www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Catholic/Orthodox Reunion: status report?

Here's a dumb question:

At least in theory, why don't all sides simply convene an ecumenical council with the express intent to establish reunion and settle the underlying issues that divide.

We have all of these groups between East and West getting together and talking to each other, but none of them are really binding. Maybe it's time that the Churches on both sides invite the Holy Spirit to come in and guide us in council?

Just a dumb idea, i know. they probably couldn't even decide on a place to meet.

They need an Emperor in order to convene one. I'd volunteer, but nobody has made me an offer.

Why do they need an Emperor? short answer, they don't.

I realize that Emperor Constantine convened Nicea, but that is not dogmatic. I get the feeling, though, that you are pointing to something else.

One of the major problems with this idea is that in the tradition of the East, a council is only ecumenical if it is accepted by the Church as a whole over time. For example, the rejection of Florence by the East occurred in spite of the agreements that were agreed upon by most of the Orthodox in attendance. If one looks at the seemingly bizarre problems holding up the long anticipated (80 years or so) Pan-Orthodox Conference one can further understand the problems. They can't even agree upon who sits where and what mundane items will be on the agenda.

Constantine convened Nicaea because he wanted closure on the Arian controversy--pronto! He had stuck his neck out for the Christians and ruffled a lot of feathers in the process, but now all the in-fighting among the Christians over this issue was making him look bad and possibly putting his crown in jeopardy.

The bishops, for their part, were reluctant to sit down together for the simple reason that *someone* was going to have to give in. Since they were forced to make a decision, however, they surely did make one--although a good number of them went back to embracing Arianism afterwards.

This is the real problem: we've got to be ready for reunion on *all* levels. The "unofficial" talks actually accomplish more than you might think, since there are people on all levels that take them seriously, which in turn encourages more getting together. Let's just pray this will happen before the really big persecutions begin!

Peace,
Deacon Richard

The Ecumeniccal Patriarch in Constantinople, or the Latin Titular Patriarch Constantinople in the Vatican (whose supreme pontiff told the Metropolitan in Vilnius/Navahrudak that he wasn't a real metropolitan, being consecrated by the former and not the latter)? The bishops, btw, in 1452 expressed their desire to remain in union with the Metropolitan of Kiev, translated to Moscow.

Since such a thing contradicts Pastor Aeternus, and does not comport with the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium, that presupposes union on the Orthodox model, in which case there would be no UGCC. A Ukrainian Patriarchate is not categorically ruled out on that model, but at present, it would be under Moscow (just for the record I prefer a canonical autocephalous Patriarchate (not just a Metropolitanate) in Ukraine).

I think the Orthodox view would be that the Petrine ministry is indeed intrinsic to the church and is something shared by all bishops.

The episcopate is one, held in totality by each for the whole-St. Cyprian.

If one says that man (humanity) has sinned, that doesnt deny the unique place and role the sin of Adam has in it.
Episcopate is one, doesnt necessarily deny the unique role that of pope of Rome has within it.

Monarchiality of the episcopacy is a feature as much of west as of east.
While centralization that took place in first five centuries was accepted by east and west, the problems started when there arose two centres of power, Rome and C.pole.

East and West are not that far from each other.

The Four Patriarchates in the East and those in communion with them say that the episcopate being one necessarily denies a unique role to any bishop. The defunct Patriarchate of the West, in the relatio of Pastor Aeternus, and PA itself, said that the one episcopate and its unity derives from a unique episcopate of the bishop of Rome (e.g. the charism of the other Apostles besides St. Peter died with them, the charism of St. Peter was not handed on in other sees in which he consecrated his successors, etc.). How far is yes from no?

If the one episcopate functions as Pastor Aeternus say its does, the episcopate of the Orthodox diptychs is disfunctional. That episcopate, however, has functioned for the past millenium (and beyond) without upheavals like the Great Western Schism, and in a way that bears no resemblance to the image set up in the Codex Canones Ecclesiarum Orientalium, without any role of the bishop of Rome. Abp. Zoghby once stated, the Latin Congregation of the Oriental Churches, and not the latter's Patriarchs and Holy Synods, governs those in union with it. How has this changed? Has this changed?

The Orthodox have not accepted the Phanar centralizing the Church around canon 28 of Chalcecon. What is there to indicate that we can or should centralize it around Pastor Aeternus? And since we have not, what of the anthematizations in PA against those who do not accept its definitions?

The Monarchal Episcopacy is found in East and West, but that has nothing to do with any "petrine office" beyond that one episcopate. A patriarch is not a "bishop of bishops," so there is certainly no place for a "patriarch of patriarchs" in Orthodox ecclesiology. Before Constantinople's rise, there was the three Apostolic centers of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch in the "T in O" world of the Fathers-one center per continent, and Constantinople rose in the midst of the Pentarchy. And, as canon 8 of Ephesus witnesses, even the Pentarchy did not and does not centralize the Church. The episcopate has never been made alive through a unique role of one bishop. Such was never how the Church functioned in the first millenium.

If each bishop holds the episcopate in totality for the whole, that precludes one bishop alone holding it in totality for the whole.

While I said that when we say episcopacy is one does not necessarily exclude the unique place of one bishop within it, that of Rome, since there has never been one episcopus in church history to have claimed parallel to that of Rome the same unique place, you come and bring as sn answer a lot more new issues I did not address to.

Logically we say divinity is one without excluding the unique role of the person of father within it. The same we say about sin, that man as humanity has sinned without excluding the unique place of Adam's sin within it.

That is whole I said. I did not say that east accepted that.

Still, the picture is more complexe as you interpret it above.

It is important to understand the gradual becoming monarchial of episcopacy as a development of political, social and ecckesiastical need, because it tells us how the church can transform subjectively the way it understans itself and its way of organization.
Of course the boundaries of this development we do not know exactely. That is why we have schisma.
However, the seed of this development was there as much in west as in east.

I agree. The bishops in general are the successors of all the Apostles, which necessarily includes St. Peter.

We can easely play as much as we would like with words. But let us not forget that there has never ever been claimed an episcopate one in Mathew, John or Andrew, as there has been one in PETER. And there has never ever been a claim on it as has been that of Rome.

I am afraid that is simply contradicted by the facts:Antioch has always claimed St. Peter (although not with the exclusivity that the Vatican later has, if that is what you are refering too). Constantinople, Georgia, Russia, Romania and Greece claim their origins in St. Andrew; the Church of Asia (Minor) in St. John; Ethiopia in St. Matthew; India in St. Thomas (hence "Mar Thoma Christians"); Armenian and Upper Mesopotamia in St. Bartholomew; Egypt in St. Mark (hence the title of the Pope "of the preaching of St. Mark"); Jerusalem in St. James, etc. Neither Rome nor St. Peter are unique in this regard.

The East did accept that. It (and the West) also accepted that St. Peter was no differently the founder of the patriarchate of Antioch than he was of the patriarchate of Rome, including the fact that St. Paul co-founded the see. So even if the Father as source of the Trinity is invoked with St. Peter, that still leaves you with Antioch in addition to Rome, let alone the issue of the other Apostles (was St. Peter the source of their apostleship? No).

The monarchal episcopacy is seen within the first century in the writing's of St. Peter's sucessor at Rome St. Clement and St. Peter's successor at Antioch St. Ignatius. Antioch has maintained that understanding of SS. Clement and Ignatius.