Pope Benedict XVI: On Signs of a Living Faith

From Pope Benedict XVI's Wednesday General Audience in Rome we hear words worth considering.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 26, 2008 (Zenit.org): Often we tend to fall into the same misunderstandings that have characterized the community of Corinth: Those Christians thought that, having been gratuitously justified in Christ by faith, "everything was licit." And they thought, and often it seems that the Christians of today think, that it is licit to create divisions in the Church, the body of Christ, to celebrate the Eucharist without concerning oneself with the brothers who are most needy, to aspire to the best charisms without realizing that they are members of each other, etc.

The consequences of a faith that is not incarnated in love are disastrous, because it is reduced to a most dangerous abuse and subjectivism for us and for our brothers. On the contrary, following St. Paul, we should renew our awareness of the fact that, precisely because we have been justified in Christ, we don't belong to ourselves, but have been made into the temple of the Spirit and are called, therefore, to glorify God in our bodies and with the whole of our existence (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:19). It would be to scorn the inestimable value of justification if, having been bought at the high price of the blood of Christ, we didn't glorify him with our body. In reality, this is precisely our "reasonable" and at the same time "spiritual" worship, for which Paul exhorts us to "offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God" (Romans 12:1).

To what would be reduced a liturgy directed only to the Lord but that doesn't become, at the same time, service of the brethren, a faith that is not expressed in charity? And the Apostle often puts his communities before the Final Judgment, on which occasion "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil" (2 Corinthians 5:10; and cf. Romans 2:16).

If the ethics that St. Paul proposes to believers does not lapse into forms of moralism, and if it shows itself to be current for us, it is because, each time, it always recommences from the personal and communitarian relationship with Christ, to verify itself in life according to the Spirit. This is essential: Christian ethics is not born from a system of commandments, but rather is the consequence of our friendship with Christ. This friendship influences life: If it is true, it incarnates and fulfills itself in love for neighbor. Hence, any ethical decline is not limited to the individual sphere, but at the same time, devalues personal and communitarian faith: From this it is derived and on this, it has a determinant effect.

Let us, therefore, be overtaken by the reconciliation that God has given us in Christ, by God's "crazy" love for us: No one and nothing could ever separate us from his love (cf. Romans 8:39). With this certainty we live. And this certainty gives us the strength to live concretely the faith that works in love.

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

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.

Thoughts on our Recent Dialog

Image by Sacred Destinations via Flickr

Thank you to all for your comments.

I would please remind everyone—as I have some privately—that charity and respect for others are not optional here.

Reading through the various comments, I do not think I have anything to add to the comments offered. This is especially the case in those offered by Chrys and Sherry.

The "Called & Gifted" workshop is certainly not without its own challenges. But it is worth noting, I think, that this kind of practical exchange between Catholic and Orthodox Christians—especially on the grassroots level—has a long history. This is especially so in Russia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. To take but one example, no less venerable an Orthodox saints than Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain and Theophan the Recluse offered their own version of the Roman Catholic text Unseen Warfare: The Spiritual Combat and Path to Paradise of Lorenzo Scupoli.

St Theophan's work, to take another quick example, is noteworthy for his incorporation into an Orthodox spiritual context of the decidedly Counter-Reformation theme from Catholic spirituality of the dark night of the soul/spirit (San Juan de la Cruz).

And of course there is the defense of St Augustine by Blessed Seraphim Rose of Platina.

It seems to me that in any conversation between Catholics and Orthodox, both sides must exercise great care that we hold ourselves above the polemics of the Reformation/Counter-Reformation era. This is something, I must point out in the strongest possible terms, that historically voices on both sides have failed to do. It is somewhat ironic, to me at least, that in the contemporary Orthodox theology, some of the most strongly polemic voiced sentiments, at least in the Russian tradition, are found in the anti-scholastic passages of the works of J. Meyendoroff, A. Schmemann and V. Lossky. What makes this ironic is that these men are often characterized by self-professed Traditionalists in the Orthodox Church as liberals (or if you rather, modernists).

Orthodox theology—including the theological scholarship of the men I just referenced—would be much the poorer it seems to me without the work of such Catholic scholars as H. von Balthasar, H. de Lubuc, and L. Bouyer who in leading the return of Catholic theology to the Fathers also made possible a like return among the Orthodox.

Finally, and unless I miss my guess all, or at least most, of those who have commented on the "Called & Gifted" workshop are ourselves converts to either Catholicism or Orthodoxy. One great temptation, especially I must say frankly and directly for those who were not well ground in the Great Tradition prior to their becoming Orthodox or Catholic, is to assume wrongly that the Catholic or Orthodox incarnation that, by God's grace they have found, exhausts that the Great Tradition. If, as a matter of faith, we hold that one expression (East or West, Greek or Latin) is theologically normative, we may not reasonably assume as a consequence that normative equals exhaustive. It does not. Let me go further and say that neither tradition is exhaustive in its articulation of the Gospel. And, likewise, we cannot understand either the Western or Eastern expression of the Great Tradition separate from, much less in opposition to, the other.

If East and West have grown apart in recent years, this separation does not undo our shared historical foundation. Much less does schism undo over 1,000 years of communion anymore than my sin undoes the grace given me in Baptism.

Acknowledging as we do baptism in each other's community, reminds us that there exists between us a real, if imperfect, communion. And, even if we argue that baptism is absent in other tradition, we would do well—or so it seems to me—to remember that we have put on Christ in Whom God has joined Himself to all humanity. Vested now in the grace of Holy Baptism, having been incorporated into the Body of Christ, I have then also, and with my Lord, been joined in Him to those He has already united Himself to in the Incarnation. If I really believe that I am in Christ, then, in Christ, I am also already joined, as is He, personally to the whole human family.

Who then am I to say by my words or deeds that I would refuse this gift from the hands of my Lord and the Master of my life?

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

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Meg Funk: About Spiritual Ambition

Given the current series of conversations about spiritual formation I thought a recent post by Sr Mary Meg Funk, OSB, on Spiritual Ambition was appropriate. Sr Mary describes herself on her blog as "a nun seeking God through the monastic way of life under a Rule and a superior." She is a member of Our Lady of Grace Monastery Beech Grove, IN.

