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Byzantine Ecumenism

Posted by Ric Ballard
Thursday, August 1, 2013
http://easterncatholicspiritualrenewal.blogspot.com/2013/08/byzantine-ecumenism.html

When I first came into my tradition a priest told me something that was difficult to grasp. He told me that our church should not exist and to some degree remains a sign of contradiction. At first I felt what he was saying was not ecumenical. Normally in ecumenism churches seek ways to achieve unity with each other. However, what I learned was that for Byzantine Catholics the ultimate work of ecumenism is for their churches to cease to exist. In fact, eventually one day, during that long awaited reunion between the ancient churches of the East and West, those Byzantine churches that entered into union with Rome will return to their mother church. At that time, the Byzantine Catholic churches will no longer retain the identity of a church founded in separation. They will once again be Catholic in fullest sense by becoming fully Byzantine “Orthodox” in tradition and not only in communion with the historic mother church of Constantinople but also with Rome the First amongst Equals.
As in my experience what I shared above might be difficult to grasp. However, the notion of returning to the Eastern Orthodox Church has become the model for Byzantine Catholic ecumenism. We see this first and foremost beginning at the Second Vatican Council. At Vatican II the Eastern Catholic churches were called to become a bridge between the separated churches of the East and West. Sometimes the method of being that bridge has been understood as trying to get Eastern Orthodox churches to become Catholic. However, this method has been condemned by both churches. I believe the best way to describe the process of becoming the bridge is given by the Patriarch of Constantinople who invited Eastern Catholic Churches to return to Orthodoxy without breaking unity with Rome. He said that “the Constantinople Mother-Church keeps the door open for all its sons and daughters.” To put it simply in order to be a bridge the Byzantine Catholic churches need to return theologically and canonically to what they once were. The last step of course is being fully incorporated back into the mother church of Constantinople.
Basically, in order to be faithful to the ecumenical mandate of Vatican II we Byzantines should be no different than an Eastern Orthodox. As it says in ORIENTALIUM ECCLESIARUM “All members of the Eastern Rite should know and be convinced that they can and should always preserve their legitimate liturgical rite and their established way of life, and that these may not be altered except to obtain for themselves an organic improvement. All these, then, must be observed by the members of the Eastern rites themselves. Besides, they should attain to on ever greater knowledge and a more exact use of them, and, if in their regard they have fallen short owing to contingencies of times and persons, they should take steps to return to their ancestral traditions(6)” . As it says in the last sentence Byzantines need to take those steps to RETURN to the ancestral traditions. In other words, Byzantines need to distance themselves from where “they have fallen short” by returning to their spiritual patrimony.
Ultimately, in ecumenism Byzantines need ask themselves: "what are we becoming?". As the priest told me it’s a contradiction to think of ourselves as a real Byzantine church apart from our mother Church of Constantinople. If we wish to be truly Byzantines we must be in the process of returning to what we were before the separation. As the Patriarch of Constantinople suggested we don’t need to leave our present churches. Rather, we need to lead our churches back to what they once were. Essentially, the understanding of being that bridge between East and West is dependent upon the degree we wish to be faithful to the Byzantine tradition. Practically, we need to be taking the steps of being as a Melkite Catholic Patriarch once said, “an Orthodox Church with the little or big plus of communion with Rome”.

It should noted, however, that Ric has since revised that article in a more nuanced fashion.

For example, it doesn't say "As the Patriarch of Constantinople suggested we don’t need to leave our present churches." but rather "As the Patriarch of Constantinople says "full union in faith" is the requirement for reunion. I would add that this does not mean that we leave our communion with Rome behind."

My question is, when did "in communion with Rome" become the terminology? It wasn't always there; not that I am suggesting it is a later "innovation," but when was it fully introduced?

At the time of the Union of Uzhorod the conceived ideal was that, indeed, the Rusyn Church would have bilateral communion with Rome AND Constantinople. That was not to be......is it possible now? What would Pope Francis say to this?

I had always assumed they knew it would break communion with Constantinople. Is there a reference available for this?

Valid question Jaya. It was alluded to in The union of Uzhorod, Michael Lacko, S.J., Slovak Institute, Cleveland-Rome 1966.

