Orthodox
relations with other communions: Opportunities and problems
The ‘Separated’ Eastern
Churches. When they think of reunion, the Orthodox look not only
to the west, but to
their neighbours in the east, the Nestorians and Monophysites. In many ways
Orthodoxy stands closer
to the ‘Separated’ Eastern Churches than to any western confession.
The Nestorians are today
very few in number — perhaps 50,000 — and almost entirely
lacking in theologians,
so that it is difficult to enter into official negotiations with them. But a
partial union between
Orthodox and Nestorian Christians has already occurred. In 1898 an Assyrian
Nestorian, Mar Ivanios,
bishop of Urumia in Persia, together with his flock, was received
into communion by the
Russian Church. The initiative came primarily from the Nestorian side,
and there was no
pressure — political or otherwise — on the part of the Russians. In 1905 this
ex-Nestorian diocese was
said to number 80 parishes and some 70,000 faithful; but between
1915 and 1918 the
Assyrian Orthodox were slaughtered by the Turks in a series of unprovoked
massacres, from which a
few thousand alone escaped. Even though its life was so tragically cut
short, the
reconciliation of this ancient Christian community forms an encouraging
precedent:
why should not the
Orthodox Church today come to a similar understanding with the rest of the
Nestorian communion? (When
visiting a Russian convent near New York in 1960, I had the pleasure of meeting
an
Assyrian Orthodox bishop, originally from the Urumia diocese, likewise called
Mar Ivanios (successor to the
original
Mar Ivanios). A married priest, he had become a bishop after the death of his
wife. When I asked the nuns
how old
he was, I was told: ‘He says he’s 102, but his children say he must be much older
than that’).
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The Monophysites, from
the practical point of view, stand in a very different position from
the Nestorians, for they
are still comparatively numerous — more than ten million — and possess
theologians capable of
presenting and interpreting their traditional doctrinal position. A
number of western and
Orthodox scholars now believe that the Monophysite teaching about the
person of Christ has in
the past been seriously misunderstood, and that the difference between
those who accept and
those who reject the decrees of Chalcedon is largely if not entirely verbal.
When visiting the Coptic
Monophysite Church of Egypt in 1959, the Patriarch of Constantinople
spoke with great
optimism: ‘In truth we are all one, we are all Orthodox Christians ... We have
the same sacraments, the
same history, the same traditions. The divergence is on the level of
phraseology’ (Speech
before the Institute of Higher Coptic Studies, Cairo, 10 December 1959). Of all the
‘ecumenical’ contacts of
Orthodoxy, the friendship with the Monophysites seems the most hopeful
and the most likely to
lead to concrete results in the near future. The question of reunion with
the Monophysites was much
in the air at the Pan-Orthodox Conferences of Rhodes, and it will
certainly figure
prominently on the agenda of future Pan-Orthodox Councils. During August
1964 an extremely
friendly ‘Unofficial Consultation’ took place at Aarhus in Denmark between
Orthodox and Monophysite
theologians. ‘All of us have learned from each other,’ the delegates
from the two sides
declared in the ‘agreed statement’ issued at the end of the meeting. ‘Our
inherited
misunderstandings have
begun to clear up. We recognize in each other the one orthodox
faith of the Church.
Fifteen centuries of alienation have not led us astray from the faith of our
Fathers.’ Further
consultations met at Bristol (1967), Geneva (1970), and Addis Ababa (1971).
The Roman Catholic
Church.
Among western Christians, it is the Anglicans with whom Orthodoxy
has at present the most
cordial relations, but it is the Roman Catholics with whom Orthodoxy
has by far the most in
common. Certainly between Orthodoxy and Rome there are many
difficulties. The usual
psychological barriers exist. Among Orthodox — and doubtless among
Roman Catholics as well
— there are a multitude of inherited prejudices which cannot quickly
be overcome; and
Orthodox do not find it easy to forget the unhappy experiences of the past —
such things as the
Crusades, the ‘Union’ of Brest-Litovsk, the schism at Antioch in the eighteenth
century, or the
persecution of the Orthodox Church in Poland by a Roman Catholic government
between the two World
Wars. Roman Catholics do not usually realize how deep a sense
of misgiving and
apprehension many devout Orthodox — educated as well as simple — still feel
when they think of the
Church of Rome. More serious than these psychological barriers are the
differences in doctrine
between the two sides — above all the filioque and the Papal claims.
