, should a particular member of the synod abuse his authority, the primate would initiate synodical action in order to judge the offender and have him - if necessary - removed from office. Primacy within synodality, and not the supremacy of one bishop over all the others, is the key to understanding the Eastern tradition as it concerns the exercise of ecclesial authority.