Table time: Pope discusses, prays, dines with Orthodox representatives

Source Catholic News Service.

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pastors and theologians involved in ecumenical dialogue emphasize the importance of “table time” — sharing meals — along with serious theological discussions, shared prayer and joint action.

Pope Francis spoke about his ecumenical vision March 20 and prayed with delegates from Orthodox and other Christian communities at his inaugural Mass March 19.

Since March 17, he’s also had breakfast, lunch and dinner with the Orthodox representatives who came to Rome for his inauguration. Pope Francis is still living at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the Vatican guesthouse where the Orthodox delegates also were staying.

They all eat together and greet each other in the common dining room.

Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Tarasios of Buenos Aires and South America was one of the delegates who shared meals and prayers with the new pope. In fact, he’s been doing that since then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio attended his enthronement in Buenos Aires in 2001.

When they first saw each other March 17, they embraced.

“I said to him, ‘What have you done?’ He said, ‘Not I. They did it to me,’ pointing to the cardinals,” said the Orthodox leader, who was born in the United States.

During the more formal audience Pope Francis had with the ecumenical delegates, Metropolitan Tarasios presented the pope with two elegant, but very personalized gifts: an urn filled with soil from Argentina, “so he wouldn’t feel far away, he’d always feel close to us,” and a small chalice with the biblical inscription in Spanish, “That all would be one.”

In Pope Francis’ remarks to the ecumenical delegates, he focused on the common task of preaching the Gospel, defending human dignity and defending creation. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, in his remarks to the gathering, focused on the importance of continuing the formal theological dialogue so that “our Christian witness would be credible in the eyes of those near and far.”

Metropolitan Tarasios, who was part of the ecumenical patriarchate’s delegation to Pope Francis’ inauguration, said it is not a matter of either theological dialogue or practical cooperation: Christian unity requires both.

“The theological dialogue by itself cannot bring about Christian unity,” he said. It brings the churches closer, helps them understand each other more profoundly, and provides a serious tool for understanding where the churches agree and where they differ.

But efforts also are required to bring Christians together in common prayer and joint action.

“If, in the end, the people don’t accept the theological dialogue or what comes out of the theological dialogue, there won’t be any Christian unity,” he said.

For the past five years, the international Catholic-Orthodox dialogue has been focusing on one of thorniest topics dividing the two communities: the primacy of the pope and the way his ministry has been exercised since the Great Schism of 1054.

Theologians are looking first at the role of the bishop of Rome in the first millennium, hoping it will lay the foundation for a joint statement on the place and role of the pope in a reunited Christianity.

In the first week after his election, Pope Francis emphasized his position as “bishop of Rome,” his calling to preside in charity and his insistence that the power of the papacy is the “power of service” seen in Jesus’ charge to St. Peter: “Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep.”

For the Orthodox, “that’s how we see him — as the bishop of Rome,” Metropolitan Tarasios said. That the pope repeatedly referred to himself that way “is music to our ears.”

The early years of Catholic-Orthodox dialogue focused on baptism, the Eucharist and other issues the two churches basically already agreed on. The tough topic of the primacy of the pope was saved until a time when church leaders felt the relationship was strong enough to tackle it head on.

Metropolitan Tarasios said Patriarch Bartholomew’s presence at the pope’s inauguration wasn’t just the first time a patriarch of Constantinople came for the event since 1054, it was the first time ever. Even when the churches were united, a pope or patriarch sent his newly elected brother a letter delivered, perhaps, by a special emissary.

Patriarch Bartholomew, he said, thought “if we want to help Christian unity, then we have to make our presence felt, not just known.”

The patriarch knew the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, but he did not think about coming to Rome at the time.

“It’s a question of timing, of when the moment is right,” the metropolitan said.

“It’s time for the Christian churches to put aside some of the historical impediments to unity,” he said.

Catholics and Orthodox cannot ignore or deny the things in their history that have hurt each other, Metropolitan Tarasios said, but much of those hurts are “excess baggage” that prevent the churches from credibly proclaiming Christ today.

For the Orthodox, one of the issues still causing tension or pain is the existence and growth of the Byzantine-rite Eastern Catholic Churches that entered into full communion with Rome more than 400 years ago. The largest of the churches, the Ukrainian Catholic Church, was outlawed for almost 50 years by the Soviet Union, and its emergence from an underground existence has created serious problems in relations with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Metropolitan Tarasios said the people whose families have been Eastern Catholics for generations are one thing, but he denounced what he said were attempts to use the Byzantine Catholic Churches to convince Orthodox Christians to become Catholic while keeping their Byzantine liturgies and spiritualities.

“That’s an issue we can’t ignore,” he said. “Quite frankly, we resent it.”

On the positive side, Orthodox and Catholics are working more closely on environmental issues. Patriarch Bartholomew has been called “the green patriarch” and is one of the leading Christian proponents of a theological reflection on the moral obligation to safeguard creation.

The new pope’s choice of St. Francis of Assisi for his name and his repeated calls for respect for creation in his first week of ministry are important for the Orthodox because the patriarch and pope “can double their forces and their strength if they do it together,” Metropolitan Tarasios said.

The metropolitan said he, too, had read reports that Patriarch Bartholomew invited Pope Francis to go with him to Jerusalem in 2014 to mark the 50th anniversary of the historic first step in Catholic-Orthodox rapprochement: the 1964 meeting there between Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras.

“I think it would be a great occasion,” he said.

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Russian Church pins high hopes on Pope Francis

Pavel Korobov, rbth.ru:

“The new pontiff is a very distinguished church leader,” said Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church, commenting on the pope’s election. “It’s probably no accident that he is the first pope to take the name of Francis – undoubtedly in honor of Francis of Assisi, who is revered in the Roman Catholic Church as an example of Christian poverty, humility and service to the poor.”

The metropolitan said that service to the poor and needy is a priority for churches today, and the Russian Orthodox Church has a major focus on this.

“We see a big area here where we can work together with the Roman Catholic Church,” said Hilarion. “I hope this alliance between us will develop under the new pontiff.”

“We hope that Francis will give a boost to the development of the relationship between our churches, which started under his predecessor,” said Archpriest Dimitry Sizonenko, secretary for inter-Christian relations of the synodal Department for External Church Relations. “He [Bergoglio] once said that he loves Dostoyevsky, and one would like to hope that he also loves the spiritual traditions of Russian Orthodoxy.”

Related:

Russian Orthodox Church and authorities welcome new pope Francis

Russian Orthodox Church responds to Pope’s resignation

New pope won’t threaten Orthodox-Catholic ties

Patriarch Kirill thanks Benedict XVI for firmness, humility

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What the Orthodox Church Owe to the Catholic Church

We Orthodox owe something to the Catholics. Catholic leaders have been the clearest and strongest voice in the defense of the dignity of the human person in our increasingly secularized culture. We benefit from their witness. They draw from the moral tradition in ways that that hold our own leaders to account — and correctly so since we hold that part of the moral tradition in common. All Christians, not just Catholics, benefit from their faith and courage.

They also give the American Orthodox Church some breathing room as it finds its way in American society and learns how to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the American ethos. Learning this takes time just as it did in the early centuries of the Church. Orthodox Christianity has much to give secularized America especially to the young who, as I said at the outset, are searching for authenticity and communion.

Fr Hans Jacobse, read the rest here

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What has Aleksandr Lukashenko told Benedict XVI?

