www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Rome, ethnicity and autocephaly

As many posters will know, I am very much a dyed in the wool Russian - I don't much see a point in there being a Patriarchal orthodox (or autocephalous Catholic) Russian church without the Russian redaction of the Church Slavonic language, the Russian liturgical use, Russian awards systems etc.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I ask the question (particularly in relation to my former Russian Catholic church) of how it can be called Russian at all if these things (as they basically have done)disappear. To me, the cultural patrimony of the autocephalous churches must be preserved, or they must be abolished as not being useful concepts anymore and new jurisdictions set up to replace them.

I am very much against the latter option, and thus disagree with those who wish to set up an "Australian Orthodox" church of Byzantine use.

I want to unpack my reasoning here for comment by those who post here. I'm not wanting to offend people, I'm curious about response to my thoughts as I have never heard my opinion expressed exactly in this way before (except for those who argue for a western rite in Orthodoxy as a precursor to healing schism, and it's an important caveat that I am not doing that).

If we go back to the early church and the era of the Pentarchy, it is clear that there were two broad "cultural" jurisdictions for Orthodox Christians, represented by one patriarchal church for western Christians (Latins), and four patriarchal churches for eastern Christians (Hellenists). By extension, it seems apparent to me that the Orthodox patrimony of those from a western Christian background (Australians, western Europeans, Americans) lies with the Roman rite and Church.

Now obviously, for a variety of reasons, a schism developed between the Christian East and West that resulted in the estrangement of the Roman Patriarchal Church from the other churches.

Rome "decided" (it was more organic that that word suggests) that in schism it would put into place an ecclesiastical structure that preserved the pre-schism structure, hoping that this would promote resolution of the schism and maintenance of the cultural patrimony of eastern Christendom. It did this by putting into place eastern churches corresponding to those it was in schism with, thus preserving what it saw as the correct, patristic arrangement of autocephalous churches. Those who were western Christians by heritage would be Roman, and those who were easterners with a background in one of the eastern autocephalous churches would be of those churches. The only change it envisaged to this structure if the schism resolved would be that the Orthodox and eastern Catholic faithful of the autocephalous churches would become one.

This picture has been complicated substantially in the last two centuries (especially in the last 100 years) by the development of the OCA, and movements to establish similar jurisdictions in other countries that have a basically western Christian history. Such prospective jurisdictions, which are based not on a shared cultural tradition in a pre-schism autocephalous church, but often in disagreements over politics and ritual and on ethnic predjudice dealt with by converts. Such churches have no place in the Roman schematic that I outlined above, because Rome, unlike Orthodoxy recognises that it is itself the church of Orthodox Christians with a western cultural background, and thus doesn't want to establish jurisdictions to largely deal with those want to become Orthodox and are unsatisfied with other jurisdictions in the western diaspora.

I would suggest that the best solution for dealing with the western diaspora in Orthodoxy therefore lies not in creating new autocephalous churches with no pre-schism equivalent, and thus no equivalent in the Roman structure, but in resolving the schism so that the western Christians (who have no traditional connection to the Byzantine churches, resulting in some cases in an erosion of the cultural patrimony of those churches when western Christians change rites - see the Russian Catholic case) can return to Orthodoxy in the church that actually reflects its patrimony and cultural heritage - the Roman rite.

Thoughts?

Now please dont take me wrong (ones self identity is entirely up to the individual) looking at a Russian Catholic parish say from Canada - from the common nationalistic perspective of the part of Europe I come from (Poland), it wouldn't be Russian to begin with unless either it was physically in Russia or majority of the parishioners are Russian expats, there are people who are Canadians of Polish decent who speak Polish flawlessly but since they were born and raised in Canada in the (imo patronizing) eyes of most Poles they are considered Canadian and foreigners, what I am getting at is with this is most Europeans (except I guess Serbians) have same view as Poles in regards to nationality - if at this Russian Catholic parish in Canada everyone is Canadian and speaks English.. was it really Russian to begin with?

to get technical as m sure you know it was originally four: Rome for Latin (including North Africa), Celts and Germanic world - Alexandria for Coptic - Antioch for Syrian and Semitic related world - and latter Constantinople for Greek

as to your point perhaps, but that dosent mean there is no place for Greek Christianity in the West (and by extension China since Latins got there first in the Middle Ages despite Church of the East having a presence in Antiquity), afterall there were Latin parishes all over Constantinople before the 1054AD schism

I think Rome has the best solution in Russia by setting up dioceses but not claiming territory in and of themselves to respect the Church of Russia's rightful claim of jurisdiction in Russia

personally, and sadly, I think a mutual resolution to the schism is impossible due to 1,000 years of development on BOTH sides - Catholicism despite whatever technicality one dreams up like Vatican 1 was never officially closed etc has had a Ecumenical Councils and development of doctrine since the Middle Ages, which practically every Catholic not to mention the Popes of Rome believe in - and Eastern Orthodoxy has gone from being the Church of Constantinople with Greek Imperial selected "puppet" patriarchs in Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem to being a communion of over 14 fully autocephalus Chuches, the largest by far of which, Church of Russia, is non-Greek. I just don't see how things can be resolved.

