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Christian Unity Cannot Be Built on LiesNovember 17, 2014 The Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev not only misrepresents Catholic practice and history, he also misrepresents Orthodox practice and history Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/3519/christian_unity_cannot_be_built_on_lies.aspx [ Linked Image] Pope Francis meets with Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of ecumenical relations for the Russian Orthodox Church, during a private meeting at the Vatican Nov. 12, 2013. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano vi a Reuters) Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, the “foreign affairs minister” of the Russian Orthodox Church, is, as George Weigel observed recently in First Things, a talented man, “charming and witty.” However, the gifted Hilarion, Weigel rightly noted, “does not always speak the truth.” Hilarion is rather like the Energizer Bunny: he goes on and on and on repeating tirelessly whatever pernicious propaganda the Russians want to spread. He has three channels to choose from: tired and outright lies about Ukrainian Catholics, repeated ad nauseam for over a decade now; useful if rather vague calls for Christians to co-operate in addressing the social ills of our time (same-sex marriage, divorce, abortion); and tendentious distortions of his own Orthodox tradition, particularly her ecclesiology. It is the third I wish to address. Earlier this month, the metropolitan gave a speech at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, New York, about primacy in the Orthodox Church and in the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue. Since I've written the most wide-ranging, up-to-date, and comprehensive survey on both topics—Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy (University of Notre Dame Press 2011)—I was vexed at the ignorance and distortions on display in the metropolitan's essay. It is absurd, frankly, that he cannot even relay his own Orthodox tradition faithfully and that it fell to me, lowest of the low (for I am a Ukrainian Catholic—one of those horrible old “Uniates” that Alfeyev is forever denouncing), to more faithfully represent and adequately describe the Orthodox tradition than he himself has. Now, to be sure, I do not suffer from delusions of grandeur and imagine that everyone has eagerly devoured my book, treating it like some Delphic oracle revealing the way to Christian unity. But it has been lauded by many Orthodox for its faithful, wide-ranging, and comprehensive survey of Orthodox positions in all their diversity. For the Orthodox do not speak with one voice on these matters, and they do not speak in one place, either. I gathered dozens of articles and books, most from very obscure places, and put them into one sweeping chapter, which had never been done before. As Fr. John Jillions, a scholar and the Chancellor of the Orthodox Church of America, said to me quite sincerely and gratefully, “At the very least your book will be useful for telling us Orthodox what we say and think!” Had Hilarion read the book, he could have saved himself the embarrassment of uttering such howlers in New York as this: … we are dealing with two very different models of church administration: one centralized and based on the perception of papal universal jurisdiction; the other decentralized and based on the notion of the communion of autocephalous local Churches. This is the old mythology, never accurate in the first place, that sees the West as all papal and monarchical, and the East as all patriarchal and synodical. Like all stereotypes, it distorts. For the plain facts are that there is a long history of robust synodality in the Church of Rome going back to the earliest centuries of her history, and there is a long history of Eastern Churches attempting to be heavily centralized and run not in a synodal manner but in a manner that some Orthodox themselves have confessed to be “quasi-papal.” The clearest recent example of a super-centralized Orthodox church run on quasi-papal lines is Alfeyev's own Russian Church, whose 1945 statutes gave the patriarch of Moscow (for political reasons insisted upon by Stalin) powers that popes of Rome could only dream about. I document all this in great detail in my book. For Alfeyev not to acknowledge any of this makes it clear that his treatment of primacy is grossly tendentious and thus must be dismissed as inaccurate and unreliable. But it gets worse. Referring rather sweepingly and positively to “Orthodox....polemics,” the metropolitan sums these up as arguing that “in the Universal Church there can be no visible head because Christ Himself is the Head of the Body of the Church.” He recognizes that some Orthodox do not subscribe to such a view, naming the (safely dead) Fr. Alexander Schmemann, former