Sister is involved in ecumenical and interfaith dialog about monastic life. Her words bring a helpful mix of insights not only from Roman Catholicism, but also Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism and Buddhism. I would encourage people to take a look at Sr Mary's blog. While I am on the subject, I would recommend as well Vow of Conversation by the Roman Catholic Cistercian nun Sr Macrina. Post for both blogs will appear under My Blog List in the lower right.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory


Humility thrives without ambition. Yet, the ascetical life has the root word of an athlete. I've heard the Dalai Lama say competition for monks is desirable to assist the weak and encourage the strong.

We rightly esteem our Olympic Athletes. We applaud their discipline and mastery of skill demonstrated through their sport events.

St. Paul uses the athlete as an ideal for us to measure our efforts to life Gospel values with such dedication.

Benedict says he wants to temper the rule to have nothing harsh to discourage the weak, but also keep the strong motivated and on the path during the whole of his/her life all his/her life.

So, when is ambition opposing humility?

Spiritual ambition has attachments to special clothes, using objects and appropriating gestures without authentic initiation and ordination lineages. Spiritual consumerism has a profit motive rather than sacrifice.

Spiritual ambition implies competition that could foster violence rather than the warm community known as koinonia in the Acts of the Apostles.

Money exchange for services rendered is blessed and helpful for stability and good order. The services rendered by a competent and authorized minister warrant wages. To take advantage of spiritual hunger and exploit through consumerism is an affliction of vainglory.

Ambition is about motivation. Spiritual ambition risks the self-willed agenda rather than selflessness that gives honor and glory to God and right effort to the seeker.

Towards others we teach by example and words of encouragement. Here we see how the teachings on laughter fit with the teaching on spiritual ambition. We would not laugh or make fun of another. We applaud any effort toward doing the right thing with right intention.

We also imitate the good we see in others and remain supple to catch our next point of conversatio. on our spiritual journey. It comes from the inside, this impulse of grace. Spiritual ambition comes from the outside, i.e. impressing others, being higher and taking the places of honor. Leadership roles can be seductive as can be scholarship and academic rituals of advancement.

Our American culture sponsors ambition. Business, sports, musical accomplishments have a place in society, but in the realm of the Spirit there is Soul to Soul calculus.

Our ambition is helpful to repent and wait upon the subtle graces that come to ready hearts.

Toward & Away; Against & With

In my last post, I suggested that the Catholic and Orthodox traditions have there are different basic styles of relating to the world. In brief, the Catholic Church's tradition tends to be one that favors a "movement toward" the world. The tradition of the Orthodox Church, on the other hand, is one that values more a "movement away" from the world. In the West, grace perfects nature; in the East, grace is what makes possible the transcendence of nature. Obviously these are overly broad categories and just as obviously one can find easily "Eastern" tendencies in the "West" and "Western" tendencies in the "East." And counter examples exist in both traditions that make a hash of my typology. But be that as it may, the general tendencies are true enough. Though they are different ways of relating to the world, there are not necessarily opposed to each other. Indeed, they can even complement each other.

In my own view, one of the greatest values of psychoanalytic thought in general, and Horney's thought in particular, is that it embodies a certain anthropological genius. Psychoanalysis excels in helping us understand how even the noblest of human sentiments and goals can be shot through with self-deception and a desire for self-aggrandizement. For example, and we saw this in yesterday's post, the Catholic "movement toward" the world of person, events and things can easily become mere compliance even as the Orthodox tendency to "move away" can come to embody what Horney calls detachment, or (to use less theologically loaded language) indifference. At least by analogy, faith communities can be as pathologically neurotic as individuals.

That said, I think that it is a helpful way to think about East/West Christian relations. Both of these movements, "toward" the world and "away" from the world, I would suggest, can certainly be taken up for the life of the world. Just as a fundamental openness can embody my concern for the good of the world outside the Church, so to can my movement to separate myself from it also be in the service of the life of the world.

The tendency of some in both traditions to make rigid and exclusive what should be complementary, but opposite, movements of East and West I think is where much of the conflict arises when we sit down together to discuss the relationship between our respective traditions. Under the best of circumstances, but especially in the absence of any personal relationship, intimacy, and trust, such conversations are anxiety provoking. This is why, as a quick aside, we often discover that face to face conversations between Catholics and Orthodox seem to work so much better than they do on the internet. Absent a personal, human encounter characterized by mutual respect and trust, we tend to fall back on our preferred approach to the world. As the anxiety increases, we become more rigid in our approach.

So, for example, the more the Catholic partner move toward the position of his or her Orthodox counterpart, absent a warm human connection between them, the more likely it is that the Orthodox participant will withdraw evoking from the Catholic partner an even more passionate pursuit of common ground.

And things, by the way, work the other way around as well. The more the Orthodox "moves away," the more the Catholic partner is likely to "move toward" evoking an even more passionate "movement away" by the Orthodox.

If this is beginning to sound like a married couple stuck in a bad relationship, it should because it is.

Eventually the toxic mixture of anxiety and frustration leads not simply to a disagreement, but a bitter argument in which truth is often sacrificed for victory. Just as we can see the characteristically Eastern "movement away" among Western Christians, and can see the typically Western "movement toward" among Eastern Christians, so too both traditions have resources that lend themselves to a ratification of the third of Horney's coping mechanism: "movement against."

As with the other two movements, the movement against can, and often is, a healthy coping mechanism. There are times when we need to try and understand the one with whom we are in conflict (movement toward). At other times, the best response to conflict is to not let it bother us, to ignore it if you will (movement away). But just as clearly, there are times when must we risk a confrontation with the one with whom we are in conflict.

And, just like the other two styles, a movement against can become neurotic. For Horney a neurosis is a compulsion, what St Maximos would call a "passion." Neurosis carries me away robbing me of my freedom to respond.