I am not in possession of the book as I borrowed it to read it about three years ago. As I recall, the Patriarch of Constantinople knew that the Rusyns were under pressure from the Rakoczy family (the lords over the Mukachevo area) to become protestant. He was also aware that Constantinople was in no position to help, as they were under domination of the Turks. The insight is "wink, wink, nod, nod."
Certainly the Patriarchs of that era had to have had at least an awareness of the earlier Union of Brest. It would be very interesting to find out if there was any official correspondence from Constantinople regarding the the Union of Brest or the rumblings of an union of the Rusyns with Rome. Anyone??????

Not just Protestants--Calvinists! And the Rusyn presbyters who negotiated and entered into the Union expected the same thing as the Kyivan bishops who signed the Treaty of Brest: that they would enter communion with Rome and remain in communion with the rest of the Orthodox world. Neither Rome nor Constantinople nor Moscow saw it that way.

Do you have any references, Stuart. I would really like to get more insight. I think the Union really gets a bad rap because people are ignorant of the conditions and circumstances.

Just to expand on your comment, I'm of the impression that the Moscow Patriarchate was totally uninvolved, at least with the Uzhorod eparchy.
I'm not sure about the Halich situation; weren't they at least nominally under the jurisdiction of Constantinople?

Tomassus,

Is the part about inviting us to "return to Orthodoxy without breaking unity with Rome" an actual quotation from the Ecumenical Patriarch, or merely Ric Ballard's interpretation? I find this particularly questionable because the part he puts in quotation marks does not seem to imply in any way that we could "return to Constantinople" while maintaining communion with Rome.

It isn't that I don't like the idea, but I can't believe HB Bartholomew could have made such a statement without stirring up a considerable amount of controversy, which doesn't seem to have been the case.

The idea that we "shouldn't exist" continues to bother me, since to me it implies that we ought to be either RC or EO, and stop "pretending to be both."

By the same token, I like the concept of being a "bridge between East and West," with the model of a bridge meaning a way of getting past the boundary that separates us.

This depends entirely on what we mean by "no different," as the EO identity at present is so deeply bound up in being separate and distinct from the RCC--not merely in ritual and theological tradition, but in the very concept of what it means to be "Church." While we can and should strive to be identical to the EOC in ritual and theological tradition, the only way we could continue to be in communion with Rome while maintaining an EO concept of what it means to be "Church" would be for RCs and EOs to have already achieved communion.

The real challenge here is nothing less than one of re-starting a tradition that's been broken for more than 1000 years--no mean task, by any measure. However, let us never forget: "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Mt. 19:26, Mk. 10:27, Lk. 18:27)


Peace,
Deacon Richard

Me too. It seems to me that all the Churches came to be through various historical circumstances and developed more or less independently from some other Churches, and more closely with others. Some of the Churches we know today were unknown to our forefathers. Some were individual from the beginning, some split away from others less than peacefully, and others more naturally grew and went their separate ways. Nonetheless, all have developed peculiarities and I react badly to the idea of cancelling one and folding it into another.

We are the children of schism, a schism that was created by the schism between Rome and Constantinople. When that schism is healed, then the schism we created when we departed from our Mother Churches must ALSO be healed. What use, after all, for another Ukrainian Orthodox jurisdiction, another Carpatho-Rusyn jurisdiction, another Antiochian jurisdiction, another Romanian jurisdiction? The restoration of communion should see us return to our Mother Churches because that is what is right. The restoration of communion should, in fact, also lead to the regularization of the uncanonical schema of multiple overlapping jurisdiction, so not only would the various Eastern Catholic eparchies in the U.S. merge with their Orthodox counterparts, eventually all of the Orthodox jurisdictions will merge into a single, united Orthodox Church in North America.

Under this rubric (i.e. "Children of schism") what becomes of all the Orthodox Churches who were uncanonical until suddenly they weren't? It looks to me like schism is historically one of the more common ways to establish an eventually-legitimate Church.

There would most certainly have to be a rationalization of Orthodox jurisdictions to restore canonical Orthodox ecclesiology, for it is clear that the existence of distinct, autocephalous national Churches is an aberration resulting from the Turkokratia and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, in the same way that multiple jurisdictions in the Diaspora is the result of the Bolshevik Revolution. Both reforms will have to be decided after the restoration of communion with the Roman Church, because I fear it will take an outside party with undisputed appellate authority to make some of the hard choices here.

If this is what happens, we must expect a lot of Greek Christians to have Latin bishops.

Though presumably lots of Latins might find themselves with Eastern bishops too.