Potentially interesting, and from my point of view hopeful, developments in Orthodox/Catholic ecumenical relations.  Russia Today is reporting online that the president of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, is (in the article reports) said "he was going to present the Pope with a number of questions from the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, Kirill. Talking to the Pope, he also expressed hope that Benedict XVI would come to Belarus."  What makes the potential visit of the Pontiff to Belarus is part of the "canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church."  Evidently, according to the article, Lukashenko,"wants to play a role in organizing a historical meeting of the Pope and the Patriarch on Belarusian territory. That was what he proposed to Patriarch Kirill while in Moscow this spring."

"The idea to bring leaders of the two branches of Christianity together in Belarus is not a new one."  In fact, 

Aleksandr Lukashenko proposed it as early as in 2002. However, today it has taken on an interesting twist: Kirill already met Benedict XVI several times as a head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was also often criticized for his ecumenical policies, as he advocates for deeper cooperation with the Catholic Church. All this makes the possibility of a meeting between the leaders of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches greater than ever. And if Lukashenko's proposal is accepted, Belarus will play an important role as a conciliator and a peacemaker. In this sense, Lukashenko is doing a great job, improving Belarus' image on an international level and doing a favor for Kirill who, according to all indications, would like to meet the Pope.

While it is to early to say what, if anything, will come of Likashenko's plan, it is an interesting development.

You can read the rest of the article here: "What has Aleksandr Lukashenko told Benedict XVI?"

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Entrepreneurship & Evangelism: More Thoughts on the CAPS Conference

An interesting comment on economic recovery from Tyler Cowen of the Kauffman Foundation by way of Michael Giberson at the Knowledge Problem.  Referring to video of Cowen talking about blogging economics and other topics, Giberson quotes Cowen's  concluding comments on current economic conditions in the United States:

If there is one point I could get through about the mess we're in, it's that even if you think that the government needs to do something proactive, that is a holding action. Recovery is about entrepreneurship.

While Cowen's economic prescription has much to recommend it, what caught my attention is this: I think that it is not only the economic recovery but also the Church that needs to embrace the spirit of entrepreneurship.

Let me explain.

With the reception of Fr Peter Gillquist and the other clergy and lay members of former Evangelical Orthodox Church by the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of American, there was an increase both in awareness of the importance of mission work and actual missionary activity undertaken both in the US and overseas by American Orthodox Christians. Unfortunately, as I have said before, that initial zeal was not always (in my opinion) always wisely guided and indeed has lead to an unfortunate narrowing of the Church's evangelistic outreach.

While not absolutely the case, in the main Orthodox evangelical outreach (especially in the US) tends to focus on disaffected mainline Protestant and Evangelical Christians and very little to either the vast number of unchurched Americans or our own lapsed Orthodox Christians.

Beyond our quasi-official policy of proselytizing and neglect of the unchurced and the fallen away, I am also concerned that we have largely neglected the worlds of academia and public policy and morality. While in the latter case there is some hopeful progress—f or example Fr Hans Jacobe's American Orthodox Institute—in the former situation we have limited our engagement to a few, woefully underfunded, campus ministry programs. And while we have built seminaries and one undergraduate college, after more than 200 years in the States, we still do not have even a viable parochial school system for our children.

All of this was very much on my mind this weekend while I was at the CAPS conference. In session after session, I saw people who desired the riches of the Great Tradition in both its Western and Eastern forms. Unfortunately, there was in attendance only two priests, myself representing the tradition of Orthodox Church and my friend Fr Christian Mathis, a Roman Catholic priest.

Let me say upfront, I am ambivalent about the lack of a numerically substantive Orthodox presence at CAPS. We have in the last 30 or so years gotten rather comfortable talking down to people. Oh granted, we're gracious when we do so, but in the main we are more comfortable talking to people who want to join the Church. We our happy to enter into conversation, really often a monologue, with those who affirm us, who see us the solution to their problems. We are less comfortable with those who wish to relate to us as peers—as our brothers and sisters in Christ.

I am not convinced that, with a few exceptions, we would prefer to avoid conversations with those people who have competencies and expertise in areas about which we know little or nothing. Let me offer an example of a CAPS presentation I found not only interesting and valuable but challenging.

On Saturday morning the first plenary session was presented by Debra Taylor, MA, of Institute for Sexual Wholeness (a graduate program/ministry focusing on sex therapy). Taylor offered us an update on the research into women's sexuality that she published in her book that she co-authored with Archibald D. Hart andCatherine Hart Weber, Secrets of Eve .

Taylor's presentation,“Prisoners of Hope: Is Healing Possible for Sexual Strugglers?”was a challenge to the gathering to imitate the words of Jesus in Lk 4:18-19: (the Spirit of the Lord is upon Me...) and ourselves as psychologists and pastors to proclaim liberty to the captive, to set free those who are burdened and battered in the area of sexuality.

What made the presentation unique was not just what was said, but what wasn't said. Taylor did not focus on sexual immorality—we did not hear about homosexuality, adultery, fornication, or masturbation. Instead she spoke with great eloquence on the suffering of married men and women as they try and understand each other's different, but equally legitimate, sexuality.

At the core of this struggle is not simply the fact that husbands typically don't understand their wives sexuality. This lack of understand is situated within a social (and for that matter, research) context that pathologizes women's sexuality and foster in women (and so also in men) an increasingly unrealistic and unnatural view of feminine sexuality and the woman's body.

Listening to Taylor as she related experiences from her own life and clinical practice, I wondered how I might apply her insights to my own pastoral work. How many married couples who come to see me either together or individually, I wondered, are suffering because of the very lack of mutual understanding that the speaker has articulated? Having spoken with current and former seminaries, I know that if sexuality is addressed at all in their coursework, it is only done so in terms of morality (and even this, I suspect, is rather deficient, but that's for another time). But sexuality is never addressed as it was in Taylor's work.

Considering the apologetic energy we expend on the fact that—u nlike Rome—we have a married clergy, this lacunae is troubling. If, as Taylor argued, many, even most, married couples suffer because of a lack of information about human sexuality, how can this not be true for clergy couples? And how can this lack of information not but have an negative influence not only on the personal lives of clergy couples, but the pastoral practice of the Church?

Let me return to the question of an entrepreneurial approach to outreach and evangelism. As in my experience at CAPS, as well as in my participation in other professional settings, I have found that my willingness to participate as a peer—albeit one who wears cassock, cross and cap—has always brought a rich reward both for me personally and for my ministry. And, not incidentally, it has also resulted in new Orthodox Christians.

Over the years, I have spoken with man men and women from various professions who have become (or have always been) Orthodox Christians. A consistent theme in the stories they tell me is the joy and gratitude to God they have for their Orthodox faith. But they also tell stories of frustration that there seems to be little interest among the clergy to make use of their professional skills and gifts. While these professionals are happy to be the spiritual children of the Church, they are also competent adults whose potential contribution to the Church is often greatly limited by the inability of the clergy to engage them as professional colleagues.

At its core, I think this inability of some—maybe even many—c lergy to engage the laity as professional peers (though different professionals to be sure) both is the reflects our limited vision of evangelical outreach and is also a contributing factor to our narrowness of vision.

One of the participates I spoke with at CAPS was quite taken by the patristic notion that what is not assumed by Christ is not redeemed. I wonder, are willing our we as a community and personally to work to redeem academia and the professions? Are we willing to engage those who challenge us not simply because of their interest in the spiritual life but because they bring to the Church skills and insights that are new to us?