Once again many Roman
Catholics fail to appreciate how serious the theological difficulties are,
and how great an
importance Orthodox attach to these two issues. Yet when all has been said
about dogmatic
divergences, about differences in spirituality and in general approach, it
still remains
true that there are many
things which the two sides share: in their experience of the sacraments,
for example, and in
their devotion to the Mother of God and the saints — to mention but
two instances out of
many — Orthodox and Roman Catholics are for the most part very close
indeed.
Since the two sides have
so much in common, is there perhaps some hope of a reconciliation?
At first sight one is
tempted to despair, particularly when one considers the question of the
Papal claims. Orthodox
find themselves unable to accept the definitions of the Vatican Council
of 1870 concerning the
supreme ordinary jurisdiction and the infallibility of the Pope; but the
Roman Catholic Church
reckons the Vatican Council as ecumenical and so is bound to regard its
definitions as
irrevocable. Yet matters are not completely at an impasse. How far, we may ask,
have Orthodox
controversialists understood the Vatican decrees aright? Perhaps the meaning
at-
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tached to the
definitions by most western theologians in the past ninety years is not in fact
the
only possible
interpretation. Furthermore it is now widely admitted by Roman Catholics that
the
Vatican decrees are
incomplete and one-sided: they speak only of the Pope and his prerogatives,
but say nothing about
the bishops. But now that the second Vatican Council has issued a dogmatic
statement on the powers
of the episcopate, the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Papal
claims has begun to
appear to the Orthodox world in a somewhat different light.
And if Rome in the past has perhaps
said too little about the position of bishops in the
Church, Orthodox in
their turn need to take the idea of Primacy more seriously. Orthodox agree
that the Pope is first
among bishops: have they asked themselves carefully and searchingly what
this really means? If
the primatial see of Rome were restored once more to the Orthodox communion,
what precisely would its
status be? Orthodox are not willing to ascribe to the Pope a
universal supremacy of
‘ordinary’ jurisdiction; but may it not be possible for them to ascribe to
him, as President and
Primate in the college of bishops, a universal responsibility, an
all-embracing pastoral
care extending over the whole Church? Recently the Orthodox Youth
Movement in the
Patriarchate of Antioch suggested two formulae. ‘The Pope, among the bishops,
is the elder brother,
the father being absent.’ ‘The Pope is the mouth of the Church and of
the episcopate.’
Obviously these formulae fall far short of the Vatican statements on Papal
jurisdiction
and infallibility, but
they can serve at any rate as a basis for constructive discussion.
Hitherto Orthodox
theologians, in the heat of controversy, have too often been content simply to
attack the Roman doctrine
of the Papacy (as they understand it), without attempting to go deeper
and to state in positive
language what the true nature of Papal primacy is from the Orthodox
viewpoint. If Orthodox
were to think and speak more in constructive and less in negative and
polemical terms, then
the divergence between the two sides might no longer appear so absolute.
After long postponement
the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches set up a mixed international
commission for
theological discussions in 1980. Much is also being done informally
through personal
contacts. Invaluable work has been done by the Roman Catholic ‘Monastery of
Union’ at Chevetogne in
Belgium, originally founded at Amay-sur-Meuse in 1926. This is a
‘double rite’ monastery
in which the monks worship according to both the Roman and the Byzantine
rites. The Chevetogne
periodical, Irénikon, contains an accurate and most sympathetic
chronicle of current
affairs in the Orthodox Church, as well as numerous scholarly articles, often
contributed by Orthodox.
