CATHOLIC ECUMENICAL VOICES - 1 THE MELKITE CHURCH: THE TROJAN HORSE!!

6 Things You Should Know about the Melkite Catholic Church
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Listers: as you know, the universal Catholic Church is comprised of 23 sui iuris (self-governing) ritual Churches united by their communion with each other and with the See of Rome. Though the Roman Church is the largest, the 22 Eastern Churches play a significant and necessary role in the universality of Catholicism. One of these Churches, the Melkite Greek-Catholic Church, is the ritual Church to which the author of this post belongs. Today, we will examine six historical and theological distinctives of the Melkite Church.

 1. Petrine and Patriarchal

The Melkite Church is historically associated with the See of Antioch. This See, established by the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 together with the Sees of Rome and Alexandria, traces its history and episcopal succession to St. Peter. Prior to journeying to Rome and establishing the bishopric there, we know that St. Peter travelled to Antioch and ordained a bishop for that city. St. Paul tells us of this trip in his epistle to the Galatians, and the mediaeval Liber Pontificalis claims that St. Peter served seven years as Antioch’s primate. Antioch was thus the first Petrine See, and to this day the Patriarchs of Antioch trace their apostolicity to the Prince of the Apostles. Antioch was also part of the original Patriarchal Pentarchy (together with Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Alexandria). Today, the Melkite Patriarch of Antioch is also titular Patriarch of Alexandria and Jerusalem.

2. First Called Christians

“So that at Antioch the disciples were first named Christians.” Thus writes the author of the Acts of the Apostles, 11:26. The Antiochean Church, already having been established by St. Peter, saw the origin of the term Christian applied to the followers of Christ. It was also here that the third Bishop of Antioch, St. Ignatios, provides us with the first written record of the term catholic used to describe the Church: “wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 8).

3. The King’s Men

The origin of the word “Melkite” speaks to the steadfastness of this ancient see in maintaining the Orthodox faith. In the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451), the Byzantine Emperor and many of his subjects readily accepted the decrees of the Council concerning the nature of Christ. The generally-provincial Eastern Christians who opposed these decrees pejoratively referred to those city-dwelling Christians loyal to the Emperor as “King’s men,” malko in Syriac. It was from this term that the Chalcedonian Christians of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem became known as “Melkites”. When the Church of Antioch restored full communion with Rome in 1729, it retained the name “Melkite,” whereas those Antiochean Orthodox Christians who did not embrace the communion dropped the term.

4. Quddûsun Allâh!

The Melkite Church, derived as it is from the original Greek-speaking inhabitants of Antioch, spent many hundreds of years under the yoke of Islam. Unlike the Constantinopolitan Church, the Church of Antioch never really adapted much imperial ritual into its early liturgy – preferring instead to retain more Rabbinic and Syrian traditions. As Islam began to subjugate the area, Mohammad and his followers adopted many of the liturgical traditions of the Melkites, as is most notably seen in the Islamic prostrations, which are identical to those of Byzantine Christian practice. In like manner, several Islamic customs influenced the development of the Antiochean Church. Among these is the adoption of the ritual use of Arabic in the Divine Liturgy. From about the middle of the seventh century, Arabic language and culture fused with that of the Greek Melkites, further establishing the uniqueness of this Church within Byzantine Christianity. To this day, the official ritual languages of the Church are Greek and Arabic, so it is not uncommon to hear the liturgical use of the word Allah in the Divine Liturgy of the Melkites.

5. Sisters in Faith

The Melkite Church, a sui iuris patriarchal Church, is not merely a subset of the Roman Church. Indeed, it is a Church with its own history, theology, spirituality, and liturgy. The Melkite Church, being of Eastern origin, thus zealously guards her Byzantine approach to the Faith, seeing herself as a sister of the Roman Church. In times past, this defense of her heritage put some strain on the Church’s relationship with Rome. For example, at the First Vatican Council, Melkite Patriarch Gregory II Youssef refused to sign the decree of Pastor Aeternus concerning the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. When questioned by Rome on the matter, the Patriarch determined that he would only sign the decree with this caveat added: “except the rights and privileges of Eastern patriarchs,” as he knew he must protect the prerogatives of the Eastern hierarchy. Though this action won him the enmity of Pope Pius IX, the Patriarch was vindicated by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Orientalium Dignitas, as well as in his expansion of the Melkite patriarchate’s jurisdiction in the Middle East. In the century that followed, relations with Rome improved considerably. Those Melkite parishes that previously had been forcefully Latinized saw the beginning of a return to their authentic traditions, and the Church expanded into North and South America. At the Second Vatican Council, Melkite Patriarch Maximos IV spoke on behalf of the “absent members” of the Council: the Orthodox Churches. He did this with the complete approbation of Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople. Maximos argued against the Latinization of the Eastern Churches, and in favour of the use of vernacular languages in all the liturgies of the Catholic Church. For his outstanding work at the Council, he was awarded with the Cardinalate. Following the Council, the Roman Church returned to the more ancient ecclesiological perspective of viewing its relationship with the Eastern Churches as one of sisters, rather than of mother and daughters.

6. Voice for Orthodoxy

As one of the oldest Sees in Christendom, the Antiochean Church has inherited a long and rich theological tradition distinct from (though complementary to) that of the Latin Churches.  Because of the unfortunate events of the eleventh century, the Melkites were for a period out of communion with Rome, and as such continued to develop their ecclesial life within the Greek/Arabic tradition. When this communion was restored in the 18th century, the Melkites took great pains to ensure that their particular Byzantine theological and spiritual structures remained relatively free of Latin influences. Thanks to the efforts of the Patriarchs and Popes Benedict XIV, Leo XIII, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, the Melkite Church has come to be an outspoken voice of Eastern Orthodoxy in the midst of the Catholic communion. In 1995, through the tireless work of Archbishop Elias Zoghby, a two-point profession of faith was presented to the Melkite Synod of Bishops. Known as the “Zoghby Initiative,” it states the following:

I believe in everything which Eastern Orthodoxy teaches.
I am in communion with the Bishop of Rome, in the limits recognized as the first among the bishops by the holy fathers of the East during the first millennium, before the separation.

The initiative was put up for vote, and all but two bishops supported its application and provided their signatures. Furthermore, the initiative was embraced by Melkite Patriarch Maximos V and Orthodox Antiochean Patriarch Ignatius IV. While there is still much to be done in re-establishing full intercommunion with the Antiochean Orthodox Church, the acceptance of this initiative demonstrates the degree to which the Melkite Church intends to remain true to her Orthodox heritage. This is a gift of untold treasure for the larger Catholic Church, and one which Rome has in recent times taken great care to ensure is protected and made to flourish. The Melkite patriarchs, striving to be truly “Orthodox in communion with Rome,” hope to one day re-establish sacramental participation with the Antiochean Orthodox Church, thus creating a bridge to help restore full union between East and West. Ut unim sint.