dean of St. Vladimir's. Tellingly, the metropolitan fails to mention the most important Greek Orthodox theologian alive today, Metropolitan John Zizioulas, who is Orthodox co-chair of the international Catholic-Orthodox dialogue and has argued in favor of universal primacy—as the majority of modern Orthodox theologians also do—exercised in a synodal manner. Zizioulas, moreover, has rightly insisted that universal primacy requires universal synodality, and one cannot speak intelligently about one without the other. Alfeyev's failure to even mention Zizioulas strikes the reader as thin-skinned and perhaps even motivated by envy—there can be only one prima donna in this town, and c'est moi. Hilarion next makes another spurious claim: The notion that a supreme hierarch for the Universal Church is a necessity has been approached from different angles over the last fifty years, but invariably the consensus among the Orthodox is that primacy as expressed in the Western tradition was and remains alien to the East. In other words, the Orthodox are not prepared to have a pope. Current modes of exercising the papacy may indeed remain “alien to the East” in broad measure, but the second sentence here is, as my book's survey of twenty-four Orthodox scholars shows, completely bogus. Again and again, modern Orthodox thinkers have recognized that there is a role for the papacy, that they are prepared to have a pope under certain circumstances, and that the papacy, when exercised properly, is a gift and a blessing for all Christians, including the Orthodox! Indeed, the late Ukrainian Orthodox Archbishop Vsevolod of Chicago bluntly stated, in a 1997 address at Catholic University of America, “the Church needs the Roman primacy.” There is more tiresome nonsense: Hilarion ties up his piece by referring to the statement of the Rusian Church about primacy, adopted on December 26, 2013 (which I debunked in this CWR piece), where it is claimed that“primacy in the Universal Orthodox Church...is the primacy of honor by its very nature rather than that of power.” There are few phrases more vexatious to me than “primacy of honor.” More than twenty years ago now, the widely respected historian Fr. Brian E. Daley, SJ, in an article—““Position and Patronage in the Early Church: The Original Meaning of ‘Primacy of Honour’”—published in Journal of Theological Studies, one of the most prestigious theological journals in the anglophone world, showed that the notion of “primacy of honor” in the early Church did not mean an absence of authority. Such primacy, in fact, was honored precisely because it was authoritative, and the one exercising that primacy could and did call people to account, where necessary coercing and compelling obedience in various circumstances. The primate of “honor,” then, clearly is not a useless avuncular fellow—able to smile and wave and nothing more. He had real teeth—or, to use Alfeyev's word, “power”. Why, then, such a shoddy speech? Was Metropolian Hilarion Alfeyev just being lazy in not reading widely recognized landmark scholarship such as Daley's article (to say nothing of my book)? Or was he setting out to distort the record and ignore evidence that does not fit his (and broadly Russian) prejudices? The inescapable conclusion is that he cannot even be relied upon to faithfully, truthfully, and accurately represent his own tradition. If he repeatedly tells lies about Catholics in Ukraine, and is now caught out uttering distortions about his own Orthodox tradition, how can this man be called upon to reliably discuss anything? If all his invitations to various conferences—Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox—do not now dry up, then the fault is not with him but with us for our willingness to indulge duplicity. We have made ourselves accomplices in this man's self-destructive utterances by regularly giving him a platform from which to lie. As Christians, we must surely recognize that it is itself a sin to aid and abet another in actions we ourselves know to be sin. Out of genuine charity for Metropolitan Hilarion, it is time that we no longer seek him out or listen to him. Let him never again be given an invitation to a Vatican event of any kind; let no more honorary doctorates be conferred on him; let him be denied all future speaking engagements and photo ops with Billy Graham, the pope, or the archbishop of Canterbury. Let us pray that, being young enough, perhaps he may yet amend his ways so that truth and honesty might light the difficult but vital path of Catholic-Orthodox dialogue.