Certainly one must be
sober and realistic: reunion between Orthodoxy and Rome, if it ever
comes to pass, will
prove a task of extraordinary difficulty. But signs of a rapprochement are
increasing
year by year. Pope Paul
the Sixth and Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople met
three times (Jerusalem,
1964; Constantinople and Rome, 1967); on 7 December 1965 the anathemas
of 1054 were
simultaneously withdrawn by the Vatican Council in Rome and the Holy
Synod in Constantinople;
in 1979 Pope John Paul the Second visited Patriarch Dimitrios.
Through such symbolic
gestures mutual trust is being created.
The Old Catholics. It was only natural
that the Old Catholics who separated from Rome after
the Vatican Council of
1870 should have entered into negotiations with the Orthodox. The
Old Catholics desired to
recover the true faith of the ancient ‘undivided Church’ using as their
basis the Fathers and
the seven Ecumenical Councils: the Orthodox claimed that this faith was
not merely a thing of
the past, to be reconstructed by antiquarian research, but a present reality,
which by God’s grace
they themselves had never ceased to possess. The two sides have met in a
number of conferences,
in particular at Bonn in 1874 and 1875, at Rotterdam in 1894, at Bonn
again in 1931, and at
Rheinfelden in 1957. A large measure of doctrinal agreement was reached
64
at these gatherings, but
they have not led to any practical results; although relations between Old
Catholics and Orthodox
continue to be very friendly, no union has been effected. In 1975 a
full-scale theological
dialogue was resumed between the two Churches, and an important series
of doctrinal statements
has been issued, showing once more how much the two sides share in
common.
The Anglican Communion. As in the past, so
today there are many Anglicans who regard
the Reformation
Settlement in sixteenth-century England as no more than an interim arrangement,
and who appeal, like the
Old Catholics, to the General Councils, the Fathers, and the Tradition
of the ‘undivided
Church.’ One thinks of Bishop Pearson in the seventeenth century, with
his plea: ‘Search how it
was in the beginning; go to the fountain head; look to antiquity.’ Or of
Bishop Ken, the
Non-Juror, who said: ‘I die in the faith of the Catholic Church, before the
disunion
of east and west.’ This
appeal to antiquity has led many Anglicans to look with sympathy and
interest at the Orthodox
Church, and equally it has led many Orthodox to look with interest and
sympathy at Anglicanism.
As a result of pioneer work by Anglicans such as William Palmer
(1811-1879) (Received
into the Roman Catholic church in 1855). J. M. Neale (1818-1866), and W. J.
Birkbeck (1859-1916),
Anglo-Orthodox relations during the past hundred years have developed
and flourished in a most
animated way.
There have been several
official conferences between Anglican and Orthodox theologians.
In 1930 an Orthodox
delegation representing ten autocephalous Churches (Constantinople, Alexandria,
Antioch, Jerusalem,
Greece, Cyprus, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland) was sent to
England at the time of
the Lambeth Conference, and held discussions with a committee of Anglicans;
and in the following
year a Joint Anglican-Orthodox Commission met in London, with representatives
from the same Churches
as in 1930 (except the Bulgarian).
Both in 1930 and in 1931
an honest attempt was made to face points of doctrinal disagreement.
Questions raised
included the relation of Scripture and Tradition, the Procession of the
Holy Spirit, the
doctrine of the sacraments, and the Anglican idea of authority in the Church. A
similar joint Conference
was held in 1935 at Bucharest, with Anglican and Romanian delegates.
This gathering concluded
its deliberations by stating: ‘A solid basis has been prepared whereby
full dogmatic agreement
may be affirmed between the Orthodox and the Anglican communions.’
In retrospect these
words appear over-optimistic. During the thirties the two sides seemed to be
making great progress
towards full doctrinal agreement, and many — particularly on the Anglican
side — began to think
that the time would soon come when the Anglican and Orthodox
Churches could enter
into communion. Since 1945, however, it has become apparent that such
hopes were premature:
full dogmatic agreement and communion in the sacraments are still a long
way off. The one major
theological conference between Anglicans and Orthodox held since the
war, at Moscow in 1956,
was much more cautious than its predecessors in the thirties. At first
sight its findings seem
comparatively meager and disappointing, but actually they constitute an
important advance, for
they are marked by far greater realism. In the conferences between the
wars there was a
tendency to select specific points of disagreement and to consider them in
isolation.