We would also do well to remember that these three styles of coping are not absolute. They are dynamics and are present in different measure, at different times, in the heart of each and every person. Though a particular faith tradition might "fit" with my own style of coping, and regardless of what I tell myself to the contrary, this fit is never absolute. I suspect that so often the bitter conflicts that ignite between Catholic and Orthodox Christians reflect (as I have said before) our own passions. But now we are in a position to understand that we often seek out for ourselves the "blessing" of our respective tradition for those passions.

To the degree that I confused my faith tradition with my own preferred style of coping, to that degree I will find intolerable even theologically insignificant divergence from the tradition to which I am neurotically attached. And again as Horney reminds us, my neurosis is ultimately ground in my own self-image. This being so any divergence from my tradition is likely to be taken up by me as a personal attach—and as such evoke from me an aggressive response.

Add to this what I see as the official and explicit sanction of my tradition for my preferred coping mechanism, and an otherwise healthy person is likely to lose all sense of balance and perspective.

What we need, then, might be a new method of engaging the often conflicted world of persons, events and things that constitute our lives?

While the movements toward, against and away are valuable they are insufficient. What might be a fourth, more spiritually and theologically sound means of coping?

What is needed is that we learn not simply to move toward, away and against, but also move with each other. It is this, I would suggest, that is really the goal of any ecumenical dialog. Ironically, it is the "movement with," the movement of reconciliation and communion, that is the one that is most often neglected.

To be continued…

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

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Neurosis Isn’t Necessarily Bad

Applying psychological, much less psychoanalytic, constructs to a social group or a tradition is dicey at best. Even when applied to individuals, psychological and psychoanalytic constructs tend to be used reductionistically, that is, they minimize (or even ignore) human freedom. When applied to a social group insights meant to help us understand something of the individual in his or her life situation homogenize a community—it causes us to lose sight of the person for the group.

That said, however, there is still something to be said for identifying personality general styles or traits that are favored within a particular social group. Even as "I" have a preference for certain patterns of thought and action, so to do "we" or even "they" seem to reward and discourage particular ways of engaging the world of persons, events and things. Before I go on, it is very important to emphasize that in the context of this post, "world" is used more in an existential and empirical sense and not as a theological construct. "World," here means a social reality and not, as it does in John's Gospel, the creation as fallen and in rebellion against the Creator.

Earlier I hinted at the idea that Catholic and Orthodox Christians tend to favor different very broadly defined styles of engaging the world. Jesus toward the end of John's Gospel tells His disciples that we must be in the world, but not of it. Especially since the Second Vatican Council, I the Catholic Church, this has tended to take the form of a fundamental openness toward the world of persons, events and things outside her visible boundaries. For the Orthodox Church, the movement has been somewhat different—even opposite. Orthodoxy favors not a movement toward the social world outside her visible boundaries, but more a movement away from it.

Looking around the world of psychology, I think Karen Horney's work of neurosis is helpful here. So before I can look at Catholic and Orthodox polemics, I need to explain a little bit of psychoanalytic theory.

For Horney a neurosis is fundamentally a coping mechanism, it is a way of dealing with conflict. As a way of negotiating conflict—both conflicts with environment as well as our inner conflicts—a neurosis isn't necessarily pathological. Only when the neurosis becomes rigid, that is, only when we pursue some needs at the expense of other, equally legitimate needs, do we enter into the world of the pathological.

In her work Our Inner Conflicts, Horney identifies three forms of neurosis and the underlying needs that they help us meet. There is a summary on Wikipedia (which I think tends to lump healthy and pathological response to conflict together, so I've edited it for my purposes here):

Moving Toward People

1. The need for affection and approval; pleasing others and being liked by them.
   
2. The need for a partner; one whom they can love and who will solve all problems.
   

Moving Against People

1. The need for social recognition; prestige and limelight.
   
2. The need for personal admiration; for both inner and outer qualities—to be valued.
   
3. The need for personal achievement.
   

Moving Away from People

1. The need for self sufficiency and independence.
   
2. The need for perfection.
   

Looking through the summary, it is clear that our movements toward, against or away from, others are all attempts to met very specific psychological and social needs. We all of us need both to love and be loved (moving toward), even as there is a legitimate desire for self-sufficiency and independent (moving away).

Horney will later summarize these three movements as compliance, aggression and detachment respectively. And again, these only become pathological when they are not appropriately balanced by the other two movements or responses to outer and inner conflict.

In my next post, I want to look what seems to me to be the different basic styles of Catholic and Orthodox traditions in relating to the world understood psychologically. In brief, I would suggest that in the main the Catholic Church's tradition tends to be one that favors a 'movement toward" the world. The tradition of the Orthodox Church, on the other hand, is one that values more a "movement away" from the world. In the West, grace perfects nature; in the East, grace is what makes possible the transcendence of nature. Obviously these are overly broad categories. One can find easily counter examples in both traditions. That said, I think that it is a helpful way to think about East/West Christian relations.

To be continued…

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Patriarch of Constantinople Proposes Eastern Catholicism's Return to Orthodoxy

Well, I must say, I'm just gob smacked!

So, what does this mean? Can Byzantine Catholics commune at Orthodox celebrations of the Divine Liturgy? Can Orthodox commune with Catholics?

Has His All-Holiness simply declared victory?

Read on...

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory


06/19/2008 Munich (RISU) —In a recent interview with the German ecumenical journal Cyril and Methodius, the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church in Constantinople Bartholomew I invited Eastern Catholic Churches to return to Orthodoxy without breaking unity with Rome. He noted that "the Constantinople Mother-Church keeps the door open for all its sons and daughters." According to the Orthodox hierarch, the form of coexistence of the Byzantine Church and the Roman Church in the 1st century of Christianity should be used as a model of unity. This story was posted by KATH.net on 16 June 2008.

At the same time, the patriarch made positive remarks about the idea of "dual unity" proposed by the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Archbishop Lubomyr Husar). Patriarch Bartholomew I noted in particular that this model would help to overcome the schism between the Churches.