Or, let me make this personal, do I want ADULT spiritual children who insist on the integrity and value of their own professional contributions to the life of the Church?

As always, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcome but encouraged.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Thoughts from CAPS

The opening plenary session here at CAPS was interesting. Gary Moon, Ph.D., who teaches at Richmond Graduate University offered a presentation titled “Psychology and Christian Spirituality: Puttting the Soul Back in Soul-o-logy.” Having studied as an undergraduate with the Jungian James Hillman I was interested in the direction that Moon would take with his own presentation. Hillman was (at least when he was my professor) antithetical to any suggestion that Christian (or really, any religion) could have a place in what he called “soul work.”
Moon argued, correctly I think, that historically modern psychology developed out of philosophy and ultimately Christian theology. Where his argument took a provocative turn when he referenced Nicean Christology. Where his presentation took an interesting turn was his argument that just as Christ held together divinity and humanity in Himself, so too Christians are called to do the same. Correctly, Moon identified this as the Orthodox doctrine of theosis (deification). Remember, that CAPS is composed primarily of Evangelical Christians and you have a sense of the radical nature of Moon's talk.
It was noteworthy for me that in many of the presentations I heard—as well as in my side conversations with conference participants—there is a clear desire for the the Great Tradition of the Church (East and West). While this desire for the Great Tradition does not extend to an explicitly stated desire to join the Church, my experience at CAPS suggests that there is more that we can do as Orthodox Christians in our evangelistic outreach. We have, as I've said before, not really extended our outreach to the academic world in general, much less the world of the social and natural sciences.
But we need to—not simply because people are interested, but because Christ has commanded it of us!
Anyway, I'll post more on CAPS tomorrow.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory

TURKEY Bartholomew: search for unity between Orthodox and Catholics

Bartholomew: search for unity between Orthodox and Catholics "a duty"

NAT da Polis

On the occasion of the feast of St. Andrew, founder of the Church of Constantinople, the patriarch and Cardinal Kasper reaffirm that the ecumenical journey is a road without alternatives.

Istanbul (AsiaNews) - The homilies for the services and celebrations for the patron of Constantinople, St. Andrew, were centered on the certainty that the common journey toward full unity between the two sister Churches - Catholic and Orthodox - is the only answer, including to the challenges of today's world in full economic, political, and social crisis.

The celebrations were attended by a large delegation from the Church of Rome, led by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the council for Christian unity, representatives of the other Christian confessions, the diplomatic corps, and various authorities.

Ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew began his homily by recalling the historic meeting in Jerusalem in 1964, between Paul VI and Athenagoras, which put an end to the historic and distasteful schism of 1054 between the two sister Churches, initiating a dialogue of love and truth in full and mutual respect, with the objective of reestablishing full communion. And precisely in order to highlight this journey toward full communion, Bartholomew gave the example of the two brothers "in the flesh," Andrew and Peter, who later became spiritual brothers in Christ, to emphasize the role that the two sister Churches must play. Although the two brothers Peter and Andrew followed different geographical paths to testify to the truth of Christ our Lord - the former sanctified the Church of Rome with his own blood, while the latter founded the Church of Byzantium, which later became Constantinople - they have remained united in the course of history through the two Churches: Rome and Constantinople.

This connection between the two apostles, Bartholomew continued, the beginning of which was biological in nature, later became a spiritual bond in the name of our Lord, and ended up constituting the bond that unites the Churches. And this bond must always be kept in mind, continued the ecumenical patriarch, in order to restore full unity. Because today, by honoring the apostle Andrew, one also honors the apostle Peter - it is not possible to think of Peter and Andrew separately. The thorns must therefore be removed which for a millennium have wounded relations between the two Churches, and guidance toward unity must be taken from the spirit of the common tradition of the seven ecumenical councils of the first millennium. And all of this is not only out of respect for our two apostles, Bartholomew concluded, but also because it is our duty toward the contemporary world, which is going through a tremendous sociopolitical, cultural, and economic crisis. A world that has urgent need of the message of peace, of which the founder of our Church, Jesus Christ, is the messenger, through his cross and resurrection. Only then will the word of our Church be credible, when it can also give a message of peace and love: "Come and see" (John 1:47).

Cardinal Kasper, as the pope\'s representative, also focused in his homily on the importance of dialogue for full unity between the Churches, saying that the same feast is celebrated today in Rome, a sign of our common apostolic heritage, which requires us to work for full communion. Because this ecumenical commitment is not an option, but a duty toward our Lord, in order to be able to consider ourselves an essential part of the Church of Christ, our Lord.

Kasper then cited the three visits of the ecumenical patriarch to Rome in 2008, which included his participation, together with Pope Benedict, in the inauguration of the Pauline year, and his address to the synod of Catholic bishops, also at the invitation of the pope. This reinforced the bonds between Rome and Constantinople. He concluded by speaking of the importance of the document of Ravenna (2007) in the dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox.

Finally, in a conversation with AsiaNews, Cardinal Kasper maintained that the journey with the Orthodox, although it will certainly not be short, has started on the right path, "in part because we have many, many things in common with the Orthodox." Moreover, Kasper continued, the fact that Constantinople has a very broad vision helps a great deal in the journey of dialogue toward full communion.

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What is a monastery?

Given the recent conversations here about lay spiritual formation and monasticism, I thought the following by Hieromonk Maximos, a Romanian Catholic monk at Holy Resurrection Monastery might be of interest. The following is an excerpt from a somewhat larger post, "Monasticism vs. The Cult of Usefulness," which can be found at Fr Maximos' blog The Anastasis Dialogue.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

What is a monastery?

I'd like to begin with the definition of monasticism that you [Note: this reflection came about as part of a correspondence with a supporter] took from a Catholic dictionary:

an institutionalized religious practice or movement whose members attempt to live by a rule that requires works that go beyond those of either the laity or the ordinary spiritual leaders of their religions. Commonly celibate and universally ascetic, the monastic individual separates himself or herself from society either by living as a hermit or anchorite (religious recluse) or by joining a community (coenobium) of others who profess similar intentions. First applied to Christian groups, both Latin and Greek.

Against this I would like to contrast the statement by Pope John Paul II in Orientale Lumen, \"in the Christian East monasticism is the reference point for all the baptized.\" Do you see the difference? One is an institutional definition. The other is a statement of vision and purpose. One of the greatest challenges to our monastery has always been that plenty of people think they know what a monastery is (the institutional definition) but very few really understand why it should be (vision and purpose). Is that because we have failed to explain it? Or is that the challenge posed by the monastic vision is such that people are resistant to it??

Let me put this another way. The late Pope said that monasticism for Eastern Christians is the standard by which their whole Christian existence is to be measured. Good. Then where are the monasteries for Eastern Catholics?

Now this is not just a slam against Eastern Catholics! The reason that monastic life is not real for them is because for several centuries they have been greatly influenced by secular notions coming to them from the West. In the West \"religious life\" was divided into thousands of orders and congregations, each distinguished by its particular work or charism. This division was itself immensely helped by secular notions of religion as an (at best!) useful way of delivering social services like schools, hospitals and public moral instruction in parish churches.

What was lost in this was that ancient, patristic sense that the pursuit of perfection through prayer and asceticism is not simply one vocation among many, something for an elite, but the Christian vocation pure and simple. All Christians are called to martyrdom, witnessing to all their death to self and life in Christ. All Christians are called to martyrdom, either \"red\" or \"white\", witness of blood or marytiria of asceticism.