In 1956 a genuine effort
was made to carry the whole question to a deeper level: not just
particular issues but
the whole faith of the two Churches was discussed, so that specific points
could be seen in context
against a wider background.
An official theological
dialogue, involving all the Orthodox Churches and the whole Anglican
communion, was started
in 1973. A crisis in the talks occurred in 1977-1978, because of the
ordination of women
priests in several Anglican Churches. The conversations continue, but progress
is slow.
65
In the past forty years
a number of Orthodox Churches have produced statements concerning
the validity of Anglican
Orders. At a first glance these statements seem to contradict one another
in a curious and
extraordinary way:
1) Six Churches have
made declarations which seem to recognize Anglican ordinations as
valid: Constantinople
(1922), Jerusalem and Sinai (1923), Cyprus (1923), Alexandria (1930),
Romania (1936).
2) The Russian Church in
Exile, at the Karlovtzy Synod of 1935, declared that Anglican
clergy who become
Orthodox must be reordained. In 1948, at a large conference held in Moscow,
the Moscow Patriarchate
promulgated a decree to the same effect, which was also signed
by official delegates
(present at the conference) from the Churches of Alexandria, Antioch, Serbia,
Bulgaria, Romania,
Georgia, and Albania.
To interpret these
statements aright, it would be necessary to discuss in detail the Orthodox
view of the validity of
sacraments, which is not the same as that usually held by western theologians,
and also the Orthodox
concept of ‘ecclesiastical economy;’ and these matters are so intricate
and obscure that they
cannot here be pursued at length. But certain points must be made.
First, the Churches
which declared in favour of Anglican Orders have not apparently carried this
decision into effect. In
recent years, when Anglican clergy have approached the Patriarchate of
Constantinople with a
view to entering the Orthodox Church, it has been made clear to them that
they would be received
as laymen, not as priests. Secondly, the favourable statements put out by
group (1) are in most
cases carefully qualified and must be regarded as provisional in character.
The Ecumenical
Patriarch, for example, when communicating the 1922 decision to the Archbishop
of Canterbury, said in
his covering note: ‘It is plain that there is as yet no matter here of a
decree by the whole
Orthodox Church. For it is necessary that the rest of the Orthodox Churches
should be found to be of
the same opinion as the most holy Church of Constantinople.’ In the
third place, Orthodoxy
is extremely reluctant to pass judgment upon the status of sacraments performed
by non-Orthodox. Most
Anglicans understood the statements made by group (1) to
constitute a
‘recognition’ of Anglican Orders at the present moment. But in reality
the Orthodox
were not trying to
answer the question ‘Are Anglican Orders valid in themselves, here and now?’
They had in mind the
rather different question ‘Supposing the Anglican communion were to
reach full agreement in
faith with the Orthodox, would it then be necessary to reordain Anglican
clergy?’
This helps to explain
why Constantinople in 1922 could declare favorably upon Anglican
Orders, and yet in
practice treat them as invalid: this favorable declaration could not come
properly
into effect so long as
the Anglican Church was not fully Orthodox in the faith. When matters
are seen in this light,
the Moscow decree of 1948 no longer appears entirely inconsistent with the
declarations of the
pre-war period. Moscow based its decision on the present discrepancy between
Anglican and Orthodox
belief: ‘The Orthodox Church cannot agree to recognize the rightness
of Anglican teaching on
the sacraments in general, and on the sacrament of Holy Order in
particular; and so it cannot
recognize Anglican ordinations as valid.’ (Note that Orthodox theology
declines to treat the
question of valid orders in isolation, but considers at the same time the
faith of the Church
concerned). But, so the Moscow decree continues, if in the future the Anglican
Church were to become
fully Orthodox in faith, then it might be possible to reconsider the
question. While
returning a negative answer at the present moment, Moscow extended a hope for
the future.