MELKITE HISTORY IN MORE DETAIL

from Wikipedia: The Melkite Greek Catholic Church

A defining moment in Melkite history was the election of Cyril VI Tanas, in 1724, by the Melkite bishops of Syria as the new Patriarch of Antioch. As Cyril was considered to be pro-Western, the Patriarch Jeremias III of Constantinople feared that his authority would be compromised. Therefore, Jeremias declared Cyril's election to be invalid, excommunicated him, and ordained the deacon Sylvester of Antioch, a Greek monk a priest and bishop, then appointed him to the patriarchal See of Antioch.

Sylvester exacerbated divisions with his heavy-handed rule of the church as many Melkites acknowledged Cyril's claim to the patriarchal throne. It was obvious to all that Cyril had been legitimately elected and consecrated, and that Jeremias had attempted to remove him only to bolster his own authority over the Antiochian Patriarchate. (This Greek domination over the Byzantine Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch lasted until 1899.) Jeremias and Sylvester began a five year campaign of persecution against Cyril and the Melkite faithful who supported him, enforced by Ottoman Turkish troops.

Five years after the election of Cyril VI, in 1729, Pope Benedict XIII recognized Cyril as the legitimate Patriarch of Antioch and recognized his followers as being in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.[15] From this time onwards, the Melkite Greek-Catholic Church has existed separately from and in parallel to the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch in Western Asia; the latter is no longer referred to as Melkite.

The Melkite Greek Catholic Church has played an important role in the leadership of Arabic Christianity. It has always been led by Arabic-speaking Christians, whereas its Orthodox counterpart had Greek patriarchs until 1899. Indeed, at the very beginning of her separate existence, around 1725, one of her most illustrious lay leaders, the savant and theologian, Abdallah Zakher of Aleppo (1684–1748) set up the first printing press in the Arab world. In 1835, Maximos III Mazloum, Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, was recognized by the Ottoman Empire as the leader of a millet, a distinctive religious community within the Empire. Pope Gregory XVI gave Maximos III Mazloum the triple-patriarchate of Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem, a title that is still held by the leader of the Melkite Catholic Church.

Expansion of the Church and participation at the First Vatican Council

In 1847, Pope Pius IX (1846–1878), reinstituted the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem in the person of the young, 34 year old, zealous Giuseppe Valerga (1813–1872), whom the indigenous hierarchs nicknamed "The Butcher" because of his fierce opposition to the Eastern Orthodox churches of the Holy Land. When he arrived in Jerusalem in 1847, there were 4,200 Latin Catholics and when he died in 1872, the number had doubled.

Under pressure from the Roman curia to adopt Latin Church practices, Patriarch Clement Bahouth introduced the Gregorian calendar used by the Latin and Maronite Churches in 1857; that act caused serious problems within the Melkite church, resulting in a short-lived schism. Conflicts in the Melkite church escalated to the point where Clement abdicated his position as patriarch.

Clement's successor, Patriarch Gregory II Youssef (1864–1897) worked to restore peace within the community, successfully healing the lingering schism. He also focused on improving church institutions. During his reign Gregory founded both the Patriarchal College in Beirut in 1865 and the Patriarchal College in Damascus in 1875 and re-opened the Melkite seminary of Ain Traz in 1866.[16][17] He also promoted the establishment of Saint Ann's Seminary, Jerusalem, in 1882 by the White Fathers for the training of the Melkite clergy.[18]

Following the Hatt-ı Hümayun of 1856, decreed by Sultan Abdülmecid I, the situation of Christians in the Near East improved. This allowed Gregory to successfully encourage greater participation by the Melkite laity in both church administration as well as public affairs.[16] Gregory also took an interest in ministering to the growing number of Melkites who had emigrated to the Americas. In 1889 he dispatched Father Ibrahim Beshawate of the Basilian Salvatorian Order in Saida, Lebanon to New York in order to minister to the growing Syrian community there. According to historian Philip Hitte, Beshawate was the first permanent priest in the United States from the Near East from among the Melkite, Maronite, and Antiochian Orthodox Churches.

Gregory was also a prominent proponent of Eastern ecclesiology at the First Vatican Council. In the two discourses he gave at the Council on May 19 and June 14, 1870 he insisted on the importance of conforming to the decisions of the Council of Florence, of not creating innovations such as papal infallibility, but accepting what had been decided by common agreement between the Greeks and the Latins at the Council of Florence, especially with regard to the issue of papal primacy.[20] He was keenly aware of the disastrous impact that the dogmatic definition of papal infallibility would have on relations with the Eastern Orthodox Church and emerged as a prominent opponent of the dogma at the Council.[21] He also defended the rights and privileges of the patriarchs according to the canons promulgated by earlier ecumenical councils. Speaking at the Council on May 19, 1870, Patriarch Gregory asserted:

The Eastern Church attributes to the pope the most complete and highest power, however in a manner where the fullness and primacy are in harmony with the rights of the patriarchal sees. This is why, in virtue of and ancient right founded on customs, the Roman Pontiffs did not, except in very significant cases, exercise over these sees the ordinary and immediate jurisdiction that we are asked now to define without any exception. This definition would completely destroy the constitution of the entire Greek church. That is why my conscience as a pastor refuses to accept this constitution.

Patriarch Gregory refused to sign the Council's dogmatic declaration on papal infallibility. He and the seven other Melkite bishops present voted non placet at the general congregation and left Rome prior to the adoption of the dogmatic constitution Pastor Aeternus on papal infallibility. Other members of the anti-infallibilist minority, both from the Latin church and from other Eastern Catholic churches, also left the city.

After the First Vatican Council concluded an emissary of the Roman Curia was dispatched to secure the signatures of the patriarch and the Melkite delegation. Patriarch Gregory and the Melkite bishops subscribed to it, but with the qualifying clause used at the Council of Florence attached: "except the rights and privileges of Eastern patriarchs.". He earned the emnity of Pius IX for this; during his next visit to the pontiff Gregory was cast to the floor at Pius' feet by the papal guard while the pope placed his foot on the patriarch's head. Despite this, Patriarch Gregory and the Melkite Catholic Church remained committed to their union with the Church of Rome. Relationships with the Vatican improved following the death of Pius IX and the subsequent election of Leo XIII as pontiff. Leo's encyclical Orientalium dignitas addressed some of the Eastern Catholic Churches' concerns on latinization and the centralizing tendencies of Rome. Leo also confirmed that the limitations placed on the Armenian Catholic patriarch by Pius IX's 1867 letter Reversurus would not apply to the Melkite Church; further, Leo formally recognized an expansion of Patriarch Gregory's jurisdiction to include all Melkites throughout the Ottoman Empire.

THE MELKITE CHURCH IN MODERN TIMES 

Conflicts over Latin and Melkite traditions in the Church

Patriarch Maximos IV Sayegh took part in the Second Vatican Council where he championed the Eastern tradition of Christianity, and won a great deal of respect from Orthodox observers at the council as well as the approbation of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras I.