Sorry for the history lesson. I do have a point here! And the point is that people think they know what a monastery is, but really most people have no clue. Not really. And the reason they have no clue is because many, many people--even among those who attend church services regularly--have lost sight of the reason they were called to become Christians in the first place. The real reason for the decline in monasticism is the decline in fervor for the Christian struggle. Who, in the end, really wants martrydom?

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A Very Long Post on Very Important Matters

Chrys' post (Guest Post: Called and Gifted – Some initial thoughts) has generated some uncommonly thoughtful—and long!—comments that I would encourage people to read closely. Rare does one get this level of insightful conversation about lay spirituality. Add to this that the conversation is in an ecumenical key, and well, it is I think simply worth taking the time to read what has been written. You can find the comments here.

Thinking about what has been written reminds me that one of the difficulties in a conversation across traditions about the spiritual life is found not simply in the areas where we diverge or disagree. Often it is when we closest to each other that we face the most challenges. This, again to me at least, is understandable enough. The risk of communion, especially in its initially stages, is fusion—the loss of our own distinctiveness as either persons or communities.

One way of defending ourselves in these moments, a temptation that all the commentators have thankfully avoided, is to compare "our" best to "your" worst. (Or as I think to think of it in my less sober moments: "I'm eccentric," but "You're a nutter.") Another temptation, and this is by far the more common way of fleeing our responsibility to love and love responsibly, is to simply say we are all the same and denying our differences and (in so doing) and commonalities.

Jack is right when he say that "part of the challenge here is in the way one uses the word 'experience' and that that has less to do with the history of Western Christianity per se, as in the changes that occurred in the West." In my own graduate education we rather intentionally avoided the word "experience" because it is simply to subjectivistic. In place of experience we used the term event—one aspect certainly is what I think about what happens, but my thinking, my reflection on the event does not exhaust the meaning of an event—and it may even reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the event, i.e., I can be mistaken.

Put another way, while psychology is an important element of the spiritual life—and I will be speaking on what psychologists can tell us about the spiritual life at the January 2009 meeting of the Society of St John Chrysostom here in Youngstown—we can't equate the spiritual life with the psychological content of that life. This I think is simply to affirm both Jack's caution that we not "experience with emotions" and Chrys' concern with not falling prey to assuming that we not reduce to spiritual life to "the ecstatic experience itself."

In Christ, we are invited into a relationship with God the Father. Following St Paul, and as I mentioned at the Called & Gifted Workshop, the charisms represent the concrete content of that relationship. Sr Macrina's citation on he own blog ("A Vow of Conversation") of Zizioulas on the inter-relationship of Christology, Pneumatology and ecclesiology is germane here. Zizioulas writes that

The Spirit is not something that "animates" a Church which already somehow exists. The Spirit makes the Church be. Pneumatology does not refer to the well-being but to the very being of the Church. It is not about a dynamism which is added to the essence of the Church. It is the very essence of the Church. The Church is constituted in and through eschatology and communion. Pneumatology is an ontological category in ecclesiology. (Being as Communion, 132)

Sp too with us, the charisms are how we are brought simultaneously into a relationship with the Holy Trinity and with the Church. Clearly, there is—and must be—an experiential component in all of this. If personal experience was absent, if I had no experience of the Holy Trinity, I would not be in a relationship with God. And so, with Jack, I would say human "experience is vital to the life of a Christian and that it is the really fertile soil of the Christian life."

Our turn to human experience, as both Chrys and Jack argue in their own way, is not only fertile, it is fraught with real danger. We cannot, and must not reduce experience to emotions. But once we say, again as both Chrys and Jack do in their own way, that we must cultivate "(i) an openness to reality (and thus our encounter with it) and (ii) the act of judgment—of discerning the meaning of our encounters for our lives" we have left behind the merely experiential or subjective. Or, to borrow from Chrys, the Orthodox don't "denigrate experience—far from it. But there is a pervasive initial distrust of the thing itself, not just the emotions that may be involved, that I never saw in either Catholic or Protestant circles."

It is this last point by Chrys, where Sherry focuses her own comments.

I may be mistaken but Sherry seems to me to agree with Chrys' criticisms when she says in response to him that "It would be most inaccurate historically to believe that what characterizes common Catholic life now in the west has been the norm in the past." She continues later in her comments by saying:

I think it is important to realize that a large part of what you have encountered among Catholics today is post-modernity, not actual Catholic spiritual traditions. The working assumptions of post-modernity permeated the west in the 60's and entered the Catholic church in this country.

Our experience of having talked to many thousands about their spiritual experience is two-fold: the majority of American Catholics are not yet disciples of Jesus Christ, the vast majority are both universalist and Pelagian in their understanding of salvation, and many are essentially post-modern and New Age in their world view which is covered by a thin veneer of Catholic sacramental practice. I've summed this wide-spread but seldom articulated view of the faith this way:

We are all saved and we have all earned it but none of us are saints because that wouldn't be humble.

In other words, most of us have it reversed: a staggering presumption where humility and fear of the Lord is required and a complete lack of magnanimity where it is necessary.

Mindful of the failings I see around me in the Orthodox Church, I would suggest that pastorally, if not historically, a significant point of divergence between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches is the difference in each community's awareness (or lack thereof) of essential role of asceticism in the Christian life.

While I have great respect for the spiritual and ascetical tradition of the Catholic Church, for all practical purposes that tradition is no longer part of the awareness of most Catholics. While I do not wish to speak for the whole Orthodox Church, this lack of physical asceticism among most Catholics is a very worrisome thing for me. While the work of St Francis de Sales, for example, has much to recommend it, shifting the focus from physical asceticism . . . [to] spiritual, imaginative, and emotional detachment and serene attachment to the will of God" is I think precisely the turn to the psychological that Chrys is criticizing.

Sr Macrina offers me some insight into where the difference between Catholic and Orthodox spirituality when she writes

that there are various factors responsible for the falling apart of the ascetical tradition in the West and, while cultural factors of the last few decades have played a role, the roots go much deeper. These include the loss of the body's role as bearer of meaning, a juridically orientated understanding of salvation, the divorce between "mysticism" and ecclesial life and an increasingly institutional understanding of the Church, and probably many others. In any case, I have the impression that the penitential practices of the last few centuries had lost their connection with transformation and theosis, leading to a reaction that has made asceticism a dirty word in many Catholic circles.

Sr Macrina's observations brings to mind something from Chrys' original post:

the Orthodox starts with a firm understanding of ascetical practice as a foundational element of discipleship. The priority given to this practice is directly tied to the purpose of discipleship and the goal of salvation: theosis. Since this understanding tends to be absent, forgotten, misunderstood or diminished in the West, it can be difficult for Catholics and Protestants to understand. Many western Christians simply move from conversion to mission with only a vague notion as to the ultimate purpose or meaning of the Christian life.

While the Orthodox Church have preserved a living awareness of asceticism for all, where we have fallen down on the job is on making the connection between asceticism and discipleship in our parishes. Yes, we (the Orthodox fast), but we do not always see the connection between fasting and discipleship.