H/T: Josephus Flavius at Byzantine Texas whose own comments are worth repeating here:

I'm rather at a loss for what to say. The Orthodox response to this should be critical and swift. The "points of communion" idea has been mentioned as the article states by the UGCC, but also by the Melkites and Antiochian Orthodox. It was rejected on the ground that all or nothing is a less complicated and more theologically reasoned approach. Understanding that the Orthodox Church does not often speak una voce on the matter of ecumenical efforts could this in fact be the step-by-step methodology that will lead to reunion? I am in favor, but I am sure many are not (some vociferously so).

Unless noted other wise , everything posted here is © 2008 Gregory R Jensen.

Time Sanctifies Liturgy

Yes, as we saw in the previous essay where we looked at Augustine's theology of time, the heart flits from past (memory) to future (anticipation). Looking beyond the text of Augustine to my own experience, I realize that this flitting about is more often than not done in a passionate manner. Frequently, I look to the past with regret, guilt and shame, even as I look to the future with dread, anxiety and fear. My experience of the past and future are passionate precisely because I do not dwell in the present moment, that curiously timeless time that, or so Augustine implies, participate in Eternity:

Those two times, . . . , past and future, how are they, when even the past now is not; and the future is not as yet? But should the present be always present, and should it not pass into time past, time truly it could not be, but eternity. If, then, time present -- if it be time -- only comes into existence because it passes into time past, how do we say that even this is, whose cause of being is that it shall not be -- namely, so that we cannot truly say that time is, unless because it tends not to be?

Liturgy, I would suggest, is our return to the present moment—it is a dwelling, a resting, in the Eternal Now that is Itself the Source of time. Coming as it does from God, to use more classically Eastern language, time is an icon of Eternity. Liturgy, which remember has both a historical and an eschatological pole, is a reflection of time and as such, it too is an icon of Eternity. But, and this I think is the important part of Heschel's and Augustine's theologies of time, it is not liturgy that sanctifies time; it is time that sanctifies liturgy.

When we gather as the Church to pray, we have the opportunity to experience time as it is meant to be. As Fr Alexander Schmemann says in his own theological analysis of the sacraments: The Church worship reveals the nature of the creation; as baptism makes manifest the meaning of water, and the Eucharist of food and drink, so too taken as a whole the Church's worship reveals the sacral, indeed sacramental, nature of time.

To be continued…

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Holiness Not Programs

Reflecting on the possibility of reconciliation between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches one of the most faithful commentators on this blog, Chrys, sent me the following in a private email (which I am quoting here with his permission):

On that subject [of the reconciliation between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches], I am not sanguine. There are significant current differences between how the Orthodox approach faith and how Catholics approach faith. In addition to differing assumptions and particular expressions that form the theological understanding of the faith, the approach itself seems fairly different. It seems to me that the list of differences is pretty extensive—though I am not sure which are truly important and which are not. Leaving that for a different day, I would only note that I still firmly believe that IF we are able to raise up truly saintly folks, they will attract others - both inside the Orthodox church and outside - to reconsider how they live and what they believe. My assumption here is rooted in my own experience that living contact with a saint can move us to want to be like him—in a way that all the argumentation in the world cannot—and this desire will necessarily lead us to question who we are, what we are doing and how we are living. In my experience—and I think Scripture gives witness to this—nothing is as powerful as an authentic, living example, someone who shows us what God is like and what life can be like. Historically, these people carry the greatest moral authority to be found. (In fact, I am convinced that some of the respect that we have for the clergy is the result of the trust and respect earned by the saints. This assumes good faith on the part of the parishioner, of course. We hear and see in the saints what can be, what ought to be, and see the priest as the representative of that legacy—if he does nothing to betray that conferred trust. Once someone experiences a betrayal of that trust, however, all clergy thereafter pay for that betrayal.) The authority is so strong that even stories (second-hand experience) can have a significant effect. From what I have read, however, truly transformative power requires living contact. (Makes sense: ours is an incarnational faith, not a propositional one.) As I have often said: transformation is ultimately the result of people not programs. (Programs can only organize and direct the people and their gifts; they can never substitute for them.) In short, though such people may be few, their effect would likely be enough to BEGIN to make a difference (leaven in the bread, as it were) that can eventually lead to reconciliation.

Reading what he says, I find myself in fundamental with Chrys' observations. While we have our part to play certainly, reconciliation (whether between Churches, or between the person and God, the members of a community) is a work of the Holy Spirit. We are called therefore to wait upon His initiative.

Thinking about this I am reminded of the word of the Prophet Isaiah (40.27-31):

Why do you say, O Jacob,

And speak, O Israel:

"My way is hidden from the LORD,

And my just claim is passed over by my God"?

Have you not known?

Have you not heard?

The everlasting God, the LORD,

The Creator of the ends of the earth,

Neither faints nor is weary.

His understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the weak,

And to those who have no might He increases strength.

Even the youths shall faint and be weary,

And the young men shall utterly fall,

But those who wait on the LORD

Shall renew their strength;

They shall mount up with wings like eagles,

They shall run and not be weary,

They shall walk and not faint.

As always, you comments are not only welcome, but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Romanian Orthodox prelate threatened with excommunication for sharing Communion

Bucharest, Jun. 11, 2008 (CWNews.com) - The Orthodox prelate who shared Communion with Catholics at an Eastern-rite liturgical service in May now could face excommunication from the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Orthodox Metropolitan Nicolae Corneanu of Banat joined Romanian Catholic Bishop Alexandru Mesian of Lugoj at the altar on May 25, sharing the Eucharist with the Catholic prelate. His action outraged some Orthodox believers, and the Romanian Orthodox synod announced that Metropolitan Corneanu "may be asked to give an appropriate explanation" at a synod meeting in July.

Now another Romanian Orthodox leader, Metropolitan Bartolomeu of Cluj, has introduced a move to excommunicate Metropolitan Corneanu. That proposal will be discussed at the orthodox Synod meeting in early July.