Such is the situation so
far as official pronouncements are concerned. Anglican clergy who
join the Orthodox Church
are reordained; but if Anglicanism and Orthodoxy were to reach full
66
unity in the faith,
perhaps such reordination might not be found necessary. It should be
added,
however, that a number
of individual Orthodox theologians hold that under no circumstances
would it be possible to
recognize the validity of Anglican Orders.
Besides official
negotiations between Anglican and Orthodox leaders, there have been many
constructive encounters
on the more personal and informal level. Two
societies in England are
specially devoted to the
cause of Anglo-Orthodox reunion: the Anglican and Eastern Churches
Association (whose parent
organization, the Eastern Church Association, was started in 1863,
mainly on the initiative
of Neale) and the Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius (founded
in 1928), which arranges
an annual conference and has a permanent center in London, Saint
Basil’s House (52
Ladbroke Grove, W11). The Fellowship issues a valuable periodical entitled
Sobornost, which appears twice a
year; in the past the Anglican and Eastern Churches Association
also published a
magazine, The Christian East, now replaced by a Newsletter.
What is the chief
obstacle to reunion between Anglicans and Orthodox? From the Orthodox
point of view there is
one great difficulty: the comprehensiveness of Anglicanism, the extreme
ambiguity of Anglican
doctrinal formularies, the wide variety of interpretations which these
formularies
permit. There are
individual Anglicans who stand very close to Orthodoxy, as can be
seen by anyone who reads
two remarkable pamphlets: Orthodoxy and the Conversion of England,
by Derwas Chitty; and
Anglicanism and Orthodoxy, by H. A. Hodges. ‘The ecumenical
problem,’ Professor
Hodges concludes, is to be seen ‘as the problem of bringing back the West
... to a sound mind and
a healthy life, and that means to Orthodoxy ... The Orthodox Faith, that
Faith to which the
Orthodox Fathers bear witness and of which the Orthodox Church is the abiding
custodian, is the
Christian Faith in its true and essential form’ (Anglicanism
and Orthodoxy, PP-
46-7). Yet there are many other
Anglicans who dissent sharply from this judgment, and who regard
Orthodoxy as corrupt in
doctrine and heretical. The Orthodox Church, however deep its
longing for reunion,
cannot enter into closer relations with the Anglican communion until Anglicans
themselves are clearer
about their own beliefs. The words of General Kireev are as true today
as they were fifty years
ago: ‘We Orientals sincerely desire to come to an understanding with
the great Anglican
Church; but this happy result cannot be attained ... unless the Anglican
Church itself becomes
homogeneous and the doctrines of its different constitutive parts become
identical’ (Le
Général Alexandre Kiréeff et l’ancien-catholicisme,
edited by Olga Novikoff, Berne, 1911, p. 224).
Other Protestants. Orthodox have many
contacts with Protestants on the Continent, above
all in Germany and (to a
lesser degree) in Sweden. The Tubingen discussions of the sixteenth
century have been
reopened in the twentieth, with more positive results.
The World Council of
Churches.
In the Orthodox Church today there exist two different attitudes
towards the World
Council of Churches and the ‘Ecumenical Movement.’ One party holds
that Orthodox should
take no part in the World Council (or at the most send observers to the
meetings, but not full
delegates); full participation in the Ecumenical Movement compromises
the claim of the
Orthodox Church to be the one true Church of Christ, and suggests that all
‘churches’ are alike.
Typical of this viewpoint is the statement made in 1938 by the Synod of the
Russian Church in Exile:
Orthodox Christians must
regard the Holy Orthodox Catholic Church as the true Church of
Christ, one and unique.
For this reason, the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile has forbidden
its children to take
part in the Ecumenical Movement, which rests on the principle of
the equality of all
religions and Christian confessions.