Following the Second Vatican Council the Melkites moved to restoring traditional worship. This involved both the restoration of Melkite practices such as administering the Eucharist to infants following post-baptismal chrismation as well as removal of Latin-rite elements such as communion rails and confessionals. In the pre-conciliar days, the leaders of this trend were members of "The Cairo Circle", a group of young priests centered around the Patriarchal College in Cairo. This group included Fathers George Selim Hakim, Joseph Tawil, Elias Zoghby and former Jesuit Oreste Kerame; they later became bishops and participated in the Second Vatican Council, and saw their efforts vindicated.

These reforms led to protests by some Melkite churches that the de-latinisation had gone too far. During the Patriarchate of Maximos IV (Sayegh), some Melkites in the United States objected to the use of the vernacular in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, a movement that was spearheaded by the future archbishop of Nazareth, Father Joseph Raya of Birmingham, Alabama. The issue garnered national news coverage after Bishop Fulton Sheen celebrated a Pontifical Divine Liturgy in English at the Melkite National convention in Birmingham in 1958, parts of which were televised on the national news.

In 1960, the issue was resolved by Pope John XXIII at the request of Patriarch Maximos IV in favour of the use of vernacular languages in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy. Pope John also consecrated a Melkite priest, Father Gabriel Acacius Coussa, as a bishop, using the Byzantine Rite and the papal tiara as a crown. Bishop Coussa was almost immediately elevated to the cardinalate, but died two years later. His cause for canonization was introduced by his religious order, the Basilian Alepian Order.

Further protests against the de-latinisation of the church occurred during the patriarchate of Maximos V Hakim (1967–2000) when some church officials who supported Latin traditions protested against allowing the ordination of married men as priests. Today the church sees itself as an authentic Orthodox church in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. As such it has a role as a voice of the east within the western church, a bridge between faiths and peoples.[27]

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MELKITE CHURCH

The Melkite Church is not the largest "uniate" church - that distinction belongs to the Ukrainians - but it is certainly the most important from an ecumenical point of view.   For one thing, nobody can accuse it of being the result of western imperialism, nor are its members poached from Orthodox patriarchates.  It came into existence because a patriarch of Constantinople deposed his brother patriarch of Antioch for his pro-Roman tendencies - I don't know if the present patriarch of Moscow would approve of that - and the deposed patriarch appealed to Rome - there have been precedents for this in Eastern Church history.   It split the Antiochean patriarchate, the pope backed the deposed patriarch, and the sui juris Melkite Church, claiming continuity with its past, became an entity in communion with Rome.  Perhaps because its existence was not due to western pressure - it was a home grown schism in the Antiochean Church - relations with their Orthodox neighbours are, on the whole, good, and communicatio in sacris, at least among the laity and among the lower clergy, has always been a fact of daily life.   Moreover, unlike many other Eastern churches in communion with Rome, they have not adopted western Catholic theology.  They are much more at home with Orthodox theology.   The only thing that distinguishes them from their Orthodox brothers is the importance to them of communion with the See of Peter in Rome, something they have held on to in spite of great provocation at times from ignorant Latins, including Pius IX; hence the unique place they have in the ecumenical dialogue.

God's providence works in strange ways, and nobody thought in Vatican I that  these strange bishops with beards and funny clothes were of any importance at all.  They were outnumbered and were considered by many to be only doubtfully Catholic. Their theological importance, quite of of proportion to their numbers, is that they refused to sign the two Vatican I dogmas without adding a clause taken from the Council of Florence,“except the rights and privileges of Eastern patriarchs.”   Fairly harmless, you may say; but what it is really saying is that there are two versions of Catholic Tradition, the Eastern and the Western.  Both are equally Catholic but have been functioning apart for centuries.   The papal dogmas are expressed in terms formed entirely within the context of the Latin Tradition.  They simply cannot be assented to (or denied) by people in the Eastern Tradition because they do not address the chief concerns of the Eastern Tradition.   As they stand, they are alien to the Eastern Tradition; and much work must be done to achieve a balance between the two traditions.  Of course, to Orthodox who regard Catholics as heretics, the solution is simple: the Catholics are wrong.  But the Melkites really believe in the importance of communion with Rome.   What makes this decision by the Melkites so important is that they were not excommunicated.   The fact is that they could not give assent to the dogmas as they stand because they could not see how they fit in to Eastern ecclesiology, and this didn't end with excommunication. Pope Pius IX probably pretended that it wasn't happening, while others probably became more convinced that Eastern Catholics aren't really Catholics at all.  However, when Patriarch Maximos IV stood up in Vatican II and, speaking French - he refused to speak Latin, he told the assembled council fathers that he and his sixteen bishops were few, but that, together, they represented all the Orthodox patriarchs and bishops whom history has denied a seat, the Catholic Church woke up to appreciate the treasure it had in its midst.
In the late sixties or early seventies, I went to a conference hosted by Father Robert Murray S.J. in which Archbishop Zoghby was the chief speaker.  He spoke of the difficulty that two churches with different histories and different categories of thought and priorities have in understanding each other.

  believe that the presence of especially the Melkites in the two Vatican councils was providential. If there was not already a community within the Catholic communion a church that suspended unconditional consent to the dogmas of 1870 because they could not see their coherence with eastern Orthodox theology, would this "Ratzinger Proposal" have been possible?  It could be argued that, by not excommunicating the Melkites, whether it was meant or not, Pope Pius IX legitimised their presence and the presence of the Orthodox tradition within Catholic communion!

THE RATZINGER PROPOSAL

Certainly, no one who claims allegiance to Catholic theology can simply declare the doctrine of primacy null and void, especially not if he seeks to understand the objections and evaluates with an open mind the relative weight of what can be determined historically. Nor is it possible, on the other hand, for him to regard as the only possible form and, consequently, as binding on all Christians the form this primacy has taken in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The symbolic gestures of Pope Paul VI and, in particular, his kneeling before the representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch were an attempt to express precisely this and, by such signs, to point the way out of the historical impasse. Although it is not given us to halt the flight of history, to change the course of centuries, we may say, nevertheless, that what was possible for a thousand years is not impossible for Christians today. After all, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, in the same bull in which he excommunicated the Patriarch Michael Cerularius and thus inaugurated the schism between East and West, designated the Emperor and people of Constantinople as “very Christian and orthodox”, although their concept of the Roman primacy was certainly far less different from that of Cerularius than from that, let us say, of the First Vatican Council. In other words, Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium. When the Patriarch Athenagoras, on July 25, 1967, on the occasion of the Pope’s visit to Phanar, designated him as the successor of St. Peter, as the most esteemed among us, as one also presides in charity, this great Church leader was expressing the essential content of the doctrine of primacy as it was known in the first millennium. Rome need not ask for more. Reunion could take place in this context if, on the one hand, the East would cease to oppose as heretical the developments that took place in the West in the second millennium and would accept the Catholic Church as legitimate and orthodox in the form she had acquired in the course of that development, while, on the other hand, the West would recognize the Church of the East as orthodox and legitimate in the form she has always had.

