Recently the Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople met at the ancient site of Nicea (presently Iznik in Turkey) in a show of commitment to unity on the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea. Such was the hype in the media that some people began asking, “So are the East and West, the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, finally united again?” Much hope and hoopla. Many photo ops. But what really happened? And what needs to happen before East and West, Catholic and Orthodox, can really be united again?
First let’s look at what happened in Turkey. Without dispute the Pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church. But, whatever pretensions some in the Phanar might entertain (including the Patriarch), there is no corresponding head of the Orthodox churches (note the plural), no single bishop who can represent and speak for all the Orthodox jurisdictions worldwide.
And there never was. That was why when something needed to be decided (like a clear statement of Christ’s full divinity) they didn’t phone up the Pope or send a telegram to Constantinople. They called a council. Decisions were made jointly and by consensus precisely because in the early church there was no single spokesman who could decide and speak for all. That was also why early church history was so interesting and so messy.
So, connecting the dots, there is no way that a single bishop could unilaterally unite East with West even if he wanted to. To accomplish that, another ecumenical council, attended by all the Orthodox jurisdictions and accepted by the laity throughout the Orthodox world, would be required.
We note too that in Turkey there were many significant Orthodox absences, including the Patriarch of Moscow who represents about 40% of all Orthodox Christians. The Patriarch of Antioch, one of the most senior bishops in Orthodoxy, after discussing the matter with this fellow Antiochian bishops, withdrew his participation. In fact, the only Patriarch present besides Patriarch Bartholomew was the Patriarch of Alexandria. It seems that the heads of almost all the jurisdictions, though they sent some delegates, chose not to attend.
Perhaps as significant as the Orthodox absences were the Protestant presences. Attending the meeting were not only Coptic leaders but also Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed and Mennonite church leaders as well as representatives from the World Council of Churches. Despite photos of Pope and Patriarch jointly blessing and shaking hands (see inset), this was in many ways just another ecumenical meeting arranged for its media value. Or, in other and plainer language, something of a publicity stunt, rather like the last “Great and Holy Council” held in 2016 which also accomplished nothing practical.
But did the Iznik meeting really accomplish nothing? Didn’t Pope and Patriarch jointly sign a document? Indeed they did. The document said that they both “continue to walk with firm determination on the path of dialogue, in love and truth, towards the hoped-for restoration of full communion between our sister churches”. The document also affirmed the statements of the Council of Nicea concerning Christ. It commemorated the anniversary of the 1965 Agreed Statement of Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras which “extinguished the exchange of excommunications in 1054” and “committed them to oblivion”. It expressed support for the work of the official Catholic-Orthodox dialogue group and other fraternal contacts. It rejected the use of violence to further religious ends and called on the world leaders to work for peace.
In other words (let’s be honest) no real progress was made, nothing new was offered, and not a single controversial topic was broached. A jointly-signed document was however required by the needs of moment, if only to give the visual impression that something real was being done. You can’t just meet to talk, drink Turkish coffee, and then go home. An artefact needs to be produced. The only real accomplishment of the meeting (and one that should not be minimized) was to express good will and the desire to keep slogging away towards eventual unity.
That is not absolutely nothing. But it was accomplished in the 1965 meeting. “Extinguishing the mutual excommunications of 1054” in 1965 was a symbol of good will that made headlines, but little else. The original excommunication of 1054 did not separate East and West or create “the Great Schism”. It was simply the mutual rejection from Eucharistic communion of two (reputedly arrogant and irritating) episcopal individuals. Consigning the excommunications to oblivion (the phrase used in 1965) was a lot like cancelling today the parking ticket your great-grandfather received in 1950— a nice gesture maybe, but of no concern now to your late great grandfather.
Nonetheless, symbols still mean something. They only become problematic when they become substitutes for something more practical and substantive. As both Pope and Patriarch hopefully know, real problems and obstacles remain separating the Catholic Church from Orthodoxy and these cannot be solved by sweeping them under the table of an Agreed Statement produced by theologians in committee or by two bishops signing something before media cameras.
So, what needs to happen before Catholic and Orthodox (note: not “West and East”; let’s not forget the Protestants) can unite and become one Church again? I mention but a few.
