www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Very Interesting Statements

Perhaps I wasn't very clear. In fact, I am sure I wasn't very clear.

Let me give an example of what I'm talking about. I have heard rumors that the Macedonian Orthodox Church wanted to unite with Rome, but that they were refused, since it would be inappropriate to negotiate in such a piecemeal manner with Orthodoxy.

But if Orthodoxy is piecemeal in its ecclesiology, then why not do so? Must reunion wait until everybody agrees?

Do I make more sense?

Dear Pseudo-Athanasius,

You always make eminent sense!

But Rome reacted the way it did to the Macedonian Church precisely because of the legacy of Uniatism as we've discussed above.

Orthodoxy is not "piecemeal" in its ecclesiology if certain misguided Roman Catholic prelates believe that, that only shows they need to speak to Eastern Catholics even more.

All the Orthodox Churches, in order for them to be canonical, must adhere to the canons of the Ecumenical Councils.

And Patriarchs can and have regularly excommunicated bishops and other Patriarchs for not adhering to them (one recent case is the Patriarch of Jerusalem).

As a matter of fact, the Orthodox Church will not hesitate to excommunicate in such cases.

And for all its centralized bureaucracy, Rome doesn't seem to be able to keep liberal bishops and laity on a short leash at all.

I find much less liberalism going on in Orthodoxy than in the contemporary Roman Catholic Church, where there seems to be an ongoing struggle, even in the Vatican, between liberals and conservatives.

And I'll suggest one reason for that continuing tension.

It is because of the view that the Pope is the pinnacle of doctrine-making or a view that approximates that.

Liberals think that if they can influence authority structures in the Church, they can change doctrine and praxis.

In Orthodoxy, bishops and patriarchs are the guardians of the faith handed down via the Ecumenical Councils, the Scripture and the Fathers etc.

It is not a question about getting this or that senior bishop to rule in a more liberal way or in a more conservative way.

It is about what the Canons of the Church say - something that all Christians must adhere to or else they are outside the Church.

That kind of adherence to ecumenical, universal canons and conciliar teaching is what truly unifies Christians wherever they may be.

The only way for the RC and Orthodox Churches to get together is not by negotiation with this or that Eastern Church.

It is via a Union Council, as was done in the past, involving all the Churches.

This is the old problem of "Pope vs Council" and that is the crux of the issue.

Rome would rather not change anything about its leadership style. And it certainly is not prepared to submit itself to a "review" by Ecumenical Council of any sort.

If Rome isn't willing to consider changing its own authority structures and attitudes, there will be no hope for reunion with the Orthodox soon.

Now have I made myself clear?

Alex

OrthoMan posted the following comment:

Who we are: we are Orthodox Catholics of the Byzantine Rite who bear allegiance to the Church of Kyiv-Halcyh. Many of us decend from the inhabitants of the territory surrounding the Holy cities of Kyiv and Halych and are proud that we have been able to uphold the integrity of our Faith, our Church, our traditions and our language in the face of a long history of oppression and foreign domination.

While we are currently in communion with the Patriarch of Rome due to political circusmstances dating back at least half of a millenium, we continue in our deepest reverance and respect toward the Church of Constantinople who taught us the faith and our liturgical practice. In this respect, we continue to seek a dialogue with the Church of Constantinople and other Orthodox churches in a spirit of Christian love, charity and understanding. With respect to the Patriarch of Rome, we adhere to the principles of the anicent Church in affording that office the primacy of honor, but continue to maintain our right of world-wide self-governance while maintaining our current communal ties.


What we believe: Our faith, our theology and our rite is and should be Byzantine in every respect. While local parishes and even eparchial seats have, based upon a mistaken impression of our place within the universal Church, succumbed to Latinizations of various kinds, we continue to follow the examples of our great leaders of the 20th Century, the Servant of God Metropolitan Andrey and the Servant of God Patriarch Joesph the Confessor in educating our clergy and the masses of our Byzantine roots and the necessity of being true to our own Rite.


Additions, anyone?

Yours,

halychanyn

Dear "Hal," ( )

Yes, except that whatever we, as a Particular Church have today is what we have ourselves "taken back" and wrested on our own.

Many Ukrainian Catholics would not agree with you (but I do) in your analysis and estimation of our union with Rome.

Oddly enough, these prefer the idea of being subservient to Rome and feel uncomfortable about any other relationship to Rome.

And Orthoman's point on our identity is quite insightful.

I think we can use it, as an analytical tool, to shed light on any number of things that occur in our Church.

For example, when the Latins "shortened" their Mass in the Novus Ordo, our bishops felt that we too should "shorten" things up a bit in our long liturgy of St John Chrysostom.

So they allowed the removal of the Second Antiphon, the Ektenia of the Catechumens etc.

And this now has "force of law" in our Church with our liturgy that is anything but a stellar example of maintaining the fullness of our Eastern traditions.

And this is related to Orthoman's point of a lack of a clear Eastern, Particular identity on our bishops' part.

Mgr. Evhen Ivankiw of Chicago once wrote a brilliant article, I thought, for the "Tserkovny Visnyk" in which he presented the same case as Orthoman with respect to a clearer identity, rooted in a better name for our Church. He would have preferred "Orthodox Catholic" and I guess I agree with him . . .

Churches that want to maintain the fullness of our traditions, like the Parish of Sts. Vladimir and Olha in Chicago, St Elias in Brampton etc. are often on the fringes of our Church and are talked about (especially the Chicago parish's jurisdictional independence from the bishop - that has got to be a first!).

So I think that while Orthoman has his own aggressive style (as Fr. Thomas says, we all have our gifts ), I don't think he is too far off the mark from even a traditional Ukrainian Catholic perspective.