Such a mutual act of acceptance and recognition, in the Catholicity that is common to and still possessed by each side, is assuredly no light matter. It is an act of self-conquest, of self-denunciation and, certainly, also of self-discovery. It is an act that cannot be brought about by diplomacy but must be a spiritual undertaking of the whole Church in both East and West. If what is theologically possible is also to be actually possible in the Church, the theological aspect must be spiritually prepared and spiritually accepted. My diagnosis of the relationship between East and West in the Church is as follows: from a theological perspective, the union of the Churches of East and West is fundamentally possible, but the spiritual preparation is not yet sufficiently far advanced and, therefore, not yet ready in practice. When I say it is fundamentally possible from a theological perspective, I do not overlook the fact that, on closer inspection, a number of obstacles still exist with respect to the theological possibility: from the Filioque to the question of the indissolubility of marriage. Despite these difficulties, some of which are present more strongly in the West, some in the East, we must learn that unity, for its part, is a Christian truth, an essentially Christian concept, of so high a rank that it can be sacrificed only to safeguard what is most fundamental, not where the way to it is obstructed by formulations and practices that, however important they may be, do not destroy community in the faith of the Fathers and in the basic form of the Church as they saw her.

– Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1987), pp. 198-199. (source)

If you haven't already read the following article by Archimandrite Robert Taft, please click the title.  It is very interesting and important:

VATICAN II AND THE MELKITES

Pray for the peace of Syria.

FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION OF OUR LORD

http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/ In the twelve months before his sudden death, Hans Urs von Balthasar had been writing a series of reflections on the twelve articles of the Apostles' Creed. These texts, which are undoubtedly among the last things he wrote, take on the character of a legacy, a spiritual testament. For they amount in their extraordinary compactness and depth to a little "summa" of his theology. What he had set out in detail in numerous books over five decades, he summarizes in Credo: Meditations on the Apostles' Creed in contemplative plainness and simplicity. All the characteristics that make von Balthasar's work so distinctive and valuable are to be found here: breadth of vision, loveliness of style, and an intuitive-contemporary passion that allows him to "pray intellectually and think 'cordially'." The following is von Balthasar's reflections on the phrase, "Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary"

. I "Conceived." This is said of the Son of God, but it sounds passive; an Other is active in this conception, and he will be named immediately: the Holy Spirit. And an Other is she who conceives: the Virgin Mary. Just as a child is passive when conceived, whereas the parents take part actively. But it is only later on that a child awakens to consciousness, whereas the Son of God possesses eternal consciousness and also the will to become human. To be sure. Yet still we acknowledge in faith that he does not incarnate himself, does not himself take hold of the human nature that he will inhabit, but allows himself to be conveyed, as the "seed" of the Father, into the virginal womb by the Holy Spirit. 

But this means that the occasion of his Incarnation is already the beginning of his obedience. Theologians have very often claimed the opposite, on the ground that the union of the human and the divine natures occurs solely in the Son as the Second Person in the Divinity. However, the creed describes not a "taking of something to oneself," but an "acquiescing in something that happens to one." In this pretemporal obedience, the Son still differs profoundly from naturally engendered human beings, who are not asked whether they wish to come into being or not; the Son permits, in full consciousness and with full consent to the divine plan for redemption, himself to be used as the Father wishes. But already here, he does so in the Holy Spirit of obedience, through which he will atone for the disobedience of Adam and "infiltrate" it. He does not, like a capitalist, cling to the treasure of his divinity as if he had earned it himself (Phil 2:6). He has received it from the Father and can "deposit" it with the Father in order to bring clearly to the fore, out of his eternal devotedness to the Father, the aspect of obedience that inheres in that devotedness and exemplifies what a creature should show in relation to God. II "'By the Holy Spirit." He is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. But now, when the Son becomes human, he, the indivisible Spirit of both, becomes, in the Father, the Spirit who issues directives and, in the Son, the Spirit who receives directives. Already so in the act of the Incarnation itself, since the Spirit conveys the Son, as "seed of the Father," into the Virgin's womb, and the Son, in the same Spirit, allows himself to be so conveyed. If the Holy Spirit, as a single Person, is both fruit of, and testimony to, the mutual love between Father and Son, then it is evident here how much the directing by the Father and the obeying by the incarnate Son are, right down to their deepest roots, consummate love. For us humans, that will mean that our obedience, which we owe to our Creator and Lord and to all his direct and indirect commands, can be, in Jesus Christ, and even must be, an expression of our love; so that any love of God or other human beings which excludes obedience, or wishes to get beyond it, does not at all deserve the name love. III "Born of the Virgin Mary." Here we have a great theater of war. If he is to become a human being, then why no normal human conception? And if this virginal birth (about which there was obviously no knowledge until relatively late; Paul still knows nothing of it, nor does Mark) is to be understood as an act of homage to a Jesus who is venerated as God, then must that not be connected with the influence of Hellenistic legends or rather more plausible Egyptian myths? And finally, even assuming that the (already married) Virgin could have conceived without male participation, are we to assume, even more improbably, that she also gave birth as a virgin? And is there not, by the way, ample talk of brothers of Jesus? So why make an exception solely for the "first-born" (Lk 2:7)? A whole host of questions, which would require a book to answer. Here only in shorthand: the Virgin Birth stems directly from the early stages of the Old Covenant, when God restores sexual power to a waning body (Abraham, Zechariah and his barren wife), and the miracle that the "barren" woman will have more children than the fertile one is a stock symbol of God's power to reverse things. That is most likely the reason why the prophecy of Isaiah ("the young woman [or: virgin] shall bear," 7:14) is resolutely translated by "virgin" already in pre-Christian times (Septuagint). "Brothers" is used today, among many Arabic peoples, as a term for more distant relatives; this undoubtedly lies in the background to the Greek adelphos, which implies, in the narrower sense, "brother." And how typical of our age of minimalistic faith is the conceding of a virginal conception while dispensing the believer from having to accept a virginal birth. As if the second would not be as easy for God to bring about as the first. But then why? Because in the New Covenant the fruitfulness of virginal life (consider above all the Eucharist of Jesus), a fruitfulness not toward regenerated mortality but into life everlasting, will be a decisive feature of the new meaningfulness of body and sex. To be noted well: this is not to deny to Mary the (messianic) pains, spiritual and physical, of her Advent-they represent solidarity with the chosen people and, in an anticipatory way, with the body of her Son (cf. Rev 12:2); but at Christmas, the Old Covenant and its expectations pass over into the quite different fulfillment of the New. All this is pure biblical logic, and all parallels with antiquity are lacking in the decisive depth that pertains  to revelation.   O

THE ANNUNCIATION
painted by a monk of Pachacamac

Conciliar Salvation

by

Fr. Stephen Freeman of

Glory to God for All Things

for the feast of the Annunciation

March 25th

This is a brilliant blog by Fr Stephen Freeman, an Orthodox priest,

and this is an excellent post.