The move to excommunicate Metropolitan Corneanu has inflamed new hostility toward Catholics-- and especially Eastern-rite Romanian Catholics-- among Orthodox hard-liners who regard any association with Catholics as suspicious. Critics have also raised heresy charges against the Orthodox Bishop Sofronie of Oradea, who participated in an ecumenical blessing-of-the-water service in January, on the feast of the Baptism of Christ, with his Romanian Catholic counterpart.

Metropolitan Corneanu has said that he does not regret joining Catholic bishops in the Divine Liturgy. But the Orthodox prelate has rejected the idea that he is likely to become a Catholic, saying that he is loyal to the Orthodox Church and will accept the consequences of his actions.

Abraham Heschel: The Holiness of Time

When in Genesis God creates the heavens and the earth "The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep." (1.2) Creation is presented in Genesis not ex nihilo (i.e., from nothing), but rather as a divine ordering of chaos. Slowly, methodically, God brings a shape and form to chaos. As land appears when the waters are set in their place, so to creation emerges from chaos as God brings order to the void.

For six days God labors to create and "when were finished" God "on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made." (2.2-3) Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes in his work The Sabbath that "In a well-composed work of art an idea of outstanding importance is not introduced haphazardly, but, like a king at an official ceremony, it is presented at a moment and in a way that will bring to light its authority and leadership." The Sabbath, the Seventh Day, is Heschel says is just such a kingly idea—it introduces to humanity not the holiness of place, but of time. "This is a radical departure from accustomed religious thinking. The mythical mind would expect that, after heaven and earth have been established, God would create a holy place—a holy mountain or a holy spring—whereupon a sanctuary is to be established. Yet it seems as if to the Bible it is holiness in time, the Sabbath, which comes first."

It is only after the holiness of time is proclaimed that God proclaims at Sinai "the sanctity of man." It is only after, as Heschel observes, that we succumb "to the temptation of worshipping a thing, a golden calf, that the erection of a Tabernacle, of holiness in space, was commanded. The sanctity of time came first, the sanctity of man came second, and the sanctity of space last. Time was hallowed by God; space, the Tabernacle, was consecrated by Moses."

On the Seventh Day God proclaims the Sabbath: "The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation, from the world of creation to the creation of the world." The beauty that we encounter in the Church's worship, in the music, the icons, and the architecture of the church building, are all, I would suggest, the manifestation Eternity in Time. Beauty is the encounter, the experience, in time of the Eternal

And if, as Heschel suggests, there is a hierarchy to the sanctity of creation—time, the human, and only finally space—this doesn't mean that we can neglect one in favor of another. To use an image I have used before, the three are nested within each other—space is sanctified by humanity, humanity by time, time by God. Thinking about time as sacred opens up for us new avenues of understanding of the heavy, some have said over, emphasis on liturgy that we see in Orthodox Church.

To be continued…

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

“Sanctify Those Who Love the Beauty of Your House”-Part II

Continuing yesterday's thoughts on the saving character of Beauty…

In the catechumen classes at the parish I serve we have been discussing the structure of the Divine Liturgy. This past Sunday we looked at the Prayer of the First Antiphon:

Lord, our God, save Your people and bless Your inheritance;

protect the whole body of Your Church;

sanctify those who love the beauty of Your house;

glorify them in return by Your divine power;

and do not forsake us who hope in You.

As a group our attention was captured by the third petition: "sanctify those who love the beauty of Your house." In the Old Testament especially, God is holy not so much because He possess moral perfection but because He is free. In God to be holy is to be free of all that would limit Him and constrain His will; as with God so to with us, we are called to be free of everything that would compel us to act against our nature and our vocation.

Growth in freedom, growth in holiness, requires from me that I love the beauty of God's house.

As we talk about this we began, naturally enough, with the beauty of the church building itself and then of the services. Slowly, however, we began to see that God's house is really rather more than simply the church building, the services and the Tradition of the Church. All of creation is the house of God. How, we asked ourselves, can we say that we really love the beauty of the church building on Sunday morning if we our indifferent to the beauty of creation?

And, again as we thought about things, how can I say I love the beauty of creation if we are indifferent to the beauty of our neighbor who is created in the image and likeness of God. And if I say that I love the beauty of my neighbor how can I then dismiss my own beauty?

Stepping back from our reflections, I mentioned to the catechumens (and other listeners) that what we experience in the church can't be separated from the rest of life. If you will we can think of the experience of beauty in the Church's worship as a preparation for the experience of the beauty of creation. In fact, I suggested, to try and limit beauty to either the Church or creation is a bit like the young man who told me he didn't know much about his girlfriend—they were only seeing each other for sex.

To fail to see Beauty, to ignore Beauty, or worse to be indifferent to it, is to be unchaste. God tells the prophet Hosea (1.2):

"Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry

And children of harlotry,

For the land has committed great harlotry

By departing from the LORD."

To see Beauty only here and not there is to limit God, to deny His holiness and so to deny Him as He Is. Once that is done, then everything else in my life falls into chaos and ugliness.

But, to return to Solzhenitsyn, there is a whimsy, unpredictable, unexpected quality to Beauty that makes it such a fit symbol of Divine Grace. Beauty can "soar up," to quote Solzhenitsyn once more, "to that very place" where I turned my back on Truth and Goodness and, once there, "perform the work of all three."

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

 

 

Through a Glass, Darkly: Secrecy and the Catholic Church

One of the charges that we sometime hear in Orthodox Church circles is that this or that bishop or idea is "Catholic" and not Orthodox. Often by "Catholic" what is meant is a decision or idea that (rightly or wrongly) appears to its critic as authoritarian.

Over the years as I have heard this type of complaint made I've had a number of different thoughts. One is to question criticizing an idea or policy by associating it, unfavorably, with another Christian community. This isn't like saying "You throw like a girl" when we mean to say that a boy lacks athletic skill.

The second though I have is that, frankly, there are times when I wish the Orthodox Church was as well run as the Catholic Church (and yes, I heard the gasps--from both my Orthodox readers who are appalled and my Catholic readers who must be wondering "How poorly is the Orthodox Church run if he admires us?!") Let me say quickly, I don't have desire to throw over Orthodox ecclesiology. Nor have I any illusions about the administrative operations of the Catholic Church. What I do have is a desire to see both communities draw closer together and as a step along the way I think both can learn from each other about the day to day goverance of their respective communities.