One of the reasons that I invited Sherry and Fr Mike to my parish is because, while their program arose out of a different set of pastoral concerns, it nevertheless speaks to a critical lack in the pastoral life of both our Churches: the call of the laity. Yes, I think that Catholic laypeople (as well as clergy and religious) would do well to return to the ascetical tradition that fell by the wayside in the Catholic Church some years ago (on this see After Asceticism: Sex, Prayer and Deviant Priests, by The Linacre Institute). I also think, however, that the renewed interest in lay spiritual formation among Catholics is something that the Orthodox can, and should, adapt to our own circumstances. There is a great deal Orthodox can learn from Catholics about lay spiritual formation.

In addition to the work of Sherry's own group, the Catherine of Siena Institute, there is the work of Fr. Luigi Giussani, the founder of the Catholic lay movement Communion and Liberation as well as the work of the current head of CL, Fr. Julian Carron. And if I may be permitted to put in a plug for my own doctoral work, I think what I learned from the late Fr Adrian van Kaam and the faculty at Duquesne University's Institute of Formative Spirituality, is also of undeniable value.

Looking over the conversation here, it seems to me that the Catholic and Orthodox Churches share significant areas of pastoral concern. As a personal matter, I do not think that either Church risks compromising its own ecclesiological claims for herself by acknowledge this and seeking to learn from the other.

But for this to work, and without reference to those who I have referenced in this essay, we must approach each other in a spirit of openness and gratitude, without defensiveness or polemics. As I said at the beginning, given our common challenges we will find this most challenging precisely because of our similarity to each other.

Again, thank you to everyone who posted. I look forward to further conversations with you all.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

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Cultivating Gratitude & Thanksgiving

I tell my spiritual children, and anyone else who will listen, that we must cultivate in our hearts a spirit of gratitude, of thanksgiving to God for the whole of our life. We are surrounded daily with what, to me as a child anyway, would have been unbelievable riches and technological wonders. How easy it is to take all this for granted rather than, as I think we should, stand in awe at the genius of the human person.

And why should we not see our own genius? We are all of us created in the image of God. And we are all of called by Christ to restore in ourselves by His grace and our own efforts, His likeness.

King David writes in the Psalm 8 about the majesty of God, His creation and the human person:

Psalm 8

O LORD, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth,
Who have set Your glory above the heavens!

Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have ordained strength,
Because of Your enemies,
That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.

You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen—
Even the beasts of the field,
The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas.

O LORD, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

Commenting on this Psalm, St John Chrysostom says, "Taking full account of such marvelous care and such wonderful providence on God's part, and the arrangement he put in place for the salvation of the human race, King David is struck with complete wonder and amazement as to why on earth God considered them worthy of attention."

The saint then continues by asking us to consider that "after all, that all the visible things" are for our sake. It is for us that "the design implemented from the time of Adam up" to the coming of Christ was put in place. All things from God are given to us, for us: "paradise, commandments, punishments, miracles, retribution, kindness after the Law." And of course for us and our salvation, "the Son became Man."

And after all this what "could anyone say of the future [we] are intended to enjoy?"

But we lose all this if we are not able to cultivate in ourselves gratitude and thanksgiving for all that God has given us, things great and small, spiritual and material, eternal and temporal. To that end, I offer for consideration a brief video of the comic Louis CK on Late Night with Conan O'Brien."

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory




h/t: Benedict Seraphim

Some Further Thoughts on the Called & Gifted Workshop

As I said in my last post, the "Called & Gifted" Workshop my parish hosted this past weekend went quite well.

The content of the workshop was very good. As I have mentioned before, I think that Orthodox Christians tend to emphasize the monastic vocation so much that we underplay the vocational implications of holy baptism. Sherry Weddell's presentation I think did a very good job of helping people understand the importance--and priority--of our personal, baptismal vocations.

Specifically, she pointed out that in baptism we are both called to an apostolic and evangelistic work AND given gifts (charisms) that make it possible for us to fulfill that work. We are not, in other words, simply passive consumers of religious good, but have been sent out (Gk: apostolos, "someone sent out", e.g. with a message or as a delegate) by Christ to announce (GK: euangelion, or "good news") the Gospel or the Good News. The charisms/gifts we receive at baptism are what make it possible for us to do this. These charism, Sherry stressed, are not given to me for me alone, but for you, for your salvation.

Christians are called and gifted by Christ to be men and women for others--and this is true whether we are laypeople, monastics, clergy or hiearchs--we are all of us called to live for others.

Seeing ourselves this way means being willing to see the Church in a new way. The Church is not an end in itself. As Metropolitan JONAH said in Pittsburgh at the All-American Council, what happens at Liturgy is important, but is only about "5%" of what it means to be a Christian. The rest of our Christian life is about how we treat others. This is a very challenging notion for many of us.

My life as Orthodox Christians, my salvation, is not simply about me, but my willingness to serve others in their need.

As with the individual Christian, so too with the Church. The Church is a community for others in their need. We can't withdraw into our parishes and claim to be faithful to Christ.

Very easily, this kind of message could become a mere harangue. One of things that was most effective in the workshop was Sherry's very matter of fact presentation of the information. As one woman in my parish put it, "It was all very business like," direct and to the point. The power of the message was its truthfulness, her words were their own confirmation.

Talking with one of the men in the parish and with my godson who came from Pittsburgh for the workshop, we were in agreement that other Orthodox Christians would also find this a profitable use of their time. In the coming months we hope to do two things.

First, continue the process of discerning our own personal gifts and our gifts as a community. Second, and following from this, we hope to work with Sherry and the Catherine of Siena Institute to adapt more specifically the "Called & Gifted" Workshop to the pastoral needs of the Church.

The lives and examples of the saints play large part of the "Called & Gifted" Workshop. During the weekend, Sherry and I illustrated the different charisms that God gives to His People by telling about the lives of different saints, East and West, Orthodox and Catholic. While the theological content of the workshop does not require much (if any) revision for an Orthodox audience, I think that it would be good for me to do addition research in the lives of the saints as their lives can help illustrate our baptismal vocation to be apostles and evangelists.

Finally, in addition to our time together, one of the best things that was done over the weekend was the "Catholic Spiritual Gifts Inventory." This is a very simple self-scored paper and pencil test that gives the test taker a place to begin his or her own prayerful discernment of his/her personal vocation. While such a test can't replace the insight that comes from our spiritual fathers, it does have great practical value in helping us understand the different gifts God may have given us.

Grounding our vocation not in our conformity to an external standard but to the prompting of grace in our hearts and confirmed by the Church is something both perfectly compatible with Holy Tradition and often sadly lacking in our work with people in the parish and the seminaries. St Anthony the Great says somewhere that if I would know God I must first know myself. The "Called & Gifted" Workshop is I think a valuable aid in helping Orthodox Christians fulfill the saint's advice to us.

Again, thank you to all who made the "Called & Gifted" Workshop a success. After Thanksgiving, I hope to have photos for you.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

This Weekend’s “Called & Gifted” Workshop

This past weekend, Friday November 21-Saturday November 22, 2008, the parish I serve, Holy Assumption Orthodox Church (OCA), Canton, OH hosted a "Called & Gifted" Workshop presented by Sherry Anne Weddell, who together with Fr Michael Fones, O.P., is co-director of the Catherine of Siena Institute in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Unfortunately, Fr. Mike had to fly to Eugene unexpectedly early Wednesday morning (11/19) to be with his dear friend Pat Armstrong who was gravely ill. (Please remember Pat and her loving husband Rich, and their family (which includes Fr. Mike) in your prayers) and so was not able to attend the workshop.