I consider it both a strange mystery and a settled matter of the faith that God prefers not to do things alone. Repeatedly, He acts in a manner that involves the actions of others when, it would seem, He could have acted alone.

Why would God reveal His Word to the world through the agency of men? Why would He bother to use writing? Why not simply communicate directly with people? Why speak to Moses in a burning bush? Why did the Incarnation involve Mary? Could He not have simply become man, whole, complete, adult, in a single moment?

Such questions could be multiplied ad infinitum. But at every turn, what we know of God involves others as well. We may rightly conclude that such a means of acting pleases Him.

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation when the Church celebrates the Incarnation of Christ at word of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary. An Orthodox hymn on the feast says:

The manner of His emptying cannot be known;
the manner of His conception is beyond speech.
An Angel ministers at the miracle; a virginal womb receives the Son;
the Holy Spirit is sent down; the Father on high is well pleased,
and according to their common counsel, a reconciliation is brought to pass
in which and through which we are saved.

“According to their common counsel” is a rich phrase describing this conciliar action of God.

At the same time that this conciliar mode of action seems obvious to Orthodoxy, it is frequently denied or diminished by others. There is a fear in some Christian quarters that were we to admit that God shared His action with any other, our salvation would be a matter of our own works and not the sovereign act of God. It is feared that a conciliar mode of action shares the glory of God with mere mortals.

It is true. This understanding shares the glory of God with mere mortals. But, interestingly, St. Paul says that man is the “image and glory of God” (1 Cor. 11:7). Apparently, we were brought into existence in order to have such a share.

The failure to understand this and the effort to re-invent the Christian story with diminished roles for angels and saints, or Christians themselves, comes very close to setting forth a different gospel altogether.

The Word became flesh of the Virgin Mary. The flesh of the Virgin is also the flesh that is nailed to the Cross (when her soul was itself mysteriously pierced). The flesh which we eat in the Eucharist is also the flesh of the Virgin – for there is no flesh of God that is not the flesh of the Virgin.

And it does no good to protest that the Word merely “took flesh” of the Virgin. For Adam cried out concerning Eve, “This is truly bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” And St. Paul noted concerning the wife of a man that a man should love her, “For no one ever yet hated his own flesh.”

I puzzle at how Christians who understand that it is wrong for a woman to say, “It’s my body and I can do with it what I want,” when she is carrying a child, can at the same time treat the Mother of God as though she had merely lent her womb to God for a period of time.

God’s conciliar action in our salvation is so thoroughly established that it involves our will, our soul, our flesh and bones. He includes bread and wine in our salvation so that the fruit of this garden might become the fruit of life. Everything around you is for your salvation and has its share.

This is not only true in the Incarnation, but continues to be true for every saving effort in our lives. We cannot save ourselves, of course, for that, too, would be denying the conciliar action of God.

There is a saying among the fathers, “If anyone falls, he falls alone, but no one can be saved alone.” But I think we cannot even say that we fall alone – for the one who falls is equally bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Christ does not distance Himself from the one who falls, but unites Himself with him so completely that He endures the consequence of our fall, entering death and hell to bring us back alive.

The Church is nothing other than the conciliar salvation of God, bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh – His body. We are being saved together whether we will admit it or not. Those who study and quote the Bible are themselves handling documents that were written, copied and preserved by others. It is a conciliar document.

The Orthodox way of life urges us to embrace the fullness of our conciliar being. In sacraments and saints in worship and wonder we live within the cloud of witnesses and share the common struggle.

For this reason let us unite our song with Gabriel’s,
crying aloud to the Virgin:
“Rejoice, O Lady full of grace, the Lord is with you!
From you is our salvation, Christ our God,
Who, by assuming our nature, has led us back to Himself.
Humbly pray to Him for the salvation of our souls!”ur

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ORTHODOX ECUMENICAL VOICES - II: METROPOLITAN JOHN ZIZIOULAS OF PERGAMON

Where the Eucharist is, there is the Catholic Church

my source: 30 Days

«Catholics must take seriously the notion of the full Catholicity of the local Church promoted by Vatican Council II, and must apply it to their ecclesiology»

 Ioannis Zizioulas, Metropolitan of Pergamum, takes stock of the debate between Catholics and Orthodox regarding the primacy. Interview

by Gianni Valente

If there’s a son of the Eastern Church who in the past years has given proof of confronting the thorny question of the primacy that still divides Catholics and Orthodox with a view free of old prejudices, this is Ioannis Zizioulas, Metropolitan of Pergamum, member of the Synod of the Ecumenic Patriarchate of Constantinople. It was he who led the Constantinople delegation that came to Rome at the end of June to pay homage to the new bishop of the Eternal City on the occasion of the patronal festival of Saints Peter and Paul. It will be he, recognized by all as one of the most authoritative Orthodox theologians living, who will be co-president of the Orthodox part of the International Commission of dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches that, after years of troubled existence should resume meeting next autumn, to place the very discussion of the primacy itself on the agenda. Given these premises, it doesn’t take much to imagine that in this coming discussion the historical analyses and the reflections themselves, matured over the years, by this gentle and hieratic metropolitan, – the same that he outlines in detailed fashion to 30Days in this interview – will constitute a more than authoritative point of reference. 

Eminence, the question of primacy undoubtedly lies at the very heart of Roman Catholic-Orthodox relations. Orthodox theology, with regard to this issue, is not monolithic. Could you describe for us some of the basic criteria of distinctions between Orthodox theologians?

JOANNIS ZIZIOULAS. There are some Orthodox theologians, - in the past they were the majority - who attach primacy, every level of primacy, to the organization of Church, and say that what the Pope has asked regarding his primacy does not have a dogmatic content, so therefore it can be relativized. For them primacy is a canonical question not involving the faith. They don’t see any link between primacy and the nature of the Church. For them the office of primate is a matter of the bene esse and not of the esse of the Church.

And the other group?

ZIZIOULAS: Some other Orthodox theologians regard primacy in the Church as belonging to the Church’s esse, and not simply a matter of canonical order. They realise we cannot renounce the primacy without losing something essential to our faith. This shows that the subject of primacy is a question not only concerning the claims of the bishop of Rome, but also within the Orthodox Church itself.

Could you give an example of the arguments of the first group? 

ZIZIOULAS: One of the leading Orthodox theologians, the late Professor Ioannis Karmiris, wrote: «Because of the political importance of Rome and the apostolicity of this Church, as well as the martyrdom in it of the Apostles Peter and Paul and its distinction in works of love, service and mission, the bishop of Rome received from the Councils, the Fathers and the pious emperors – therefore by human and not divine order – a simple primacy of honor and order, as first among the equal presidents of the particular Churches». According to this view, the actual structure of primacies, the primacy of the Roman See included, is due simply to human and transitory factors. This means that the Church could exist without primacy, although she could not exist without bishops or synods, the latter being a reality of iure divino and part of the Church’s esse.