All this is by way of a longish introduction to an interview with Russell Shaw posted on Inside Catholic. Shaw, a regular contributor to Inside Catholic, has just published his 20th book, Nothing To Hide: Secrecy, Communication, and Communion in the Catholic Church (Ignatius Press), in whcih he "takes a candid and sometimes surprising look at the abuse of secrecy in an ecclesiastical context."

While the whole interview is worth reading, I would draw the attention of my Orthodox readers to some of the following in Shaw's interview (my emphasis and my comments).

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Inside Catholic: What moved you to write a book about secrecy in the Church?

Russell Shaw:I guess I first became conscious of the problem in 1969, when I went to work for the bishops' conference as director of information. At the time, the bishops' relations with the press were in terrible shape, and much of the tension focused on the bishops' general meetings. They were entirely in executive session, with no reporters and observers allowed in. Yet the bishops invited reporters to come to the meeting and cover it -- which they did, partly by means of briefings and partly by means of leaks. Needless to say, there was no good reason for all that secrecy. The situation was a mess and very harmful to the bishops' own best interests.

Don't you think there's a place for secrecy and confidentiality in the Church?

Of course there is. As a matter of fact, I make the case for secrecy in the book. The seal of the confessional is the strongest example of strictly obligatory secrecy, but the duty to preserve privacy pertains in pastoral counseling situations. Furthermore, the Church has the same right to confidentiality to protect its legitimate interests that any other group has, along with the common obligation to respect people's privacy rights.

My point isn't that there has to be total disclosure of everything. It's that the assumption in doing the Church's business should be in favor of openness and accountability, with the burden of proof resting on those who favor secrecy in any particular case. [One of the things that the parish I serve does very well is hold open monthly parish council meetings. In addition to annoucing the time and date of the meeting, they also post the minutes on the parish bulletin board. Most important, in my view, is that comments and questions form visitors are encouraged by having a visitors' forum on the monthly agenda.]

....

[Is] there anything special about the abuse of secrecy in the Church?

Yes, there is. The clergy are the management class in the Church, and in that context the abuse of secrecy becomes a typical tool of the clericalist culture. It's clericalism at work.

Furthermore, abusing secrecy is contrary to the Church's nature as communion -- a communion or hierarchically structured community of faith in which all the members, as Vatican II taught, are fundamentally equal in dignity and rights. But you can't have real equality in dignity and rights in a community in which a large body of members are routinely denied information that they need to function as full, equal members. That's how things are now.

....

But ever since Vatican II haven't we had structures and processes of consultation to prevent what you're talking about -- pastoral councils, finance councils, things like that[and the Orthodox Church had had these in place especially in America since the beginning of our time here]?

On paper, yes. But in many places, if not most, they don't seem to be working very well. What did diocesan and parish councils do to detect and prevent sex abuse? Nothing -- evidently they were frozen out, kept in the dark. In lots of parishes and dioceses, nobody knows who the council members are or when they meet or what their agenda is or what they do. There's a common impression that very often -- there are exceptions, of course -- the main role of these bodies is to be a sounding-board and rubber-stamp decisions by the authorities.

Isn't the problem larger than secrecy?

Yes, it is. As I say in the book, the abuse of secrecy has a number of cousins -- stonewalling, happy talk, spin, deception, failure to consult, rejection of accountability, things like that. The family resemblance is that, like secrecy, these are all breakdowns in the open, honest communication that ought to be the rule in the communio of the Church.

Has the Church officially taken a position on this question?

Well, it hasn't said a whole lot. But you will find some excellent statements of principle in Communio et Progressio, a pastoral instruction on communications published by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications in 1971. It calls for a "steady, two-way flow of information" between Church authorities and the faithful, and says people have a right to "all the information they need to play their active role in the life of the Church," while secrecy should be limited to cases of necessity.

This Vatican agency has returned to the same subject several times in documents it's published since then, and Pope John Paul II touched on the theme in his last public document before he died, Il Rapido Sviluppo (The Rapid Development). Pope Benedict laid down the basic principle of internal communication in the Church several years ago. "We cannot communicate with the Lord if we do not communicate with one another" is how he put it.

What do you suggest be done?

My book ends with some practical recommendations. For instance: adopt policies that guarantee openness in conducting the business of dioceses and parishes and religious institutes; make a fresh start with pastoral councils and finance councils by giving them a real say in decisions and making their proceedings public; give qualified lay Catholics a consultative voice in the choice of their bishops and pastors; put freedom-of-information policies in place in Church institutions; allow diocesan newspapers to be more than house organs and operate as reliable sources of information and vehicles for public opinion. We have to revive the ideal of shared responsibility, too -- not as part of a power struggle, but so that we can all work together for the welfare of the Church.

Basically, what's needed is a new way of thinking -- a commitment to the proposition that openness and accountability really are the way to go because they're expressions of what the Church is and how it's meant to operate. When people grasp that, the abuse of secrecy ought to fade away But I'm realistic enough to recognize that, human nature being what it is, the temptation to go behind closed doors and practice secrecy will always exist.


► This is the third entry in a multi-part, multi-week series on the issue of clericalism in the Catholic Church. The project will continue tomorrow with a discussion/dialogue on whether or not faithful Catholics may criticize a bishop publicly, and will conclude Friday with an online symposium, including dozens of prominent Catholics from various perspectives, offering their own analysis and solutions. All the articles will be gathered into a single printable volume, available for free download at the end of the week.

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More on Metropolitan Nicolae

Image via Wikipedia

Thank you everyone for your comments both those on the site here and emailed to me privately regarding Metropolitan Nicolae's reception of Holy Communion at a Romanian Catholic celebration of the Divine Liturgy.

