An Orthodox Magisterium?

Recently I listened to a podcast in which Larry Chapp (a universalist Roman Catholic) interviewed Dr. David Bentley Hart.  In the course of the interview Dr. Hart asserted that, unlike Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy does not have an official and authoritative Magisterium.  By this he meant that Orthodoxy possesses no institutional organ (such as the papacy and the episcopate dependent upon it) that can routinely and authoritatively declare what is or is not the official teaching of the Church when consulted.

The word “magisterium” comes from the Latin word “magister”, meaning “teacher”.  The Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church is therefore the organ which can and does articulate the official teaching of the Roman Church.  After Vatican I the Magisterium in the Roman Catholic Church effectively collapsed into the papacy, despite the later conciliar refinements of Vatican II.  Bluntly put, whatever the Pope authoritatively declares ex cathedra is the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Roman Catholic Magisterium is clear and easy to consult.  The pronouncements of popes are easy to find and quite numerous.  Some Roman Catholics may dispute whether this or that encyclical was given ex cathedra, and therefore is or is not a part of the Church’s magisterial teaching, but the basic body of what constitutes Roman Catholic teaching is not in doubt.  The old saying Roma locuta; causa finita est (i.e. “Rome has spoken; the matter is settled”) may not be honoured as fully as in previous times, but there is no doubt of what Roma has locuted.  Like it or not, Roman Catholic teaching is fairly clear.  That is one of the advantages of a church organized around such a central authority.  It is very efficient.

Dr. Hart is correct in asserting that Orthodoxy possesses no comparable organ of authoritative teaching which can declare in the same way what is de fide for the Orthodox as quickly as does the Roman Catholic Magisterium for Roman Catholics.  (Nor, come to that, did the early Church—hence all those messy and sometimes contradictory councils.)

Given Dr. Hart’s determined embrace of universalism and his (muted) appreciation of Gnosticism, it is hard not to conclude that Dr. Hart emphasizes that Orthodoxy has no Magisterium because he would find the existence of authoritative declarations of truth from the past unwelcome.  The Church in the past centuries has declared against universalism and taken a much more jaundiced view of Gnosticism than that of Dr. Hart, and I submit that Dr. Hart finds this uncongenial.  The answer for him therefore lies in declaring that the Church’s settled view about universalism and Gnosticism do not therefore constitute an impediment to his alternate views.  Again, to state it bluntly, Dr. Hart believes that since there is no authoritative Magisterium in the Orthodox Church, he is free as a good and loyal Orthodox to dissent dramatically from the Church’s historical positions.

This leads to the question:  Is there an Orthodox equivalent of the Roman Catholic Magisterium?  Or (put differently) does the Orthodox Church offer authoritative teaching as does the Roman Catholic Church?

In Orthodoxy there is no single source of authoritative teaching (such as the papacy) to which it can resort to find the final and reliable truth in matters such as the full divinity of Christ or the legitimacy of icons.  But that does not mean that the Church does not teach authoritatively or offer a body of truth regarding doctrine and morals.

What then constitutes authority in the Orthodox Church?  The ultimate and only external authority in the Church is Christ Himself.  And Christ reveals Himself through His Body, the Church.  This means that revelation comes in many and varied forms.  The teaching and life that Christ revealed to the apostles (the so-called “good deposit”; see 2 Timothy 1:14) was spread throughout the world.  It can be found in the Scriptures, and in the oral traditions of the Church (such as the tradition of facing east for prayer and of making the Sign of the Cross). It can be found in the consensus of the Fathers, since despite their diversity they share a common core of teaching which ultimately came from the apostles.  This core faith is expressed in the liturgical tradition (including the hymns of the Church), and in the Church’s art.  It is set forth in the decisions and work of the councils which were accepted throughout the centuries as expressions of the Church’s mind and faith (the so-called “Ecumenical Councils”, gatherings which were finally accepted as reliable by the Church throughout the ecumene or world).

In short, the authoritative teaching of the Church can be discerned in the life the Church lives throughout the centuries.  The many aspects of this life—Scripture, oral tradition, liturgy, hymns, art, councils—all converge to teach the same things, and in this convergence we can discern the authoritative truth.

This is, of course, messier than the Roman Catholic model, because it involves the work of discernment.  But it is also less dependent upon a single source, such as insights and decisions of a single bishop.  A single bishop can be wrong (remember Pope Honorius?), but it is unlikely that all the various sources of the Church will be wrong.  If they all point to the same thing, they can be depended upon.  One thinks of the words of G. K. Chesterton, who said that a man is not really convinced of something when he finds that something proves it.  He is only really convinced when he finds that everything proves it (from his “Paradoxes of Christianity” in Orthodoxy).  And the Church’s Tradition is not one thing, but many things, all of which unite to provide proof of Christ’s truth.

This means that certain things in the Church’s history do not form a part of her Tradition because they are not in conformity with everything else.  The teaching of what has been called “the Real Presence” of Christ’s Body and Blood is part of the Tradition because it is witnessed to by Scripture, patristic consensus, liturgy, and much else.  Universalism is not a part of the Tradition because it was the minority report of a few whose views were set aside in favour of the majority of the Fathers, the witness of Scripture, Christian hymnography, iconography, and conciliar decrees.  Paraphrasing Chesterton, the Church believes that the terrible reality of an eternal hell is part of the Tradition because everything in its long historical life proves it.

This, then, is the totality of the Orthodox Magisterium.  The usual short form for it is “the Fathers”, a phrase to which councils and later Fathers themselves returned again and again.  The idea is that where a consensus exists among the Fathers (such as regarding the Real Presence) this consensus witnesses to the prior diffusion of apostolic teaching.  How else could the same teaching be found early and everywhere throughout the world among Fathers who are so different from one another?  This consensus finds expression in liturgy, artwork (i.e. icons), hymnography, and sometimes, the work of councils.

When an issue arises needing articulation or clarification, the immediate Protestant response is to ask, “What does the Bible say?”—a response which hides the fact that the Bible is not self-interpreting and so requires a tradition of teaching to interpret it.  The immediate Roman Catholic response is to inquire, “What has Rome said?”  The Orthodox respond by asking, “What do the Fathers say?”  And, as it turns out, the Fathers say rather a lot, and their consensus is usually clear—sometimes and for some people, too clear.  Any attempt at obfuscation in this face of this clarity (usually attempted with as many multi-syllabic words as possible) is futile and unworthy.  Dr. Hart’s suggested alternative might not be a free-for-all like in Protestantism, but it is definitely like playing tennis with the net down.  And, as all the Fathers would remind us, that is not how the game is played.