Orthodox theologians very often use the formula «primacy of honor and order». What does it mean? 

ZIZIOULAS: When someone speaks of “primacy of honor” he wants to exclude the right of the primate to exercise jurisdiction over the rest of the bishops. But it seems to be a rather ambiguous formula. There seems, in fact, not to exist, even in the Orthodox Church, “a simple primacy of honor”…

Why?

ZIZIOULAS: In the Orthodox Church, for example, in the absence of the Patriarch or during the vacancy of his throne there can be no episcopal elections or the performance of any “canonical acts”. Can you then describe the primacy of the patriarch as “a simple honorr”?

Has this formula other contents? 

ZIZIOULAS: The expression “simple primacy of honour” is used to stress the fact that all bishops, from the Pope and the patriarchs down to the least of bishops are equal from the point of view of priesthood (hieratikós). 

But this is a traditional principle for both Orthodox and Roman Catholics too…

ZIZIOULAS: With a fundamental difference between them however, namely that the Roman Catholics would apply this equality only to the level of sacramental grace which does not involve automatically the exercise of jurisdiction (the missio canonica), while the Orthodox would make no such distinction.

Do you judge these ideas to be correct?

ZIZIOULAS: These positions seem to overlook certain facts present in the Orthodox tradition and faith too: the simple and obvious fact that synodality cannot exist without primacy. In Orthodox tradition there has never been and there can never be a synod or a council without a protos, or primus. If, therefore, synodality exists jure divino, primacy also must exist by the same right.

Synodality cannot exist without primacy. In Orthodox tradition there has never been and there can never be a synod or a council without a protos, or primus. If, therefore, synodality exists jure divino, primacy also must exist by the same right. Have any Orthodox theologians tried to resolve this contradiction? 

ZIZIOULAS: Alivisatos, for example, maintains that it is not necessary to have a permanent protos; primacy can be exercised by rotation. I think this position is very weak: primacy in the Church has never been exercised by rotation. It is attached to a particular office or ministry and to a particular person. Moreover, if we logically extend the application of rotation also within each autocephalous Church, this would mean the abolishment of the offices of patriarchs and metropolitans as permanent personal ministries… 

Other Orthodox theologians appeal to democracy in their theological objections to the primacy…

ZIZIOULAS. Karmiris, for example, appeals to democracy as a characteristic of the Orthodox Church. But he explicitly identifies the Orthodox position with that of western Konziliarismus in his opposition to the primacy of the Pope: there can be no primacy in the Church because the highest authority, the real primus in the Church is the Council.

In order to find an exit from the current impasse, you said that new perspectives came during the period before and after Vatican Council II. Why? 

ZIZIOULAS: The question that already dominated the discussions during the long period before the Council, when the leading figures of Congar, Rahner, Ratzinger, de Lubac and others paved the way to the theology of Vatican II, was whether the fullness of the Church, her catholicity, coincided with her universal structure or not. 

And on this issue, they looked to Orthodoxy….

ZIZIOULAS: Mainly to the so-called “eucharistic ecclesiology” of the Russian theologian Nicolai Afanassieff, who formulated the axiom “wherever the Eucharist is, there is the Church”. This meant that each local Church in which the Eucharist is celebrated should be regarded as the full and Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic theologians were influenced by this approach and, as a result, a theology of the local Church entered the documents of the Council. 

Reverberating also on the debate regarding primacy …

ZIZIOULAS: The debate was led from the Orthodox side mainly by theologians of Russian origin who lived originally in Paris and some of whom later moved to America. Four of them - Afanassieff, Meyendorff, Schmemann and Koulomzine - produced a collective volume with the title The Primacy of Peter in the Orthodox Church (English edition, 1973). They started with the question: if each local Church is a “catholic” Church, what need is there to speak of a universal primacy or even of a “universal Church”? 

Did they give the same answer to this question?

ZIZIOULAS: No. Afanassieff, for example, insists that universal ecclesiology is unknown in the ancient Church until Saint Cyprian. Following him, some Orthodox theologians argue that the universal Church is only an occasional phenomenon, happening when bishops and heads of local Churches meet together in councils. If there were no councils there would be no universal Church. There would only be communion in faith and sacramental communion, without any effect on structure.

And the others?

ZIZIOULAS: Schmemann, for example, takes a different view. For him, the Church had also known a universal primacy of a jure divino character. «Primacy» he wrote, «is the necessary expression of the unity in faith and life of all local Churches». 

And Meyendorff ?

ZIZIOULAS: For him Primacy was an inevitable requirement of the very existence of the Church in the world. «There has never been a time», he wrote, «when the Church did not recognise a certain order first of all among the apostles, then the bishops, and that in this order one apostle, Saint Peter, and later one bishop, heading a particular Church occupied the place of primate». He ventured to affirm that «the function of that one Bishop is to serve that unity on the world scale, just as the function of a regional primate is to be the agent of unity on a regional scale». 

And what is your own view on the subject?

ZIZIOULAS: The Orthodox rejected universal primacy in the Church for non-theological as well as for theological reasons. After the great Schism, the Orthodox interpreted papal primacy as ecclesiastical imperialism. In modern times, Orthodox theologians oppose primacy in general as incompatible with the democratic ideas of modern society, thus allowing for non-theological arguments to decide a theological issue. But now, we have to ask if this is a correct opinion, from the point of view of Orthodox ecclesiology.

And for the future? 

ZIZIOULAS: First of all, we must look to our tradition. As I said before, synods without primates have never existed in the Orthodox Church, and this indicates clearly that if synodality is a dogmatic necessity, so must primacy be also. This is precisely what the well-known 34th Canon of the Apostles explicitly states…

What is that?

ZIZIOULAS. This canon of the IV century can be the golden rule of the theology of primacy. It requires that the protos is a conditio sine qua non for the synodal institution, and that the synod is in its turn equally a prerequisite for the exercise of primacy.

The fact that all synods have a primate means that ecumenical synods should also have a primus. This automatically implies universal primacy. On this basis, Orthodox theology could be ready to accept primacy at all levels of Church structure, including the universal one. The problem that remains for discussion in the context of theological dialogue between Roman Catholic and Orthodox is what kind of primacy we have in mind.

Which kind of primacy must be excluded, to promote reconciliation on this crucial issue?

ZIZIOULAS: The Orthodox cannot accept a pyramidal ecclesiology, where the titular of the universal primacy, instead of serving, subdues the local Church. Universal primacy can only function in relation to those who comprise the synod, and never in isolation, that is outside a reality of communion.

Why is it so important that all primacies (universal primacy included) should be exercised by the primate as Head of a local Church?