I can try to answer you we some historical considerations.

What is the root of "Byzantine"? Byzantine is the tradition of Byzantium (Constantinople), the capital of the Byzantine Empire (ended in 1453). Church and empire were in "symbiosis", where was the Empire, there was the Byzantine Church. And the Byzantine Empire Christianized most Slavic nations that so became Byzantine.

if, if by some remote chance...if we were before 1453...
a new country, let's say Australia, would be "Byzantine" as much as Christianized by "Byzantine" people. Which kind of "byzantine"? surely the one of Constantinople ("the Town"), perhaps translated in local language, but always fully in line with the one of the Town.
Lots of time in the past (still in 19th century), all liturgical books were periodically revised in oder to get the last change of the Constantinople's use.

That is the tradition back to the Fathers. If you want a simple "one" Byzantine Church (in Australia), to be fully in line with the ancient Tradition, it should be strictly based on the Constantinople's use (EP).

But we are not before 1453, and other Byzantine centers arose, and after centuries they are not simply emanations of Constantinople, but they have their right to their tradition. I refer to Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian etc.
And there is nothing wrong that in a future other Byzantine centers will arise, one in the States, one in Australia, slowly turning away from their mothers, and getting their own Byzantine way, as Moscow did at the end of the 15th century.

That is technically a very false assumption.
You cannot take in consideration only the "Hellenistic" and the "Latin" components. Other components were (and are) present, which are absolutely nor Hellenistic not Latin. Consider the Church of the East, or the Syrian Church, of the Armenian Church or the Ethiopian Church...
The Byzantine Church was simply the lager at East, because the Byzantine Empire was large...but even inside the Empire other traditions succeeded to resist (many times even after persecutions from the Byzantines)
So you cannot divide the world in "black or White", "Hellenistic or Latin" (and even inside the Latin part there were large differences). The situation was complicated, is complicated and in no way in the future will be less complicated.

I don't (personally) consider that to be accurate, I was restricting myself to situation of the byzantine churches here for good reason, although the structures Rome put in place to accommodate the Oriental Orthodox are obviously similar. But the Oriental Orthodox are a totally different case, as far as I know nobody is thinking of setting up Coptic sui juris church of the Americas. (There is the British Orthodox Church, but the case there is not analogous because it started as a vagante group but is now fully merged into the mainstream Coptic patriarchate of Alexandria - so it is not autocephalous in the terms I am discussing here).

Additionally of course the Oriental Orthodox represent further schisms that ad different difficulties. Rome and the Byzantine Churches both accept for example, all seven ecumenical councils, whereas the Oriental Orthodox don't.

Well, there are lots of now-autocephalous Eastern-but-not-Byzantine Churches that obtained their independence in the centuries from the mother-churches. Think for example to the (many) Indian Malankara Churches. The process of these churches to obtain their independence, which meant also a wider respect of their traditions, is surely comparable the the Churches that gained their independence from the Byzantine-mother Church (as the Russian Church).

It is extremely important to have in mind the existence and the variety also of the not-Byzantine Eastern. Otherwise the picture cannot be clear. The Byzantine rite is itself a secondary branch of the West-Syrian Rite.
Also about Tradition, to state that the Easter Tradition is "Hellenistic" is simply misleading. You cannot for example forget the Syrian Church Fathers. And about theological differences, also there are theological differences also between Latin and Byzantine.

In other words, the equation Eastern Christianity = Byzantine is wrong. The real world s more complicated and more fluid in the time.

So I don't see nothing particularly wrong if in a few years or decades, there will be some new Churches in Australia like the OCA. This kind of evolution always occurred in the past, and there is no reason why it shall not occur in future.

I recognize that as a Canadian and a Catholic, my patterns of thought, culture, and my civilization have a basis in ancient Rome. But I have no immediate connection to Rome. I am not descended from Italians. I do not speak their language. I know little of their culture. I do not wear gold or live with my mother or use hair products.

In spite of all this (and as long as I don't have to attend the New Mass) I am content as a Roman Catholic.

I recognize that the Ukrainian Catholics who have graciously offered me shelter in their Church have spent more or less their entire history on both sides of the Atlantic fighting to maintain either their ethnicity, their language, their rite, or their communion with the See of Peter. I do not dismiss this. I recognize too, parallel struggles in other Eastern Churches.