Heading the list are the papal claims, given authoritative and classic expression at the First Vatican Council in 1870 and repeated in papal encyclicals since then such as Ut Unum Sint in 1995. The 1870 statement of the papal claims, Pastor Aeternus, declares that the Bishop of Rome, as the successor of St. Peter, exercises a jurisdictional power that is “both episcopal and immediate”. In other words, the Pope can enter any diocese in the world, depose the bishop, and put in someone else. He also is assisted by the Holy Spirit, it is claimed, so that when he speaks ex cathedra (i.e. intending to shepherd and teach all Christians) he speaks with the infallibility that Christ willed for His Church and those definitions are “of themselves and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable”. This, it is claimed, has always been the faith and practice of the Church.
Orthodox consider this to be historical nonsense (the Church was never governed that way) and theologically wrong (and perhaps heretical). Unless this Catholic dogma is formally renounced by the Pope, union with the Orthodox will not be possible.
I may add that the error must be clearly and formally renounced, not tweaked in ambiguous Agreed Statements produced by committees of theologians. In the past ecumenical committees have produced a number of such Agreed Statements that have so far accomplished nothing, largely because they are meaningless to the masses.
Take, for example, the Agreed Statement between the Catholics and the Anglicans, produced in 1981: the bit on papal authority was too vague and watered down for real Catholic application and still too overbearing for Anglicans to accept. Both groups of theologians signed on to the Agreed Statement, taking refuge in a plethora of verbal subterfuges (such as saying that “the scope of universal jurisdiction cannot be precisely defined canonically”). But the fact remains that the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches govern themselves in ways that are mutually incompatible, whatever committees might say. In ecumenism as in daily life, what matters is action and deeds, not just words.
Also, to facilitate true union, the Filioque clause must be forever omitted from all Roman Catholic recitations of the Nicene Creed. This includes from the Creeds recited in the Latin Mass, a move which might prove unacceptable to some conservative Roman Catholics.
Then come the ascetical practices of the Roman Catholic Church. In some places (such as my own B.C. lower mainland) fasting in Lent is declared “optional” and in every place (I think) the fast before receiving the Eucharist has been abridged to sixty minutes prior to Communion. This last is not actual fasting but simply not eating between meals. It is, however, symptomatic of the revolution in the ascetic discipline in the Catholic Church— a revolution that would need to be overturned and the approach to asceticism that prevailed in the early Church (and in the Catholic Church prior to Vatican II?) restored.
Closely allied to this is the current liturgical tradition of the Catholic Church. Orthodox objection does not solely consist of distaste with the Novus Ordo Mass (a distaste shared by some Catholics; hence the revival of the Latin Mass in some places) but the whole “spirit of Vatican II” which led to the appearance of so-called “Clown Masses”. What is required is an entire rethinking of the underlying principles governing liturgical reform and development.
We also find synods of bishops (such as those in Germany) embracing theological liberalism in a way utterly destructive to traditional Orthodoxy (and traditional Catholicism.)
The list of obstacles to reunion may perhaps end here, though some thought must be given sometime to the Catholic acceptance of the Marian apparitions and the problem of homosexuality and priestly pedophilia sadly still existing in some parts of the Catholic Church.
It is important to recognize that reunion between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches, if true and lasting, will be the result of long and incremental changes. The differences between Catholic West and Orthodox East and the present schism between them was a long and gradual matter and resolving the schism will likely be a long process too. The goal is full-intercommunion so that the choice between attending a Catholic parish or an Orthodox parish in the future will be the same as an Orthodox now choosing to attend an OCA parish or an Antiochian one— that is, the choice will not involve a difference in spirituality or how you live your daily life . The laity must view both options as expressions of the same Church. Currently the choice between a Catholic and an Orthodox parish does involve such a choice.
In short, the churches must grow together on the parish level to overcome the schism. This cannot be accomplished by committees of theologians producing Agreed Statements, nor by photo op gestures, however colourfully celebrated by the media. Alas, there is no shortcut to true unity we all desire. Attempting to reunite before this hard work is done will only succeed in producing yet another schism.
About Fr. Lawrence Farley
Fr. Lawrence currently attends St. John of Shanghai Orthodox Church in North Vancouver, BC. He is also author of the Orthodox Bible Companion Series along with a number of other publications.