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Dr DeVille is going on and on about church history, Orthodoxy, Eastern Catholicism, propaganda etc. etc. He should keep up the good work!  As for Archbishop Vsevolod's statement about needing the primacy - you know he is Ukrainian, Orthodox but still Ukrainian, so he really can't be completely trusted! Orthodox Ukrainians have always been suspected of being "closet Uniates." I don't know what the Metropolitan is telling the Vatican about Ukrainian Catholics in Ukraine (they can be a bad lot, of course!), but has the MP ever publicly repented of its actions with respect to the "disunity sobor" of 1946? Then and only then can we have a discussion about those nasty Ukies . . . Something about having a log in one's own eye .... Alex
Last edited by Orthodox Catholic; 11/20/14 11:11 AM.
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Christian Unity Cannot Be Built on LiesNovember 17, 2014 The Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev not only misrepresents Catholic practice and history, he also misrepresents Orthodox practice and history Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/3519/christian_unity_cannot_be_built_on_lies.aspx [ Linked Image] Pope Francis meets with Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of ecumenical relations for the Russian Orthodox Church, during a private meeting at the Vatican Nov. 12, 2013. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano vi a Reuters) Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, the “foreign affairs minister” of the Russian Orthodox Church, is, as George Weigel observed recently in First Things, a talented man, “charming and witty.” However, the gifted Hilarion, Weigel rightly noted, “does not always speak the truth.” Hilarion is rather like the Energizer Bunny: he goes on and on and on repeating tirelessly whatever pernicious propaganda the Russians want to spread. He has three channels to choose from: tired and outright lies about Ukrainian Catholics, repeated ad nauseam for over a decade now; useful if rather vague calls for Christians to co-operate in addressing the social ills of our time (same-sex marriage, divorce, abortion); and tendentious distortions of his own Orthodox tradition, particularly her ecclesiology. It is the third I wish to address. Earlier this month, the metropolitan gave a speech at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, New York, about primacy in the Orthodox Church and in the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue. Since I've written the most wide-ranging, up-to-date, and comprehensive survey on both topics—Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy (University of Notre Dame Press 2011)—I was vexed at the ignorance and distortions on display in the metropolitan's essay. It is absurd, frankly, that he cannot even relay his own Orthodox tradition faithfully and that it fell to me, lowest of the low (for I am a Ukrainian Catholic—one of those horrible old “Uniates” that Alfeyev is forever denouncing), to more faithfully represent and adequately describe the Orthodox tradition than he himself has. Now, to be sure, I do not suffer from delusions of grandeur and imagine that everyone has eagerly devoured my book, treating it like some Delphic oracle revealing the way to Christian unity. But it has been lauded by many Orthodox for its faithful, wide-ranging, and comprehensive survey of Orthodox positions in all their diversity. For the Orthodox do not speak with one voice on these matters, and they do not speak in one place, either. I gathered dozens of articles and books, most from very obscure places, and put them into one sweeping chapter, which had never been done before. As Fr. John Jillions, a scholar and the Chancellor of the Orthodox Church of America, said to me quite sincerely and gratefully, “At the very least your book will be useful for telling us Orthodox what we say and think!” Had Hilarion read the book, he could have saved himself the embarrassment of uttering such howlers in New York as this: … we are dealing with two very different models of church administration: one centralized and based on the perception of papal universal jurisdiction; the other decentralized and based on the notion of the communion of autocephalous local Churches. This is the old mythology, never accurate in the first place, that sees the West as all papal and monarchical, and the East as all patriarchal and synodical. Like all stereotypes, it distorts. For the plain facts are that there is a long history of robust synodality in the Church of Rome going back to the earliest centuries of her history, and there is a long history of Eastern Churches attempting to be heavily centralized and run not in a synodal manner but in a manner that some Orthodox themselves have confessed to be “quasi-papal.” The clearest recent example of a super-centralized Orthodox church run on quasi-papal lines is Alfeyev's own Russian Church, whose 1945 statutes gave the patriarch of Moscow (for political reasons insisted upon by Stalin) powers that popes of Rome could only dream about. I document all this in great detail in my