67
But — so the second
party would object — this is completely to misunderstand the nature of the
World Council of
Churches. Orthodox, by participating, do not thereby imply that they regard all
Christian confessions as
equal, nor do they compromise the Orthodox claim to be the true
Church. As the Toronto
Declaration of 1950 (adopted by the Central Committee of the World
Council) carefully
pointed out: ‘Membership in the World Council does not imply the acceptance
of a specific doctrine
concerning the nature of Church unity ... Membership does not imply
that each Church must
regard the other member Churches as Churches in the true and full sense
of the word.’ In view of
this explicit statement (so the second party argues), Orthodox can take
part in the Ecumenical
Movement without endangering their Orthodoxy. And if Orthodox can
take part, then they
must do so: for since they believe the Orthodox faith to be true, it is their
duty to bear witness to
that faith as widely as possible.
The existence of these
two conflicting viewpoints accounts for the somewhat confused and
inconsistent policy
which the Orthodox Church has followed in the past. Some Churches have
regularly sent
delegations to the major conferences of the Ecumenical Movement, others have
done so spasmodically or
scarcely at all. Here is a brief analysis of Orthodox representation during
1927-68:
Lausanne, 1927 (Faith and
Order): Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Greece, Cyprus,
Serbia, Bulgaria,
Romania, Poland.
Edinburgh, 1937 (Faith and
Order): Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem,
Greece, Cyprus,
Bulgaria, Poland, Albania.
Amsterdam, 1948 (World Council of
Churches): Constantinople, Greece, Romanian Church
in America.
Lund, 1952 (Faith and
Order): Constantinople, Antioch, Cyprus, North American Jurisdiction
of Russians.
Evanston, 1954 (World Council of
Churches): Constantinople, Antioch, Greece, Cyprus,
North American
Jurisdiction of Russians, Romanian Church in America.
New Delhi, 1961 (World Council of
Churches): Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem,
Greece, Cyprus, Russia,
Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, North American Jurisdiction of
Russians, Romanian
Church in America
Uppsala, 1968 (World Council of
Churches): Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem,
Cyprus, Russia,
Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Georgia, Poland, North American Jurisdiction
of Russians, Romanian
Church in America.
As can be seen from this
summary, the Patriarchate of Constantinople has always been represented
at the conferences. From
the start it has firmly supported a policy of full participation in
the Ecumenical Movement.
In January 1920 the Patriarchate issued a famous letter addressed
‘To all the Churches of
Christ, wheresoever they be,’ urging closer cooperation between separated
Christian bodies, and
suggesting an alliance of Churches, parallel to the newly founded
League of Nations; many
of the ideas in this letter anticipate later developments in the Ecumenical
Movement. But while
Constantinople has adhered unwaveringly to the principles of 1920,
other Churches have been
more reserved. The Church of Greece, for example, at one point declared
that it would only send
laymen as delegates to the World Council, though this decision
was revoked in 1961.
Some Orthodox Churches have gone even further than this: at the Moscow
Conference in 1948, a
resolution was passed condemning all participation in the World Council.
This resolution stated
bluntly: ‘The aims of the Ecumenical Movement ... in its present state cor-
68
respond neither to the
ideals of Christianity nor to the task of the Church of Christ, as understood
by the Orthodox Church.’
This explains why at Amsterdam, Lund, and Evanston the Orthodox
Churches behind the Iron
Curtain were not represented at all. In 1961, however, the Moscow Patriarchate
applied for membership
of the World Council and was accepted; and this has opened
the way for other
Orthodox Churches in the communist world to become members as well.
Henceforward, so far as
one can judge, Orthodox will play a far fuller and more effective part in
the Ecumenical Movement
than they have done hitherto. But it must not be forgotten that there
are still many Orthodox
— including a number of eminent bishops and theologians — who are
anxious to see their
Church withdraw from the Movement.
Orthodox participation is
a factor of cardinal importance for the Ecumenical Movement: it
is mainly the presence
of Orthodox which prevents the World Council of Churches from appearing
to be simply a
Pan-Protestant alliance and nothing more. But the Ecumenical Movement in
turn is important for
Orthodoxy: it has helped to force the various Orthodox Churches out of
their comparative
isolation, making them meet one another and enter into a living contact with
non-Orthodox Christians.
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