First off, let me please remind everyone whether they post comments or not, while it is one thing to disagree, even strongly, with Metropolitan Nicolae's actions, his status as an Orthodox bishop, much less the state of his soul, is NOT for me to judge. Again, I would not have done what he did—and I think Chrys has given a rather elegant and charitable explanation as to why Metropolitan Nicolae's actions are not acceptable. But until the Holy Synod tells us otherwise, Metropolitan Nicolae is an Orthodox bishop in good standing.

That said, whatever might have been His Eminence's intent or however we might characterize his actions, one thing that has come out of this is a conversation about the relationship between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. What I find distressing, however, is that the conversation (1) seems largely limited to Catholic blogs and (2) is rancorous to say the least. Mind you, the rancor is not between Catholics and Orthodox as much as it is among Catholics. Be that as it may, however, accept for this blog I have come across no conversation about what Fr Paul (the online pseudonym of a Catholic priest serving in Greece) over at the blog De unione ecclesiarum calls the "Timisoara incident."

The central point he makes is this (my emphasis in bold):

It is not my place to say whether it was in the event helpful to the cause of ecumenism for the Metropolitan to choose this course of action. It is even less my place to say whether it was right from an Orthodox point of view to infringe the discipline of his Church in view of what, as I said at the beginning, we must presume he believed to be a greater good. I have said why, as a Catholic, I believe that it was right for his request to receive communion from a Catholic altar to be granted. Some will see his gesture as a prophetical sign destined one day to bear fruit by the very reason of its provocative nature. Others will say it is well-intentioned but in reality premature and counter-productive. Others still will think it scandalous and sacrilegious. It is not given to me to know which judgement is correct. Only let those who cry "scandal" remember that scandal in its theological meaning is not, as in common parlance, the shock which an action causes to our sensibilities and our comfortable presuppositions, but that which causes us to sin. And let them ask themselves whether complacency in the face of a divided Christendom is not a sin, however much it hides behind rhetoric about not sacrificing truth to gain unity. In the end, truth and unity are the same thing; sin against unity damages our ability to see the fullness of truth.

I cannot help wondering if in fact we—Orthodox and Catholic Christians—really wish to be reconciled to one another. And given that the rancor I've seen on at least one popular Catholic blog regarding Metropolitan Nicolae's reception of Holy Communion is every bit a foul and bitter as what I hear when we as Orthodox Christians rip into each other, I can't help wonder if we even want to be reconciled with those in our tradition much less with those with whom we disagree.

Could it be we are estranged from each other because we are estranged among ourselves? And if we are estranged from those with whom we share Eucharist, how can we ever hope to reconcile the wound inflicted on us all by the Great Schism?

And since the it's come up--isn't my estrangement from my neighbor simply the symptom of my own sinfulness and my heart being divided against itself? Where does the line of schism run accept through the human heart?

Again I disagree with Metropolitan Nicolae's actions. At the same time I hope and pray that whatever else might happen as a result it encourages the faithful in both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches not only to desire the reconciliation of the two Churches, but for us to actively seek and prepare for reconciliation. You see that's really what strikes me most about the "Timisoara incident." Even granted the inappropriate nature of His Eminence's actions, the character of the responses suggest to me that most of us—Catholic and Orthodox—are at best indifferent, and even actively hostile, to the reconciliation his actions imply.

Well, there you go.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

What Grace Doesn’t Do: Some Thoughts on Orthodox/Catholic Conversations

Now that my more academic research is finished (for the moment, I'll be starting a new project on the passions and levels of consciousness in S. Freud (psychoanalysis), A. Beck (cognitive psychology), and A. van Kaam (existential-phenomenological psychology) in the next few weeks), I have time to put in writing a talk I gave at the Society of St John Chrysostom. The talk discussed, rather poorly in my view, why conversations between Orthodox and Catholic Christians so often degenerated into polemics and ad hominem. As part of finishing up that work, I thought I would offer a few thoughts here and invite your comments.

What Grace Doesn't Do

One of my professors in graduate school, Fr Adrian van Kaam (to download a pdf that summarizes van Kaam's life and work, click here) pointed out on more than one occasion that though it was a great blessing for which we should be grateful an experience of God does not exempt us from the laws of human development or "an evident need for psychotherapy." In other words, not matter how profound my experience of God, it is ought not to be confused with either maturity or healthy psychological functioning.

And why would it?

For van Kaam, a cheerful and committed Thomist, the answer is that grace perfects, but does not replace, nature. While I don't disagree with my professor's explanation (which I have merely summarized in slogan form), I would add to it. To assume, as many seem to, that an experience of grace exempts me from the normal process of human growth and development is Christologically unsound. It to deny that in Christ the whole of human life is sanctified.

We read in the Scriptures, that "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." (Lk 2.52) Taking Jesus Christ as our example, we can argue that the normal ebb and flow of human development is not necessarily opposed to sanctity and wisdom. Indeed, and again looking to Jesus as our example, it would seem that each stage of human developmental is capable of participating in the divine nature, even as in each developmental stage of His life, Jesus was Himself the Theanthropos . To borrow from Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution of Divine Revelation from the Second Vatican Council:

For this reason Jesus perfected revelation by fulfilling it through his whole work of making Himself present and manifesting Himself: through His words and deeds, His signs and wonders, but especially through His death and glorious resurrection from the dead and final sending of the Spirit of truth. Moreover He confirmed with divine testimony what revelation proclaimed, that God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to life eternal.

For Christians, Eastern or Western, Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant, is the whole of His life that is revelatory. His voluntary and life-giving death and glorious resurrection from the dead on the third day, together with Ascension into heaven and bestowal of the Holy Spirit, is the confirmation of what is true for the whole of His life. If this is true for Jesus Christ then it is (at least potentially) true for those of us who received His Name in Baptism.

This idea is probably not one that most of us would contest. Though I suspect that, in some cases at least, the agreement reflects more sentiment than rigorous anthropological reflection (but, as another of my professor's once asked, "Who am I to do things for the right reason? I know what's right and should simply do it. My thinking will, hopefully, catch up with by doing."). What is more controversial is the suggestion that an encounter with God does not bring with it mental health.

