The prayer service, reception and Ecumenism Lecture by Metropolitan Kallistos at The Catholic University of America scheduled for Tuesday, February 9, has been postponed one week until Tuesday, February 16 because of weather conditions in Washington, DC. The same schedule -- prayer at 4:30, reception at 5:30, lecture at 6:30 -- will be followed starting in the Chapel in Caldwell Hall. Please pass the word to anyone who was planning to attend.

Click here to read the story and for the full schedule.

How nice that he will be speaking there!! Please share your impressions with us next week.

Alice

Good. Maybe I can make it, after all.

Received via e-mail with a request to post:

Due to a blizzard, the talk by Metropolitan Kallistos at Epiphany of Our Lord Church, Annandale, VA, scheduled for Thursday evening, is postponed until Sunday evening.

The Epiphany schedule of events for this Sunday evening will be:
5:00pm - Forgiveness Vespers
6:30pm - Reception
7:30pm - Talk by Metropolitan Kallistos

The venue for the reception and Metropolitan's talk is TBD. That is, the reception and talk may be in the church hall and church, rather than the parish center. People will be directed to the right venue upon arrival, if not announced beforehand.

I attended the Metropolitan Kallistos lecture at CUA on Catholic-Orthodox dialogue last night, and it was quite informative and engaging.

For those who are interested, I wrote up a more detailed report on my blog:

An insider’s view of Catholic-Orthodox dialogue

In your blog post you mentioned the Ravenna Document, but I what I find interesting about that text is the disclaimer that appears at the top of the page on the Vatican website.

I never noticed that!

Metropolitan Kallistos himself mentioned the "unofficial" nature of this dialogue. He specifically noted that he thinks it will take quite some time for all the associated Orthodox churches to "officially" accept the Ravenna Document (and considering the Russian Orthodox Church withdrew from that meeting, I don't see them signing on anytime soon to the Document).

But as the Metropolitan said last night, the key virtue in ecumenical work is patience.

I have several Roman Catholic friends who hold that the Ravenna Document is heretical, and the Vatican disclaimer at the top of the webpage gives them great consolation.

To me, the disclaimer merely states the obvious, the document is what it is. Neither the Roman Church nor the Orthodox Churches (nor for that matter any of the theologians, priests, bishops etc...on the Commission or its North American counterpart) accept Ravenna in any final or official way. In fact, the North American Orthodox/Catholic consultation responded to much of Ravenna this past fall with their own critique. All in all, these matters are 'works in progress.' Treat them as such. Before we start hurling anathemas like frisbees and declaring heresy, remember that Metropolitan Kallistos is correct in that patience is a much needed virtue on this subject. After all, these discussions have been going on now for over a thousand years or so.

I agree with you on the murky status of the documents issued by the various ecumenical dialogues, but my Latin Catholic friends hold that the text is not just murky, but is unequivocally heretical because it throws into doubt the ecumenical status of the fourteen councils held by the Latin Church. They tell me that the Ravenna Document can never be accepted as authoritative by the Catholic Church.

Of course, hypothetically speaking, if a future Holy Father were to proclaim 'ex cathedra' a future final work stemming from Ravenna as stating the dogma of the Catholic Church where would that leave the fourteen councils? Seriously, it is my understanding that the East might be able to view these councils as some sort of Synodal body dealing with issues facing the Church of Rome,but not as true ecumenical councils except, and this is a really big 'except', the definition of infallibility coming from Vatican 1 presents a huge problem to the East. We will have to keep posted on this for a long time.

Dear Eric,

I read your blog posting and found it well written, clear and understandable. Thank you for your synopsis of the evening.

In Christ,
Alice

What would happen to the ecumenical councils held by the RCC after the first seven if RCC ever reunited with the EOC? i asked a highly place Greek priest some 25 years ago. He said they would be considered local regional councils binding only on the Latin Church.

Interesting take, although I am uncertain what position the Orthodox hierarchy would take.

I suppose that would mean that any universal claims in these Councils -such as universal jurisdiction of the Pope and papal infallibility (which must by definition be exercised about faith and morals with the intent of binding the universal Church)- would be annulled?

Father, you are asking me questions above my paygrade. I find i agree with your conclusion, although it would be obvious that those who currently believe in infallibility would be bothered by such a contention as you make. This is of course an EOC position and it was a response to an off handed question asked of a friend. He would be considered a moderate in Greek circles and the whole answer should be considered speculation. I wonder if there is any uniform feeling on the matter throughout the EOC or would the Russian Church have different views from the Greek Church? I suspect the OCA views might be at variance with those of the Greeks or the Russian mother church?


What would be more interesting is to speculate how each church would treat matters of discipline in relation to marriage termination since both the RCC and EOC have different traditions on the topic. The mind boggles at how each tradition would interact!!!! Father J. had some interesting comments on that, but that is really off the thread.