As I mentioned in an earlier post (Lay Spiritual Formation: An Ecumenical Opportunity), the "Called & Gifted Workshop" is a project of the Catherine of Siena Institute. It is "a program of the Western Dominican Province dedicated to equipping parishes for the formation of lay Catholics for their mission in the world." To do this, in their own words, they "provide innovative programs, resources, and leadership training that are faithful to Church teaching and will enable your parish to become a dynamic center of lay formation and mission.

The program itself was well attended with 50 participants (roughly equally divided between Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics). Among other joys, the rector of St Innocent Orthodox Church (OCA) Fr Michael Butler (and my college roommate) came down from Olmsted Falls, OH with 5 of his parishioners. My godson Chris ("Chrys" who comments frequently and eloquently on this blog) also came from Pittsburgh for the workshop. Given the rather miserable weather (the snow squalls were so bad we had white out conditions at several points) I was grateful that ANYONE attended much less that we had visitors from northeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania!

Sherry asked me to fill in for the absent Fr Mike and so I found myself in the interesting position of explaining to Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians the renewal in Roman Catholic thinking that came about as a result of the Second Vatican Council. In addition to a more Eucharistic view of ecclesiology, the Vatican II also presented a renewed understood the vocation of Catholic laity in the modern world.

This renewal was in response was in response to challenges facing not only Catholics the Orthodox Church. This is especially the case for the Orthodox Church we move more and more into American culture.

This, I should add, is not a "covert" vs. "cradle" thing—but a natural part of our growth as the Church here in America. Precisely because, as Fr Alexander Schmemann would argue, Christian life is always "from above," from Heaven and not simply from below (i.e., from history or culture) we are always being challenged to see ourselves, the Church and the world around us every more clearly in the Divine Light.

It amazes me, for example, that people can be so attached to their vision of how a parish is supposed to be, that they would rather see a community fail rather than change (forgetting for a moment as St Gregory of Nyssa reminds us, the ability to change--and change often--is what makes it possible for human beings to become like the God Who changes not).

Thus though the new grace we may obtain is greater than what we had before, it does not put a limit on our final goal; rather, for those who are rising in perfection, the limit of the good that is attained becomes the beginning of the discovery of higher goods. Thus they never stop rising, moving from one new beginning to the next, and the beginning of ever greater graces is never limited of itself For the desire of those who thus rise never rests in what they can already understand; but by an ever greater and greater desire, the soul keeps rising constantly to another that lies ahead, and thus it makes its way through ever higher regions towards the Transcendent.

One of the points that Sherry frequently returned to in her own presentations is that by virtue of our baptism, each of us in our uniqueness is an essential part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. All of us, whether lay or ordained, are not called to proclaim the Gospel, but we are given unique gifts (charism) that our apostolic and evangelistic call both possible and fruitful

Thinking of Sherry's presentation, I am reminded of the words of Metropolitan Jonah at the All-American Council. To the degree that the Church becomes is an end in itself, to the degree that it becomes "just for us' and not "for the life of the world," to that degree we lose a part of the joy that should be ours. Or, as His Beatitude put the matter,

Being Orthodox is not about what we do in church, that's maybe 5%. Being an Orthodox Christian is how we live. It's how we treat one another. It's our self-denial and our self-giving. It's our self-transcendence. And, ultimately, what does that lead to, but the complete fulfillment of our personhood in Christ, so that we become who God made us to be in a communion of love with one another. One of the most important things, so far as tasks go that I think it's a vision that we can embrace as a community.

That 5% is important, critical, essential, but it is only the starting point. We need that 5%, but, we also need to keep our priorities in order. As Jesus says in the Gospel:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. (Mt 23.23)

Metropolitan Jonah and Sherry were both touching on a theme near and dear to Schmemann's heart: the temptation to "secularism." When the Church becomes an end in itself, it becomes merely a part of life and not life itself and as a result, we live lives that seek always to Christ and the Gospel neatly in their places so that we are not disturbed and we can go about our lives.

Secularism, our neglect of our baptismal call and the gifts we have received in Holy Baptism is antithesis of what we mean when as Orthodox Christians we speak about theosis, of our coming to participate in divine life. As iron in the fire takes on all the qualities of fire and yet remains iron, so we take on all the qualities of God and remain human. This is what we mean when we say, as Catholic or Orthodox Christians, that Christ has redeemed us. He has redeemed all of human life or none of it. Again, as Schmemann says, "the term 'sacramental' means that for the world to be a means of worship and a means of grace is not accidental, but the revelation of its meaning, the restoration of its essence, the fulfillment of its destiny." (For the Life of the World, p. 121)

There are many blessings that came out of this past weekend. One of the chief though is that it demonstrated, to me at least, that Catholic and Orthodox Christians can assist and sustain each other as we strive to be faithful to Christ and His call to us. Yes, certainly we disagree on some points. But there is much we share and that we can do together that does not betray our respective traditions.

Several of the Orthodox participants were so impressed that they asked if we might tailor the "Called & Gifted" Workshop for use in an Orthodox context. I spoke with Sherry about this and she is certainly open and supportive of such a project. My own view is that there is relatively little that would need to be done.

Hopefully, I'll be able to post a link to photos of the weekend on the parish web page. Until then, I would encourage people to take a look at the Catherine of Siena web site and its blog, "Intentional Disciples."

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

In his essay "On the Question of the Order of Reception of Persons into the Orthodox Church, Coming to Her from Other Christian Churches," Archimandrite Ambrosius (Pogodin) makes some interesting observations regarding at least the view of the Moscow Patriarchate that bear on the relationship between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Fr Ambrosius writes that

Following the Second Vatican Council an agreement was worked out between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Church that, in the case of extreme need and in the complete absence of their clergy, members of the Roman Church could receive the Holy Mysteries in Russian Churches and likewise, the Orthodox in Roman Catholic Churches. We have no knowledge whether this agreement was realized in practice or whether it only remains on paper. Not a single Orthodox Church, with the exception of the Russian Church Abroad, reproached the Patriarch of Moscow for this decision which was called forth by the terrible times and persecutions of Christians under godless regimes. Nonetheless this decision has not been rescinded even now, and the recently printed catechism of the Roman Church published with the blessing of Pope John Paul II speaks of the full recognition of the sacraments of the Orthodox Church. However, there is no doubt that as the result of the proselytism among the traditionally Orthodox population — by Roman Catholics and by Protestants — to which the Orthodox Church reacts with great distress, as well as on the repression against the Orthodox in Western Ukraine and even in Poland — there is no longer that warmth and cordiality towards the Orthodox as there was during the Second Vatican Council and for some time afterwards. However, the incisive question today is this: Has there been any change in the practice of the Roman Catholic or Lutheran Churches with respect to their sacrament of baptism? And the answer is this: Nothing has changed. Thus, our Churches (with the exception of the Russian Church Abroad), recognize the sacrament of baptism performed by Roman Catholics and Lutherans as valid.

(A side note, Fr Ambrosius attended the Vatican II as an official observer from the Russian Church Abroad.)

Contrary to what we some times imagine the divisions between East and West--at least as it pertains to the Orthodox and Catholic Churches--are not as wide as some would imagine.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Dialectical, Dialogical and Reconciliatory: The Evangelical Imperative

In his speech opening the recent gathering in Constantinople of Orthodox bishops His All Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew stress at one point the importance of evangelizing not only those outside the Church but also those who are baptized.