ZIZIOULAS: Primacy is not a legalistic notion implying the investment of a certain individual with power, but a form of diakonia. It implies also that this ministry reaches the entire community though the communion of the local Churches manifested through the bishops that constitute the council or synod. It is for this reason that the primate himself should be the head of a local Church, that is a bishop. As head of a local Church and not as an individual, this will serve the unity of the Church as a koinonia of full Churches and not as a “collage” of incomplete parts of a universal Church. Primacy in this way will not undermine the integrity of any local Church.

Why don’t you consider the role of exegetical arguments related to the debate on primacy?

ZIZIOULAS: Biblical exegesis and history are an unsafe ground of rapprochement. Although Peter’s leading position among the Twelve is recognised more and more also by the Orthodox, the particular importance attached to him by the Roman Catholics is strongly disputed by them. The late Cardinal Yves Congar saw this very well. He wrote: «In the East, the authority of the See of Rome was never that of a monarchical prince […]. The Body of Christ has no Head other than Christ himself […]. Byzantine theologians very rarely relate the primacy of the See of Rome to the Apostle Peter, although authors of prestige like Maximus the Confessor or Theodor the Studite do, at times, say something to this effect...».

So, in that direction, the way is closed…

ZIZIOULAS: If we wait until Biblical scholars come to an agreement on the relationship between the role of Peter in the New Testament and the primacy exercised by the See of Rome, we may have to postpone the unity of the Church for another millennium, if not infinitely…

How do you judge the proposal of coming back to the model of relationships followed during the first millennium?

ZIZIOULAS: This way seems to me unrealistic, mainly because the Roman Catholic Church would not be prepared to eliminate her second millennium from history in order to unite with the Orthodox.

So, in your opinion what is a realistic common ground for common answers to such open questions?

ZIZIOULAS: For the future development of dialogue on this issue, it is of crucial importance that the Orthodox accept that primacy is part of the essence of the Church and not a matter of organization. They must also accept that there must be a Primacy on a universal level. This is difficult at the moment, but it would become easier if we thought more deeply about the nature of the Church. The Church cannot be local without being universal and cannot be universal if is not local. 

And on Catholic side, what can help the dialogue?

ZIZIOULAS: Catholics must take seriously the notion of full catholicity of the local Church promoted at Vatican Council II, and must apply it to their ecclesiology. This means that every form of primacy at the universal level must reflect the local Church and must not intervene in the local Church without her consent. Every local Church, must have the possibility to affirm its own catholicity, in relation to the primacy. For this reason, I repeat, the golden rule for a correct exercise of primacy is the 34th Apostolic Canon.

But how is it possible that a real rapprochement can happen on the basis of a new theological thesis? 

ZIZIOULAS: Acceptance of the Roman primacy would depend on whether we agree that the Church consists of full local Churches united into one Church without losing their ecclesial fullness. But this is not a theological “innovation”. Father Congar believed that the papal primacy, in spite of monarchical tendencies prevailing at that time, was exercised within an ecclesiology of communion also in the West until about the sixteenth century, when the papacy succeeded in imposing monarchical primacy on the whole of the West. If that is the case, the return to such an ecclesiology of communion may not be such an unrealistic proposition.

One last question. You knew Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. What do you think the approach and contribution of the new Pope to these issues could be?

ZIZIOULAS: I had the honor and privilege of meeting the then Cardinal Ratzinger in the early eighties when we were members of the International Commission on the official Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches. He is a great theologian and an expert in ecclesiology, both Western and Eastern. In his new capacity as Pope he can certainly contribute decisively to the convergence between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox understanding of primacy. In the past he made some important suggestions for the solution of this problem. It may prove to be providential that he is Pope at this crucial moment of the discussion of this matter

ANDREY SHISHKOV'S OBJECTION
(full argument here)
This Eucharist is of eschatological nature and it is the Eucharist celebrated in the eschatological assembly of the saints surrounding Christ in the Heavenly Kingdom. Zizioulas believes that “this unique Eucharist is at the same time many Eucharists”.  [Christ entering the presence of his Father through his death - resurrection - ascension is the eschatological, eternal heavenly liturgy as described in the Letter to the Hebrews.  It is the heavenly content of every earthly Eucharist.]


 It is impossible to say which is primary, as “the one” and “the many” exist simultaneously and are interrelated. In ecclesiology Zizioulas applies “the one and the many” principle to both the local and the universal Church. For Zizioulas, primacy at the universal level is the utmost case of the regional one. He writes, “The logic of synodality leads to primacy, and the logic of the ecumenical council leads to universal primacy”.

 Zizioulas believes that recent primacy of honour of the Patriarch of Constantinople in the whole Orthodox Church should be understood “in the spirit of Apostolic Canon 34”. 

The bishops of every nation must acknowledge him who is first among them and account him as their head, and do nothing of consequence without his consent; but each may do those things only which concern his own parish, and the country places which belong to it. But neither let him (who is the first) do anything without the consent of all; for so there will be unanimity, and God will be glorified through the Lord in the Holy Spirit.

 It should be noted however that in Metropolitan John’s logic described above, for such primacy to exist it is necessary that there should be a permanent synodal institution uniting all the bishops (of the entire Orthodox Church in this case). Yet there were no such councils in the past (Ecumenical Councils were not permanent bodies), and the possibility for their existence remains a matter of the future. Zizioulas applies this understanding of universal primacy (as the utmost case of regional primacy) to the primacy of the bishop of the Church of Rome.
Metropolitan John has attached a considerable role to universal primacy. He writes, “Universal primus is not only ‘useful’ to the Church but an ecclesiological necessity in a unified Church”.  He is the expression of “unity and oneness of the Church in the world”


McPartlan has pointed out that the phrase "universal church" has two meanings.  On the one hand, the universal Church is the assembly of all the saints, the eschatological heavenly Church of all times. On the other hand, it is the Church spread today (and in every particular moment of time) worldwide. To describe the Church in this second sense, the Orthodox theology often uses the term “oecumenical” (from the Greek
oikoumene, the inhabited world).When Zizioulas refers to the Eucharistic nature of the universal Church, he uses this term in its first meaning as the eschatological heavenly Church. The universal Church in this sense is constituted by the unique Eucharist celebrated in the eschatological assembly of the saints gathered around Christ in the Heavenly Kingdom. It should be noted that the universal Church in the other sense (as worldwide), on the contrary, is not constituted by the Eucharist since there is no worldwide Eucharist of this world. The Eucharist is always an assembly for “one and the same” which always has its topos.

Metropolitan John has attached a considerable role to universal prima-cy. He writes, “Universal

 primus

is not only ‘useful’ to the Church but anecclesiological necessity in a unified Church”.