book. For Alfeyev not to acknowledge any of this makes it clear that his treatment of primacy is grossly tendentious and thus must be dismissed as inaccurate and unreliable. But it gets worse. Referring rather sweepingly and positively to “Orthodox....polemics,” the metropolitan sums these up as arguing that “in the Universal Church there can be no visible head because Christ Himself is the Head of the Body of the Church.” He recognizes that some Orthodox do not subscribe to such a view, naming the (safely dead) Fr. Alexander Schmemann, former dean of St. Vladimir's. Tellingly, the metropolitan fails to mention the most important Greek Orthodox theologian alive today, Metropolitan John Zizioulas, who is Orthodox co-chair of the international Catholic-Orthodox dialogue and has argued in favor of universal primacy—as the majority of modern Orthodox theologians also do—exercised in a synodal manner. Zizioulas, moreover, has rightly insisted that universal primacy requires universal synodality, and one cannot speak intelligently about one without the other. Alfeyev's failure to even mention Zizioulas strikes the reader as thin-skinned and perhaps even motivated by envy—there can be only one prima donna in this town, and c'est moi. Hilarion next makes another spurious claim: The notion that a supreme hierarch for the Universal Church is a necessity has been approached from different angles over the last fifty years, but invariably the consensus among the Orthodox is that primacy as expressed in the Western tradition was and remains alien to the East. In other words, the Orthodox are not prepared to have a pope. Current modes of exercising the papacy may indeed remain “alien to the East” in broad measure, but the second sentence here is, as my book's survey of twenty-four Orthodox scholars shows, completely bogus. Again and again, modern Orthodox thinkers have recognized that there is a role for the papacy, that they are prepared to have a pope under certain circumstances, and that the papacy, when exercised properly, is a gift and a blessing for all Christians, including the Orthodox! Indeed, the late Ukrainian Orthodox Archbishop Vsevolod of Chicago bluntly stated, in a 1997 address at Catholic University of America, “the Church needs the Roman primacy.” There is more tiresome nonsense: Hilarion ties up his piece by referring to the statement of the Rusian Church about primacy, adopted on December 26, 2013 (which I debunked in this CWR piece), where it is claimed that“primacy in the Universal Orthodox Church...is the primacy of honor by its very nature rather than that of power.” There are few phrases more vexatious to me than “primacy of honor.” More than twenty years ago now, the widely respected historian Fr. Brian E. Daley, SJ, in an article—““Position and Patronage in the Early Church: The Original Meaning of ‘Primacy of Honour’”—published in Journal of Theological Studies, one of the most prestigious theological journals in the anglophone world, showed that the notion of “primacy of honor” in the early Church did not mean an absence of authority. Such primacy, in fact, was honored precisely because it was authoritative, and the one exercising that primacy could and did call people to account, where necessary coercing and compelling obedience in various circumstances. The primate of “honor,” then, clearly is not a useless avuncular fellow—able to smile and wave and nothing more. He had real teeth—or, to use Alfeyev's word, “power”. Why, then, such a shoddy speech? Was Metropolian Hilarion Alfeyev just being lazy in not reading widely recognized landmark scholarship such as Daley's article (to say nothing of my book)? Or was he setting out to distort the record and ignore evidence that does not fit his (and broadly Russian) prejudices? The inescapable conclusion is that he cannot even be relied upon to faithfully, truthfully, and accurately represent his own tradition. If he repeatedly tells lies about Catholics in Ukraine, and is now caught out uttering distortions about his own Orthodox tradition, how can this man be called upon to reliably discuss anything? If all his invitations to various conferences—Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox—do not now dry up, then the fault is not with him but with us for our willingness to indulge duplicity. We have made ourselves accomplices in this man's self-destructive utterances by regularly giving him a platform from which to lie. As Christians, we must surely recognize that it is itself a sin to aid and abet another in actions we ourselves know to be sin. Out of genuine charity for Metropolitan Hilarion, it is time that we no longer seek him out or listen to him. Let him never again be given an invitation to a Vatican event of any kind; let no more honorary doctorates be conferred on him; let him be denied all future speaking engagements and photo ops