My first though on reading this was, well, thank God!

The need to evangelize our own faithful is something that Orthodox priests often discuss privately when we gather together, but we are sometime less forthright about publicly. Add to this that it is not at all unheard of for Orthodox Christian clergy and laity to minimize the need for the evangelism of the faithful (including the clergy). Sometimes this argument takes the form not of dismissing evangelism out of hand. More often though it is argued (at least by example) that participation in the service of the Church is sufficient.

His All Holiness points out in response to the neglect of the evangelism of the faithful "that in contemporary societies, especially in the context of western civilization, faith in Christ can in no way be taken at all for granted." Our evangelism whether it involves us with ministering to those outside or inside the Church can only "be developed or expounded [in] dialogue with modern currents of philosophical thought and social dynamics, as well as with various forms of art and culture of our times." At least in my better moments as a priest, I have taken to heart the primacy of dialog as the means of bring the Good News to others and have found it to be the most fruitful and joyful part of my ministry.

That said, there remains a central and ongoing struggle in me: Remembering that the proclamation of the Gospel "cannot be aggressive." When it is, "as it often unfortunately is; [it is] is of no benefit at all." To avoid aggression in the proclamation of the Gospel requires from me a real ascetical effort. Respecting the freedom of others, trying to find the points of commonality and convergence between us, can only proceed by an act of self-emptying (kenosis) that seems absent in much of what passes for Orthodox outreach and evangelism.

At least within the American context, Orthodox Christians seem to have often adopted a triumphalistic style of evangelism. Much of the material that we publish and much of what we say publicly seems specifically directed at convincing Western Christians (and specifically Evangelical Christians) to become Orthodox. Add to this that we produce very little that is directed to the non-Christian and it seems hard to deny that we are more concerned with proselytizing than evangelism. His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew challenges us who are more inclined to proselytize Western to undertake instead the much more difficult task of entering into a conversation with those without any religious faith, or indeed even those among us who are only marginally committed baptized Orthodox Christians.

Unlike proselytizing (which begins not with proclaiming the Gospel but by undermining the faith of those we speak with) evangelism (whether internal or external in focus) requires that we "first understand other people and discern their deeper concerns." As Bartholomew points out "even behind disbelief, there lies concealed the search for the true God." Entering into the disbelief of others, seeing it sympathetically and with compassion as a search for God, is personally challenging and to many threatening.

The empathic approach to evangelism requires that I find in my own heart the strains of disbelief, doubt and despair that are the seed bed of what the late Pope John Paul II called in Evangelium vitae

the "culture of death" or what Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) called in his 2005 homily the "dictatorship of relativism." Triumphalism, and all forms of intellectual and emotional manipulation of others, is itself a fleeing from the hard work of dialog grounded in accurate self-knowledge. Ironically, these and other forms of religious aggression (what His All Holiness calls "fanaticism") are themselves also symptoms of the very culture of death that the Church condemns.

What then are we to do? How are we to proceed in our evangelism in a way that avoids aggression and take seriously the concerns of those with whom we speak? Our evangelism, as with all of the Church's ministries must (and again I'm borrowing from His All Holiness) "dialectical, dialogical and reconciliatory."

Especially given the use of the intellectually loaded term "dialectical" is tempting to read the concerns of contemporary philosophy into the above. Given the openness toward modern thought that informs His All Holiness speech, this is not by any means an unwarranted approach. While it is certainly would be worthwhile to engage the different meanings possible in the term dialectical, I think it would be more profitable to understand the dialectical, dialogical and reconciliatory character of the Church's ministry in general, and evangelism in particular, by taking my cue from the text of the Patriarch's speech.

The vision of the Church's ministry outlined in the speech is one that reflects "the connection between the unity of the Church and the unity of the world, on which the Apostle to the Gentiles insist." This dual unity "imposes on us the need to assume the role of peacemaker within a world torn by conflicts." Precisely because we are called to be peacemakers, we "cannot—indeed, it must not—in any way nurture religious fanaticism, whether consciously or subconsciously." Certainly, "When zeal becomes fanaticism, it deviates from the nature of the Church," and so "we must develop initiatives of reconciliation wherever conflicts among people either loom or erupt." While I agree that "Inter-Christian and inter-religious dialogue is the very least of our obligations; and it is one that we must surely fulfill," I find myself wondering what such a dialog might look like. This is especially important, at least to me, when I wonder what such a dialog might look like pastorally.

In tomorrow's post I wish to offer one suggestion by returning to a idea I presented earlier. I would argue that we look to the Mystery of Confession as a model for a form of evangelism and ministry that is, as His All Holiness argues, is dialectical, dialogical and reconciliatory.

As always, I not only welcome your thoughts, questions and comments, but actively solicit them.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Catholics and Orthodox Are Being Reconciled

Two commentators, Michael and Fr Christian (that isn't them at left!), have asked questions in response to the recent speech by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. Rather than respond to them in the comment box, I thought I would do so here in the hopes of generating a more general conversation.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory


Dear Michael and Fr Christian,

Thank you both for your comments and questions. Let me please me answer you both in turn.

Michael, I read through the comments on Fr. John Zuhlsdorf's most excellent blog "What Does the Prayer Really Say." (For those interested in reading through them they are posted on 21 June and offered in response to an in accurate news report that the Ecumenical Patriarch was suggesting "dual communion" with Rome and Constantinople for Ukrainian Catholics.) To be honest, I found the comments from a number of the Catholic commentators to be harsh. While I appreciate their desire to defend the Catholic faith, both in content, and more importantly tone, the words seem likely not to foster reconciliation but rather lead only to a further estrangement between Catholic and Orthodox Christians. As I have argued before, I believe that ecumenical conversations, especially on the grassroots level, should be limited to the sphere of influence of the participants.

In other words, if I'm not in a position to change the dogmatic teaching of the Orthodox Church, I ought not to have a conversation about how the Catholic Church needs to change her own dogmatic teaching. Too often, and the comments both on Fr John's blog as well as on this one, have reflected the delusional conviction that the commentator was in himself (and why is it almost always a man?) to pass dogmatic judgment on what is, and is not, the authentic teaching of one Church relative to the other. We need to limit, or so it seems to me, to the areas of the Christian life entrusted to our care.

For those well versed in Catholic social teaching, or for that matter conservative political philosophy, this is a variation on the principle of subsidiarity. David A. Bosnich on the Acton Institute's blog describes subsidiarity as arguing "that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be." The resolution of dogmatic differences between the Catholic and Orthodox Church (or between either of this communities and the communities that arose with and after the Reformation) is an profoundly complex undertaken and well beyond what can be done by individual Catholic or Orthodox Christians in private conversations (whether they are face to face or electronic).

As I said a moment ago, I found the some of the comments on Fr Z's blog, as I have some comments here and on other electronic forums, uncharitable and more likely to foster a grassroots spirit of distrust and estrangement rather than a grassroots spirit of trust and reconciliation. From my own experience, I fear this happens even when the comments are themselves are initially charitable. Part of this is a reflection of the limits of the internet. But more importantly I think it reflects the imprudence of engaging in theological conversations across traditions—too often we engage each other in ways that are simply irresponsible. At its core this reflects a willingness (including on more than one occasion, my own willingness I must confess) to take to ourselves a degree of responsibility that belongs to our respective bishops meeting together in council. The conversations so often degenerate into mere polemics because we are irresponsible in our conversations.