I can't really imagine anyone writing for the "Tserkovny Visnyk" in Chicago disagreeing with Orthoman on this point!

Alex

Bob,

Can you post a reference to the article you posted (author, place published, etc.)? Also, can you post a link to the original article or text containing Cardinal Kasper�s quote (or at least a reference to it)? That would help us put his comments into perspective.

==========

http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=24524

The cardinal then reviews the situation of relations between Catholics and other Christian confessions.

"We are increasingly conscious of the fact that an Orthodox Church does not really exist," he contends. "At the present stage, it does not seem that Constantinople is yet capable of integrating the different autocephalous Orthodox Churches; there are doubts about its primacy of honor, especially in Moscow."

OrthoMan

Perhaps the title proposed for our Church at the Patriarchal Sobor last year (I believe by Bishop Losten) as the "Kyivan Orthodox Catholic Church" would not be too far off the mark.

From the very beginnings of Christianity in the Kyivan Church, two important aspects were always present and helped define her ecclesiastical identity. Particularity and communion. These are still very much defining characteristics of the UGCC.

Particularity as manifested in our uniquely Kyivan liturgical, spiritual, theological facets. Communion as manifested in our unique place and desire for "dual communion" between Constantinople and Rome, as our forefathers in the Union had in mind.

This vision of dual communion was present long before the Union, with such proponents as Prince Danylo, Metropolitan Petro Akerovych who was present at Lyons, Metropolitan Hrihory who was present at Constance, and of course Metropolitan Isidore who was present at Florence.

Considering the entire world having witnessed the excommunications between Constantinople and Moscow over Estonia, this appears to be more of a factual observation more than a theological statement.

But I also agree with the statements above that centrality of authority has not kept the Roman Church from some very precarious liturgical aberrations, modernization, etc. It is clear that at least liturgically the Orthodox Churches have done a much better job closely guarding this precious patrimony.

The zenit citation notes that the remarks came from an address that was later published in Italian biweekly Il Regno. I wonder what was the original language of the address? I saw, but connot locate the german zenit item that has something like "... dass die eine [orthodox church] er gibt nicht." In the German, the sentence is more obviously not any kind of dogmatic statment on the "existence" of "the" Orthodox Church.

Even in the English, note that
"that an Orthodox Church does not really exist" in the zenit is morphed to
"that the Orthodox Church does really exist" in the response.

As Alex likes to say: very interesting!

Bob,

Thanks for the link.

I think it seems pretty clear that Kasper was not questioning the existence of the Orthodox Church but rather expressing frustration of the lack of a single structure that speaks for all of Orthodoxy.

Admin

Shlom Admin,
Your statement ties into the point that I made in the "Fall Of Orthodoxy" thread. No matter how you cut it, Orthodoxy (both Eastern and Oriental) has fallen by more than 50% since 1900.

No matter how you cut it, the choice that Orthodoxy faces is that it can get with the modern age (ie start to evangelize), or it can be the best whip maker for buggies in the world.

If you look at the Antiochene Churches (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East)we have heard this message and have taken action so that we will fade into history. I hope that the Eastern Orthodox will do the same.

Poosh BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

Dear Friends,

As for the lack of a single structure in Orthodoxy, that is, of course, very true.

But I think that Orthodoxy's Patriarchs have shown remarkable solidarity and commonality in terms of united action in recent years especially.

And the existence of a single organizational structure, like the Vatican, doesn't guarantee homogeneity of theological views and praxis throughout the Catholic world, as we know.

When I read the comments of traditional Latins here, for instance, I definitely know they are not from Canada!

Alex

[With respect to the Patriarch of Rome, we adhere to the principles of the anicent Church in affording that office the primacy of honor, but continue to maintain our right of world-wide self-governance while maintaining our current communal ties.]

If you only afford the Patriarch (Pope) of Rome a primacy of honor rather than supreme authority then perhaps you can answer some questions for me -

1) Why did the last few Ukrainian Bishops here in the US submit their retirement requests directly to the Pope rather than Cardinal Husar?

2) When the current Ukrainian Catholic bishop of the Philadelphia Archdiocese (Bishop Soroka) was installed why was it done by Papal authorities rather than Cardinal Husar who is supposed to be the leader of your so called sui juris church? And why was the date of the installation set by Rome rather than the UGCC?

3) Why was there so much discussion in here about the title 'Patriarch' for Cardinal Husar? Especially where he can be addressed as Patriarch and where he can't (especially within ear shot of the Pope)?

They are just three questions, but there are many more.

[While we are currently in communion with the Patriarch of Rome due to political circusmstances dating back at least half of a millenium, we continue in our deepest reverance and respect toward the Church of Constantinople who taught us the faith and our liturgical practice.]

So its all politics. Thats what I have been saying all along! Those politics are gone!

OrthoMan

Dear Orthoman,

I am in a dilemma.

I WANT to say something to counter your arguments.

But after rereading them, I see that they are all factual, and so cannot!

Have a nice day!

Alex

Dear Friends:

Cardinal Kasper's statements were made sometime in March 2002 in an address to a conference on ecumenism, which were carried in the Italian bi-weekly "Il Regno," as djs above-stated. However, the text of the address is nowhere to be found except in the reported story by "Zenit," already referenced in the thread starter.

The "official" Orthodox "response" was issued by the Orthodox Church of England and can be found at:

http://www.orthodoxengland.btinternet.co.uk/cardinal.htm

AmdG

Dear Amado,

Actually, that is not an "official Orthodox reply" at all, but the musings of a priest who belongs to ROCOR and not to mainstream Orthodoxy.

He is a wonderful man, no question.

But his article hardly constitutes an official "anything" in response to Kasper (I always think of the "Friendly Ghost" when I hear that name!)

Alex