with Billy Graham, the pope, or the archbishop of Canterbury. Let us pray that, being young enough, perhaps he may yet amend his ways so that truth and honesty might light the difficult but vital path of Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev does not seem to present the education in the matter nor the deep understanding which he needs to deal with such issues and so he comes out with ridiculous comments for the ignorance of it all in the weakness of his approach... This to me is perhaps like turning around in circles where you never get anywhere because there is a lack of genuine willingness to truly work on a Catholic-Orthodox dialogue in the first place. There could also be a 'hidden agenda' in the mix with Putin behind the curtains. . . We MUST stop to find 'fault' in other churches and lies set aside now all must do and not follow such example... Christian unity can ONLY happen by starting with these basic and fundamental premises: following Christ's Word and what He wants FIRST and FOREMOST and keep this in ever-present goal and thought of mind as Christians; recognizing that Christ Himself instituted St Peter upon the Throne of the Papacy as leader of Christianity upon His Rock via St Peter (not the notion of the communion of autocephalous Churches) - his Rock the Church; mutual respect - which includes: the end of divisive language which only fuels and promotes fear-mongering, hate, intolerance and is largely based in ignorance - including, the removal of 'heresy' in our vocabulary, prayer books, teachings when speaking about each other as Christian traditions based in Christ and His teachings; the end of infantile behaviour in resorting to undue criticism and 'blame' or lies to seek to undermine and discredit; the end of the tirade of 'power' and the recognition that YES the Church does need Roman Primacy instead of a 'headless' flock - we need a 'Head' where there is: oversight, accountability, guidance and direction for all; and the drive to make this work by the very love we should as Christians have for each other and be a shining example to the world! One cannot have 'honour' without RESPECT for what Christ Himself instituted and as Christians we cannot lose sight of this and ought to think of these Words from Our Lord: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me." (John 17:20-21 ESV) - these are words by which Christ Himself calls Christians to remain as ONE - in HIM ...so the WORLD may believe in HIM! What Christ has instituted let NO MAN put asunder! We MUST go beyond the weaknesses of our humanity and work to UNITE! The times of 'heresy' language against each other is OVER - it is unchristian! The reasons for power struggles which existed during the Great Schism are no longer the same as in today's world - times have changed - the 'hour' is different - the world is different and so are its needs - there is no need for this sort of language - it serves no true purpose but to be the language of hate - only demonic forces should be heretic and this has NO PLACE in our Church as Christians who believe in CHRIST and the stupidity MUST STOP if we dare say we 'honour' Christ as Christians! It is an abomination against Christ to speak in such language about our fellow-Christians! The 'hour' is upon us more than ever to UNITE as Christians in this world which Our Lord gave us as a home to live in as a shining example of PEACE which is the ULTIMATE reflection of a true life as Christians in accordance with Christ's teachings! It is for us to LOVE each other, ACCEPT each other with all our 'imperfections' as we strive to work together as a unit - 'agree to disagree' yet work together - remain together and respect our fellow Christians and work HARD to UNITE under ONE CHURCH and KEEP IT THAT WAY! Imagine... just imagine the reunification of our churches in ONE CHURCH - what a great message of PEACE this would be! What a STRONG and POWERFUL UNIT to ward off conflicts and wars by its very example by the mere POWER of such a UNITED VOICE in CHRIST! What power such a voice could squash conflicts before they even begin or to contribute to stop them by the collective voice of ALL Christians upon earth! We have a DUTY as Christians to UNITE - there is NO other portal for us if we call ourselves Christians! PEACE is at the very root core of the teachings of Christ and we MUST abide by this and be peaceful among us and what better way to live this than in a veritable peace among us and to UNITE together as a true path to LIVE as shining examples that we BELIEVE that GOD has sent Christ to us! As Christians, we DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE but to listen to the message of Christ and we MUST be a reflection of His Word and what he wants us to do FIRST AND FOREMOST! We are not expected to 'understand' everything and even the best theologians shall admit that