I am not a bishop and I need to limit my conversation with Catholics to matters appropriate to my office as a presbyter that is as a teacher, an administrator and a counselor. Likewise, when Catholic and Orthodox laypeople sit down to take across traditions they must limit themselves to their own office as members of the laity. One challenge here is that, though the Orthodox Church has a long history of active lay participation in the life of the Church, that tradition has largely been neglected in recent years. For many Orthodox laypeople, their understanding of their ministry is limited to parish council, teaching church school, or singing in the choir.

The ministry of the laity, and now I want to respond to Fr Christian's comments, is one area where I think both communities can profit by grassroots conversations. In my own ministry, conversations with Sherry Anne Weddell and Fr Mike Fones, OP, have deepened my understanding and appreciated of the role of the laity to sanctify the world. For example, and again I've said this here before, there are no Orthodox parishes in the United States that weren't founded by laypeople. This is especially true of the often unappreciated and unjustly criticized "ethnic" parishes. Among the Orthodox laity there are many very gifted and energetic evangelists whose ministry is often overlooked and under supported.

My own view as a priest who has spent the whole of my ministry working either as a missionary and/or with parishes in crisis and transition is that what is most needed is conversations between Catholic and Orthodox Christians that focus on what we can learn from each other to foster the ministries of our respective Churches. What, for example, can Catholics teach Orthodox Christians about the ministry of the laity? Likewise, what might Orthodox Christian have to offer to Catholic Christians about liturgy and spirituality?

Let me offer some examples from my own life.

I am generally considered a good preacher and spiritual director. Without presuming against divine grace, "that which always heals what is infirm and completes what is lacking" skills I learned how to do both from my Roman Catholic professors at Duquesne University and the University of Dallas. So too my ministry with college students and young adults is the fruit of my conversations with Roman Catholics, Protestant and Jewish campus ministers and clergy who served the students at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Fr Christian, your own interest in painting icons, as with Michael's interest in how the Orthodox Church ministers to marriages in crisis, both reflect outstanding beginnings in fostering grassroots reconciliation between our two Churches. We do not, in the main, trust each other because, in the main, we do not see any profit in learning from the other. And because we see no profit in learning from each other, we do not trust each other.

But, in the final analysis, what is really a miss is my own heart. Too often I substitute polemics against the other for a commitment to Christ and the Gospel. The more I commit myself to Christ, to the preaching of the Gospel and the demands of my own office as a priest, the more I find a hunger not only for the riches and wisdom of the Orthodox Tradition, but also an openness to the riches and wisdom of the Catholic Tradition (and I would add, the Protestant and Evangelical tradition, to say nothing of other religious traditions and the findings of the natural, social and human sciences as well as philosophy, politics, economics, and law to name only a few).

Michael and Fr Christian, thank you again for your comments and questions. I would invite not only your thoughts, but also the thoughts of the others who read this essay. In our small way, we are all of us creating here a community that demonstrates that, while not without its challenges, Catholics and Orthodox Christians can be reconciled. We can learn from each other, we can trust each others, we can support and sustain each other in our spiritual lives, our parishes and our ministry.

We can be, we are being, reconciled.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Byzantine, Texas: 4th Union of Brest workgroup held

4th Union of Brest workgroup held

Making no assumptions about what you know of Ukrainian history, the Union of Brest was:

the 1595-1596 decision of the (Ruthenian) Church of Rus', the "Metropolia of Kiev-Halych and all Rus'", to break relations with the Patriarch of Constantinople and place themselves under the (patriarch) Pope of Rome, in order to avoid the domination of the newly established Patriarch of Moscow.

(UOC News) - On the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and all Ukraine on September 14-18 the session of the workgroup on writing the history of the Brest Union is held at the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and All Ukraine.

The group working on the project of writing history of the Brest Union of 1596 is composed of the Orthodox, Catholic and Greek Catholic researchers.

The project of writing the Brest Union history was launched by the international fund «Pro Oriente» in 2002 when the creation of the extra-confessional workgroup consisting of theologians and historians was initiated. The purpose of the project was carrying out the critical historical analysis of the sources, containing information on the events of 1595-96, caused by the attempts of the Orthodox Metropolitans to make Union with the Roman Catholic Church. The necessity of such research was stipulated for by the existence of the contradictory and mutually exclusive interpretations of the events by the end of the 16th century in various historical surveys. That is why the participants of the workgroup from the very beginning set a task to clear out on the basis of the sources how the events that took place 4 ages ago were understood by their participants.

By the present three sessions of the workgroup were held: In Vienna (2002), Teplytsia (2004)and Lviv (2006), during which the publication project of the research material was discussed and approved.

On September 14, on the premises of the Kyiv Metropolis in the Kyiv Caves Monastery the 4th session of the workgroup started. Its co-administrators were the fund «Pro Oriente» and the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC. Taking part in the meeting were President of the fund «Pro Oriente» Johann Marti (Austria), Archbishop Jeremiah of Vroclav and Schetin (the Orthodox Church of Poland), chariman of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC archimandrite Cyril (Hovorun), professor of the Institute of Theology and History of the Christian East and of the Catholic theological department of the University of Vienna priest Ernst Christoph Suttner (Austria), professor of the Institute of History of the University of Belostok Anton Mironovych (Poland), professor FranciszekMarek (Poland), Dean of the Institute of Church History of the Ukrainian Catholic University Oleg Turiy (Lviv), teacher of the Saint Tikhon Humanitarian University Vladyslav Petrushko (Moscow), teacher of the Kyiv Theological Academy Volodymyr Burega (Kyiv, the UOC representative), teacher of the Ukrainian Catholic University Igor Skogylias, Director of the European Research center of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy Kostyantyn Sigov (Kyiv), chief secretary of the fund «Pro Oriente» Marion Vittine (Austria).

H/T: Josephus Flavius at Byzantine Texas

Synod of Bishops

VATICAN 5-26 October 2008 Pope Benedict XVI convenes synod of world's Catholic bishops

The 12th general assembly of the Synod of Bishops meets in October to discuss "The Word of God in the Life and the Mission of the Church." Significantly, Bartholomew I, the 270th patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, will attend this first Synod called by Pope Benedict XVI.

One result of the Vatican Council II of the Catholic Church, which ran 1962 to 1965, was the decision to welcome "fraternal delegations" to synod assemblies. Father Joseph Ratzinger was a theological consultant for the 3-year Council. Now Pope Benedict XVI, he extended an invitation to the Synod to Bartholomew I when he visited the Vatican in March. The Patriarch accepted, and both leaders will address the Synod.

The gesture represents one of the Vatican's few fruitful overtures to leaders of the Eastern rite, or Orthodox, branch of Christianity, which split from the Roman church in the Middle Ages. Vatican sources describe the gesture as in "the spirt of Ravenna," referring to the mixed international commission for theological dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church that was held in Ravenna, Italy, in October 2007.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the pontifical council for Christian unity, explained the development to Vatican Radio in March as an important step forward, although "the road to full unity is still a very long one." The main obstacle is the Vatican's insistance on the primacy of the Pope.

Pope Paul VI established the Synod as a \"permanent council of bishops for the universal Church\" in 1965.

This is the first time Pope Benedict XVI has called a synod and chosen its theme. His predecessor, the late Pope John Paul II, had already set the 2005 Synod on the Eucharist in motion.