Nonetheless, I find the nearly-constant discussion of jurisdictions and ethnicity odd and not especially fruitful. Jurisdictions, I thought, exist to guarantee the rights of the faithful in a certain place and time. In my certain place and in a time soon to come, one way or another, ethnicity will not be part of the question.

It seems pretty apparent that the primacy of honour afforded to Rome, Constantinople etc. was intended to be permanent. I don't think any of our patriarchates were founded with the understanding that they would be temporary phenomena (in an earthly context).

Was it not your suggestion at the outset to abolish jurisdictions? I suggest nothing of the sort, but only that tying these matters more than accidentally to ethnicity distorts the fact that these are religious bodies and detracts from the primary purpose of the exercise.

I don't know how you would have got that from what I wrote. I was arguing for maintaining the status quo in terms of as far as possible not creating new autocephalous churches, particularly ones in western countries, to which it seems to me an appropriate autocephalous church would exist (the Roman patriarchal church) were it to be reunited with Orthodoxy, and thus efforts should directed to healing the wounds of schism rather than furthering them by creating alternatives.

JDC,

In support of what you commented regarding ethnicity, I offer you these remarks, from the oft-cited first pastoral message ("The Courage to be Ourselves") by the beloved Archbishop Joseph (Tawil), of blessed memory, first Eparch of the Melkites in the US:


Many years,

Neil

I was reminded by the discussion of Patriarch of the West in another thread of this article:

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0603382.htm

THe most important bit being

""the geographical limits of each ecclesiastical jurisdiction" have been a key part of the structure of the church from the earliest days of Christianity. The church as a whole is "a unity of full local churches" and not a monolith divided into local units simply for the sake of easier governance." ("the West" being one such local church)

I am sure it was discussed ad infinitum here at the time, but to me it does seem to reflect my idea that the Orthodox patrimony of western Christians is the Roman rite.

The patriarchate of Alexandria was mostly Copt, that of Antioch mostly Syriac and the patriarchate of Jerusalem largely so. The patriarchate of Constatinople alone was laregely Hellenic/Greek, but even there it had a large number of Slavs and Armenians, amongst others.

Btw, there were substantial diffences between North Africa, Iberia, Gaul and Illyria and even in Italy (between Milan, Rome, and Magna Graecia) itself within the Patriarchate of the West.



LOL. What the Crusaders did was to set up Latin Patriarchates to replace the patriarchal lines at Antioch, Jerusalem, Constaninople and Alexandria (in that order). The sui juris set up having any existence other than on paper is very, VERY recent (post Vatican II).


It made agreements with those who would accept its new claims, a convergence of agendas, as it were. Only then did it proceed-as it now had a basis-to remake the patriarchates into its own image.



Then how did it end up with four patriarchs of Antioch and three of Alexandria, claiming to receive the pallium from the Vatican?


The OCA was founded in Alaska and the Pacific Coast down to California, where the native culture is Orthodox-for one thing, unlike the Western Europeans, the Russian Orthodox intermarried the locals, whose culture and language they didn't uproot.

How does the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem figure in your "Roman schematic"?


For one, you are mistaken in that when Nicea I first recognized the autocephaly of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch, all three had a similar make up-all were Hellenistic Roman cities with a Greek speaking majority, particularly in the Church (Latin wasn't even introduced at Rome in the Church until Pope St. Victor I c. 190). Cultural differences had nothing to do with it: they were the three axis of the empire (Carthage could have been seen as another). Hence why the Apostolic see of Byzantium, raised as Constatinople, was admitted to the club. Then there is the problem that the Patriarchate of the West at the time included the Balkans, which includes nearly all the Eastern Churches now (they were Eastern then too, including the Latin proto-Romanians).

Couple of problems: for starters what is now the homeland/core of the autocephalous Churches of Constantinople, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Poland, the Czech Lands and Slovakia at the time of Nicea I lay in the Patriarchate of the West. So they should all adopt the Divine Liturgy of St. Gregory, rather than that of SS. Chrysostom and Basil? In fact, except for Bulgaria and part of Romania and part of Constantinople, ALL of Serbia, etc. were in the Patriarchate of the West.

You also have to contend with the DL of St. Germaine (Gallican Rite), the Ambrosian Rite, and the Mozarabic Rite, and perhaps the Celtic Rite. (Sarum, Nidaros and some others I understand as being usages of the Roman rite).

From the Orthodox perspective, there is a question of what is left, if anything, of the Patriarchate of the West (which even the Vatican speaks of in the past tense): the present Orthoodox bishop of Rome, +Siluan, is a suffragan of the Patriarch of Romania. As such, there is the option of WRO for converts, but there is no patriarchate of their own, as the core of all the present autocephalous Churches, even the OCA, which is totally in the West (even the part in Australia), are Eastern Orthodox.