Dear Professor Dan,
I really should be marking the final exams - but you know how it is . . .
I think you've hit the nail squarely on the head here - can someone be a Latin Catholic and not be in communion with Rome?
I think they can and there are those out there who are "Catholic" and "Latin" in every which way BUT the Pope.
And there were anti-popes as well . . . St Catherine of Siena had a thing or two to say to some of them in her time . . . (and, no, St Catherine was NOT a Byzantine saint, but it's O.K. to venerate her!
).
For me, to be "Orthodox" is not ONLY a matter of faith.
For me, to be "Orthodox" is to be a member of a comprehensive religious culture.
That "culture" has to do with a spiritual outlook that is decidedly "Orthodox" and is also "Orthodox" in terms of the ritual, canonical and theological expressions and general Christian way of life.
For me, as well, to be "Orthodox" is to be in communion with Rome (even though I confess that I'm still fuzzy in my own thinking about what exactly this entails but I'm happy my Patriarch Lubomyr is leading the way here).
I understand why Orthodox Christianity that does not acknowledge the Pope of Rome sees him as being heretical and cut off from the Church - thereby losing his primacy.
But I honestly don't see the REAL differences between Catholicism and Orthodoxy in faith as being insurmountable. When we've discussed these differences in my religion class, where there are both Orthodox and Catholics, they ALL affirm the differences aren't such that they should keep the two Churches apart.
I DON'T see the fact that Orthodox Christianity doesn't accept the Pope to mean that it is somehow "less" as the true Church of Christ either. I think the whole argument is about two different ecclesial models today.
I DON'T see the fact that because my Church accepts communion/union with Rome as meaning it is less "Orthodox" - in fact, Orthodox Christianity ITSELF affirmed more than once in the first millennium that the Primate of Rome IS the first Patriarch/Bishop in the entire Church along the lines of a "first among equals."
Yes, the EC's have been "subjected" to the whims of Latin domination. But we've "come along way, baby" since those times - except in cases when EC Churches have ceased to react to Roman curial machinations. The UGCC is actually getting MORE reactive to them.
And, YES, the terms of our union with Rome should be revisited and renegotiated as Rome's theologians themselves have discarded the historic unias as unfortunate machinations (again that word!) that do not respect the ecclesial integrity of the Orthodox Churches.
BUT the UGCC and other EC churches have a history that has given them a specific shape and life. They deserve to continue in that life and they deserve to be respected both by Rome and by Orthodoxy.
The ideal that we should strive for is to be as "Orthodox" in "cultural/ritual" terms as our brothers and sisters in the Mother Orthodox Churches that we come from. There shouldn't be the SLIGHTEST difference between us save for the commemoration of the Pope (ideally, ONCE only during the Divine Liturgy please).
"Orthodox" is also a term used by the Oriental Orthodox Churches, even though they are separated formally from Byzantine Orthodoxy. I don't see how it can be the exclusive property of world-wide Byzantine Orthodoxy - Byzantine Orthodoxy should consider giving up this idea since this would also go a long way to helping to heal the breach with Oriental Orthodoxy (i.e. iconoclasm as being a problem for the Byzantine Church and not for the Oriental Churches and what this implies by way of the Seventh Council).
And our "communion with Rome" should be much looser than it is, something similar to the communion that the Orthodox Churches have with the EP.
This is all an ideal. But it is part of our past, present and also future identity, in varying degrees.
And no one said any of this was going to be easy . . .
Alex