they do not have 'all the answers' and they too fail in their human understanding... - HOWEVER, we must be like Job and NEVER LOSE SIGHT OF CHRIST and TRUST in HIM no matter the tribulations we face - ABOVE AND BEYOND ALL ELSE WE MUST TRUST IN GOD - IN CHRIST - IN THE HOLY TRINITY! This trust we need to place in His very institution of the Papacy! The Pope is the Prince of Heaven on Earth - he is the anointed representative of Christ which Christ himself appointed upon the Throne of Rome - the Seat of the Church - we cannot 'ignore' this for to do so is to ignore the intent and the creation of this ONE CHURCH which He Himself made by His Word! To ignore this is to turn our back on Christ Himself! The Schism MUST end and the insanity MUST STOP! We MUST UNITE and do so with welcoming arms and look at each other in LOVE! We must open the doors of our hearts wide open to each other! If we do this, we shall have a Church upon earth which is STRONGER and MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN EVER! Imagine. . . Imagine the attraction of conversions of hundreds of thousands coming to embrace a Church of such fine and noble fiber! Upon this unification, all clergy of this re-unified Church should consecrate Russia as Our Lady requested and may the rest of the lost sheep follow and join us in Christ! The dialogue is started... we MUST continue it and work to advance closer and closer to each other and stop the nonsense EVERYWHERE we see it! END the language of division, change your 'vocabulary' and work on a language of UNITY! The Russian Orthodox need to stop speaking of a 'notion of the communion of autocephalous local Churches' and bind together under ONE Church authority: THE POPE! I had gone to bed earlier and woke up after having a very vivid dream ...like a 'vision' for a new emblem for the Papacy once the churches would unite. It looked like this and I felt it represents this: I saw the silver and gold Royal Doors of St Sophia of Kiev as if I was 'there' [doors of the human and divine elements together... which can be emblematically seen via the doors themselves as gates of Heaven on earth ...upon which the bi-cephalic eagle clearly adorns ...it felt instead of being thought of as a 'divisive' emblem for its ‘two heads,’ that it be one of STRONG unity by its very 'body' (the body of the animal) as ONE CHURCH - ONE BODY encompassed - ONE 'ENTITY' (via the main body of the animal symbol) in this UNITED Church]. The bi-cephalic eagle had ONE Crown raised above it between the two eagle heads and somehow I felt this particular Crown represented the King of Kings: Christ - God - within the Papacy! I saw this as our emblem as followers of Christ under the Pope. . . Its feet hold the cross of Christianity as its 'scepter' in one and the glowing orb of the converted world in the other with the 'Keys of St Peter' burning upon its chest crossed as they should with the top of each key resting upon the base of the neck of each eagle head - like an emblem of a unified church upon earth in Christ! The Crown felt like a dual emblem of the Papacy as well - the three-tier Crown of the Trinity (via a three-tier Papal-style Crown) to hold in symbolic honour the Divine Crown which emanates of: God the Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit and its dual emblematic in the anointment of the Papacy by Christ! A soaring eagle of the Imperial Throne of God on Earth - the emblematic phoenix of change in a unified Church! The Church Imperial! The Empire of God on Earth! The Kingdom of Peace! One which encompasses a symbol of 'former Orthodoxy' and combines with Papal emblems to represent the beauty and strength of our noble and unified Church in Christ! I woke up feeling such an emblem would rise to be that of the Church under the Papacy to signal the unity of OUR CHURCH! The 'Royal Emblem' of the Throne of Rome for the Prince of Peace on earth: the Pope and His Church in Christ all over the world! We must strive each day to build this willingness to unite in all Christians of the world! The Shepherd is calling His flock to unite as ONE! We must not leave any lamb of His Church to the wolves! Lone sheep are harder to protect and defend and shall die if they keep seeking a single solitary path on their own accord much like autonomous local churches are bound to die in due course of time. Too many heads on a serpent leads nowhere... yet, an eagle despite two heads CAN FLY if it learns to cooperate together to move its wings - humanity and Christ together! Collectivity in one body - one voice under ONE 'leader' - the Pope - holds hope of a lasting strong Church while division shall lead to Christianity's loss. . . The road to Salvation is paved with one word: PEACE! This we MUST strive to attain if we call ourselves Christians! Unify in Christ! Christine
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