38

 He is the expression of“unity and oneness of the Church in the world”

Vatican I saw the unity of the universal Church on earth as being bound together by a legal system which has its centre of jursidiction in the Pope.   In other words, it is by Jesus' delegation to Peter of supreme jurisdiction and the acceptance of this by all that ensures church unity. The sacraments must operate within this system, but it is jurisdiction that really unites the Church, because sacraments can be celebrated "outside" it. The Orthodox Churches have their own equivalent in that each patriarchate and autocephalous church has its "canonical territory" which forms the legal context for the valid celebration of the sacraments. Some would say that sacraments cannot be validly celebrated outside "canonical" communion; and there are Russian Orthodox who re-baptise members of the uncanonical Kyvan patriarchate - in this type of ecclesiology, law, not sacraments have the last word about membership of the Church.  "Eucharistic Ecclesiology", on the other hand, does not contest the importance of "universal jurisdiction" among Catholics or "canonical territory" among Orthodox.  However, it acknowledges the sacramental structure of the Church, centred on the Eucharist, as that which gives a basis and shape to any system of law and indicates the way it is to be exercised.  As Pope Benedict wrote, "The Mass is the Church's constitution."

Hence, the author of this paper writes:

 It should be noted that the universal Church in the other sense (as worldwide), on the contrary, is not constituted by the Eucharist since there is no worldwide Eucharist of this world.

On the contrary, every Eucharist is worldwide and even cosmic by its nature.   The local church is the tip of the iceberg; at each local celebration, the Holy Spirit breaks down local barriers to embrace the whole world, past and present, and even future, and heaven too (read Khomiakov).   In this explosion of grace, the body of Christ, formed in every local Eucharist is far greater than the local community because it is an act of the whole Church and not just of the local Church. The local eucharistic assemblies turn the worldwide Church into an organism, Christ throughout the world.  By the power of the Spirit, each part is a manifestation of the whole, while the whole realises itself within each local church and in the relationship between them, united by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Hence, schism is a lie, because it is a denial of what is happening in the Mass and which happens anyway, an act of God, whether we like it or not. 

 As St Cyprian of Carthage and many fathers of the Church have taught, there is only one bishop's throne, because it is Christ who acts in each, and only one sacrifice, one communion, and Christ in the Spirit is all in all.   At Mass we pray:

In your compassion, heavenly Father, gather to yourself all your children scattered throughout the world.  (EP III)

The Eucharist in each place cements the unity of the church throughout the world and presents it to the Father.  The question is, how is this unity a reality outside the liturgy?   How do we live this organic unity?  I don't think the present set-up of autocephalous churches provides an answer.  As a worldwide ecclesial organism Orthodoxy does not function.  We await the results of the Pan-Orthodox Synod to see if there is any improvement   These churches need a centre of unity.  On the other hand, the great weakness of the Catholic Church has been its lack of synodality.  Is it not strange that Orthodox weakness is Catholic strength, and Catholic weakness is Orthodox strength?   We need each other.  This will be resisted by many Orthodox and many Catholics who believe that their respective churches are perfect when most people know they are not.   Meanwhile, European civilization is going to the dogs because of the complacency of both sides.

If there is only one bishop's throne, there is nothing untoward for one bishop to speak for all, without the other bishops losing their position as shepherds of their flocks. Each can speak for the rest, and the protos can speak for all.  All that it requires is the action of the Holy Spirit and openness on all sides in love. That is what happened with the papal definitions of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption.   The Vatican conducted an investigation into what Catholics believe throughout the world, all the bishops were consulted, there were even votes in religious house, and then the pope defined the doctrine.   Pope and the college of bishops are a reality, even when they are not gathered together in council.

This takes care of the objection in the following passage from Andrej Shishkov's paper:

"It should be noted however that in Metropolitan John’s logic described above, for such primacy to exist it is necessary that there should be a permanent synodal institution uniting all the bishops (of the entire Orthodox Church in this case)."

No.  All that is needed is that the organic unity of the episcopate that springs from its source in the one Eucharist and is permanent in the Church be allowed to function by interaction with the protos.  

The only alternative that the Russians can offer is the continuation  of patriarchal rivalries, and a grave confusion between Christianity and nationalism.  Such an identification of religion with the nation would have made Christianity acceptable in pagan Rome, but would have completely flummoxed the author of the Letter to Diognetus, Origen and St Irenaeus or any of the post-apostolic fathers.

We all know that the ecumenical councils were an invention of the Christian emperors and bishops were summoned to them by the emperor's authority.  The "Nestorian" bishops of the Persian Empire were not invited to Ephesus because they were not subjects of the Byzantine Emperor but  they were then ordered to accept its conclusions As emperors were not part of the apostolic church structure, the authority which the Church recognised in councils must have come from another source in the very nature of the Church, an authority which must have been in existence before there was ever a council.    We know from St Cyprian that the idea of the organic unity of the episcopate long pre-dates general councils and does not depend on them, and we know from St Irenaeus that the universal teaching authority of the Church and the universal witness to Catholic Truth by the church of Rome were alive and well in the 2nd century.  That seems to indicate that the Church can and does operate as a worldwide organism, formed by the same Eucharist in all its parts, with the same basic help from the Holy Spirit as petitioned in the epiclesis all over the world, even when there is no universal synod in session. 

I  believe that the eucharistic ecclesiology of people like Metropolitan John Zizioulas forms the theological context for Pope Francis' understanding of the Church.   However, for Pope Francis, the local bishop, as a member of a regional synod that reflects a certain culture and history, and hence certain points of view and practical attitudes towards our common, world-wide faith, stands for the God-given variety that exists within the Catholic Church, while the petrine ministry represents the equally God-given unity.  There will always be a certain tension between the two, but the presence of the Holy Spirit is expressed, not just in the unity brought about by the petrine ministry and obedience to it by all, nor in the variety of views held by Christians throughout the world and reflected in the views of the bishops, but in the whole, pope and bishops, held together by an all-embracing ecclesial love, the fruit of communion, which is the special mark of the Spirit's presence.   No other recent pope has used "primacy" and "synodality" so often within the same context.   

The last three popes seemed to have believed that the only way to rein in the potential variety that would inevitably have shown itself if the bishops really had their say, was to manipulate the synods from the top, just as the Vatican officials tried to do in Vatican II.   However, what made Vatican II become a truly great council, was the intervention of Cardinal Frings (with the help of Fr Joseph Ratzinger, his secretary) which caused the bishops to reject this manipulation from the top that the Vatican took for granted.  Pope Francis seems to believe that the only way to make synods work is to do the same.  Like the Fathers of Vatican II, for whom the council was a true manifestation of the Holy Spirit, he is expecting the same thing to happen in the synods.  If Yves Congar and John Zizioulas are right, and the papacy "in spite of monarchical tendencies prevailing at that time, was exercised within an ecclesiology of communion also in the West until about the sixteenth century," then Pope Francis is returning to a more wholesome exercise of the petrine ministry.

A CATHOLIC LECTURE ON MARY, SEAT OF WISDOM

please contrast and compare: