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Inside the Orthodox psyche
Rembert Weakland
The dialogue between the Orthodox and the Catholics is making no progress. The Archbishop of Milwaukee, who co-chairs the joint committee of Orthodox and Catholic bishops in the United States, explains the reasons why.
NO ecumenical dialogue can move forward without trust. If there has been a breakdown of the official international dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox founded in 1979 (carried on by the International Mixed Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, as it is clumsily called), then one has to ask why the required level of trust is no longer present. It is only when trust is present that the hard issues can be tackled and all the participants, without fear of being rejected, can utter what weighs heavily on their hearts and enter into "a dialogue of love", as Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athanagoras described it.
In the minds of most Orthodox, the division of the Holy Roman Empire made by Constantine in the fourth century still rules. So if Rome creates parallel hierarchical structures in the territories in the East, the Orthodox fear that Roman Catholic imperialism is at work, and ultimately this distrust seeps into and corrodes any dialogue on the role of Roman primacy as set out in Catholic teaching.
The international mixed commission met in July this year in Emmitsburg, Maryland, for the first time since 1993, but produced no agreed statement, and the dialogue ended in a stalemate. Since the previous meeting seven years before, many new members had been appointed – scholars and prelates who did not know each other, had not been a part of the original planning, and had not participated in producing the first agreed statements. Long gaps between meetings militate against the creation of trust.
Moreover, since the previous meeting of the group, the members had become aware of the strong resistance to their work by many in their own Churches. They knew that their last statement, forged at Balamand in Lebanon in 1993, was not well received.
The harshest criticisms, coming from very conservative Orthodox quarters, forced the Orthodox members to be more wary of Rome’s intentions. They could not give the impression of compromising or being taken in. The abbots of the monasteries on Mount Athos, in an open letter sent to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in December 1993, expressed this distrust. The Athonite monks have a long memory. Not only were they the object of persecution by the Crusades, but in September each year they commemorate the feast of those monks martyred after the Council of Lyons (1274) for not accepting the union with Rome forced upon them by the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologos. Some of the monks of Zographos were burnt in their tower, some from Vatopedi were beheaded at Karyes, others thrown into the sea to drown. The history and tradition of the Athonite monks keep alive the adage: don’t trust Rome.
Officially, the question blocking the dialogue is the existence of the Eastern Catholic Churches. These Churches are united with Rome but have an Eastern liturgy and spirituality, with their own canon law. The Orthodox call them the "Uniates" (in Catholic circles, the term "Uniate" is felt to be pejorative). Although the Catholic members of the dialogue have repeated over and over again that these Churches should not be seen as the model for future unity, the Orthodox are still dubious of Rome’s intentions. As they see things, no solution will ever be acceptable to Rome that does not imply submission to the prerogatives of Roman primacy. For them the issue of Uniatism is reducible to the question of primacy; they see the Uniate Churches as representing, not union with Rome, but submission to papal authority. The monks of Mount Athos, in the letter cited, set out this charge. Until it is resolved, they state, every agreement is an illusion.
To many involved in ecumenism it is surprising that the Orthodox did not take up with enthusiasm the offer made by Pope John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint that church leaders and their theologians should engage with him in dialogue on how he could exercise his role in a way that would be more acceptable to them. The Pope stated in that encyclical: "I am convinced that I have a particular responsibility . . . above all in acknowledging the ecumenical aspirations of the majority of the Christian communities and in heeding the request made of me to find a way of exercising the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is none the less open to a new situation." Previously in the encyclical the Pope had explained, concerning his role, what he meant by "what is essential to its mission", quoting passages of Scripture that emphasise the centrality of Peter, citing at length the prerogative of the pope as the successor of Peter, and emphasising his role as the point of unity with regard to the Universal Church, as outlined in Vatican I and repeated in Vatican II.
One must enter into the mind of the Orthodox as one reads this chapter. The Orthodox would be saying to themselves: "See, we told you so. It is again the Roman ruse." The Pope is really saying: "Accept my primacy as the First Vatican Council has defined it, and then talk to me about how I can exercise it in a way that will be more acceptable to you." The Orthodox feel they should be wary of the usual trap. This distrust, they feel, was verified when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, shortly after the publication of the encyclical Ut Unum Sint, called their Churches wounded because they would not accept the doctrine of primacy as articulated in the two Vatican Councils.
Their lack of trust today is not based on the question of the Filioque clause added to the Creed, nor on the mutual anathemas pronounced by the two Churches in 1054, nor on the ruthless acts of the fourth Crusade of 1204, nor on the political intrigues of the Council of Lyons of 1274, nor on the unsatisfactory procedure of the Council of Florence (1438-39), but on the prerogatives of primacy as enunciated in the First Vatican Council. As primacy has played itself out in history in the West, from the time of Pope Gregory VII to Vatican I and from Pius IX to John Paul II, it has given the impression to the Orthodox that the Pope is a kind of superstar bishop claiming the whole world as his domain under the label of "Pope of the Universal Church". I would dare say that the problem for the Orthodox is not the question of the dogma of infallibility, especially if it is defined as an articulation of what has everywhere, always, by everyone been believed – quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est, as Vincent of Lerins in the fifth century so succinctly put it – provided that has been verified in a collegial way. Rather, what deters the Orthodox is the way primacy is understood to apply to the head of the Universal Church. It is the concept of "Universal Church" as we Catholics articulate it that is troublesome to them.
To the Orthodox, the Pope no longer functions simply as the Patriarch of the West, even with the traditional powers of intervention in local Churches when necessity demands it, but claims now a primacy that resembles a centralising monarchical superpower with jurisdiction over the whole Church – a power shared only nominally with the college of bishops whose appointments and functioning are kept tightly under control by the offices of the Roman Curia.
Sometimes in addition the Uniate question is experienced (for example, by the Russians or Romanians) as a practical issue. In these cases the disputes over property, the large sums of money coming from the West, the accessibility that the Western Churches have to more modern and updated catechetical and other materials – all these are seen to give to the Eastern Catholics advantages that the Orthodox do not possess. They watch the growth in the Eastern Catholic Churches in their traditionally Orthodox territories and accuse Rome of proselytising. Although I believe these problems can be worked out by following the rules agreed upon by both parties, the tense situation (in which it seems that Rome cannot always control its troops) fosters again distrust.
Where can such a dialogue now go? It seems clear that the issues are in the area of the doctrine of the Church. For this reason it is imperative for the dialogue to return as soon as possible to some of the agreed statements, especially to those approved by the joint commission at Munich in 1982 and Valamo in 1988. They dealt precisely with these topics. One paper that must be reintroduced and thoroughly examined is the one prepared for the meeting in Munich-Freising in 1990 that has been gathering dust: it looks at the sacramental structure of the Church and explores the consequences of this for the doctrine of the Church and canon law, and examines the conciliar principle and structures of authority in the Church. Only in probing more deeply these doctrinal concepts in the light of the encyclical Ut Unum Sint will the question of Uniatism find an agreed solution.
In the same light of the encyclical, one should also continue to ask the question: are other models of primacy possible? Perhaps the beginning should be an analysis of what the Orthodox would understand by the concept of the pope as patriarch of the West and how such a role would relate to the other patriarchs. They feel, rightly, that the Code of Canon Law for the Eastern Catholic Churches has not recognised the role and prerogatives of patriarchs but treats that title more as an honorary one. Previously agreed statements did not open up these concepts. The Orthodox, for their part, must discuss more clearly their understanding of the role of the ecumenical patriarch in Constantinople. They also have to delve into the question of phyletism, a doctrine brought forth in Orthodoxy to support the creation of new patriarchates and autocephalous Churches by stating that each nationality should be served by its own independent church administration. The West has a fear of national Churches after the disastrous experience of Gallicanism which will not be easily overcome. The West, too, would have to think through its theology of local Churches and its present conciliar structures of conferences and synods of bishops. So the whole area between the functioning of primacy and the functioning of councils must be examined as an alternative to the way the Pope now performs his role.
Many Orthodox, aware of the weakness of their witness to the Gospel by the constant multiplication of divisions in their Churches, sense a need for a stronger primacy than they now possess. On the other hand, they fear the possibilities of "dictatorship" in the Church if there are not some safeguards on the way primacy is exercised. Their history gives them reason for such fear and distrust. Until these fears are resolved, a dialogue of love remains far off.
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Inside the Orthodox psyche