I need to be careful here. When I say "mental health" I do not mean this in a narrow, culturally bound, sense of the term. One of the most encouraging developments in the profession and science of psychology is the growing realization just how bound the notion of mental health is to the experience of one relatively small segment of contemporary American culture.

So when I say mental health I mean it in the broad sense, of the integrity of the person's cognitive, emotional and social functions. In classical philosophical and theological anthropology, this life of integral living is the life of virtue. By necessity virtue means for me that there is a certain degree of tension in any psychologically healthy life. Why? Well because, just to take one example, my social situation might be such that a virtuous response demands of me social isolation. Or virtue might even require of me that I live in a state of relative conflict with those around me.

Mental health then, reflects a convergence of internal and external factors. And like human development, it is dynamic. Within the limits of his/her life situation, the psychological healthy human being is flexible and adaptable in his or her thinking and behaving. Indeed though it is often (wrongly) conflated with political liberalism, a central characteristic of mental health is the ability to change, to become if you will, evermore who I am.

Mental illness, to return to the second of the two human realities that an experience of grace does not exempt us from, is the precisely the lack of this ability to change in a positive direction. Psychotherapy is concerned with those times in human life when we are unable to exercise our cognitive, emotional and social functions in the service of becoming more fully who we are. In a broad sense, psychotherapy serves the life of virtue.

Think for example of the alcoholic.

The problem with alcoholism is not that the alcoholic enjoys wine. The problem, the real sorrow of alcoholism, is that the person only enjoys wine—until of course his or her indifference to the other joys of life and his or her fixation on wine becomes so pervasive that even wine is no longer enjoyed and its consumption becomes a compulsion and what yesterday reflected human freedom, today is the sign and source of freedom's lack.

Returning now to the centrality of virtue to any anthropologically sound view of mental health what can we say? Virtue, as Aristotle and the Christian tradition, understands the term is about finding the mean between extremes. It is moderation that is the key to wholeness—and moderation is learned.

An experience of grace then does not allow us to leap frog over the typical stage of human growth and development. Just as we grow from child to adult, we also grow (ideally anyway) in virtue, in wholeness of being. To be human, to borrow from existentialism, is to live a life of dynamic openness to the future. But as Emmanuel Levinas and Gabriel Marcel remind us, the future, as future, is always unknown and unknowable. Or, to us van Kaam's phrase, to live a constant human life means that we remain open in awe, trust, and gratitude to the Mystery of Being (God) and becoming (human life as a life of dynamic openness).

So, what has this to do with the difficulties we often see in Catholic/Orthodox conversations?

Though it needs to be developed more fully, I would suggest this: We often talk as if the Catholic/Orthodox dialog is a conversation is between two different, even competing, traditions. In fact these conversations are always conversations between human beings who in their conversations with each other, make selective appeals to their own understanding of the past, both their own and the other's. Traditions, to state the painfully obvious, do not have conversations—only human beings can speak, can enter into a conversations. Tradition, as Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) has pointed out in Being in Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church, only exist enhypostatically, that is, by way of the person.

Too often conversations between Eastern and Western Christians are not understood as human encounters. In fact, I would suggest that the reason that our conversations are so often polemical, is because we imagine that there is nothing of ourselves in our talks with each other. Let me go even further, we are so often polemical because we are striving not to encounter one another. We do not wish to know the other, because not only do we do not wish to be know by the other, we do not know, or even wish to know, ourselves personally. Any human encounter is necessarily one that demands from me both self-knowledge and change. To refuse one or the other of these is to refuse the encounter, the gift of the other person and so to refuse to receive my own life as a gift from God.

For too many of us, our attachment to our religious tradition is an escape, a refusal, of the dynamic and gratuitous quality of our own lives. We do not wish to grow, to change. Our conversations are polemical because more often than not, our thinking about ourselves is static and rigid. Catholic/Orthodox polemics—at least as we see them in contemporary practice—are only accidentally theological. In the main (and I will address this more in another post) our polemics reflect our own lack of wholeness, of balance, of our own lack of virtue. Or, to borrow from psychology, our encounters so often go wrong because of we are neurotic. And, to push things a bit further, Eastern and Western Christians tend to favor different neurotic styles.

As always, your questions, comments, and criticisms are not only welcome, they are desired.

More later.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Orthodox bishop shares Communion with Catholics

Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan Nicolae Corneanu receiving Holy Communion at a Romanian Catholic celebration of the Divine Liturgy.

Christ is Risen!

I don't know what to think--I do not understand why Metropolitan Nicolae asked to receive nor why he was allowed to do so. I'm not sure what will happen as a result of this, but I pray God something good come out of all of this.

+Fr Gregory

Timisoara , May. 27, 2008 (CWNews.com) - A Romanian Orthodox bishop has shared Communion with Catholics, causing a sensation in a country where Byzantine Catholics and Orthodox have a history of tense relations.

At the consecration of the Queen of Peace parish church in Timisoara on May 25, Orthodox Metropolitan Nicolae Corneanu of Banat asked to share Communion. The Orthodox metropolitan approached the altar and received the Eucharist from his own hand.

Romanian Catholic Bishop Alexandru Mesian of Lugoj was the celebrant of the Divine Liturgy in the Byzantine Catholic church; Archbishop Francisco-Javier Lozano, the apostolic nuncio to Romania, was also present.

Although Orthodox and Catholic bishops often join in ecumenical services, and occasionally participate in each other's liturgical ceremonies, they do not share Communion-- an indication of the breach in ecclesial communion between the Orthodox churches and the Holy See. In Romania, tensions between the Orthodox Church and the Eastern-rite Romanian Catholic Church have been pronounced, adding to the surprise created by Metropolitan Corneanu's action.

With some Orthodox believers outraged by the metropolitan's sharing Communion with Catholic bishops, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Romania issued a statement saying that at the next meeting of the Orthodox synod, in July, Metropolitan Corneanu "may be asked to give an appropriate explanation" for his action.

The statement from the Orthodox patriarchate went on to say that ecumenical relations with the Catholic Church, "already quite fragile, cannot be helped, but are rather complicated," by sharing in Communion.

Metropolitan Corneanu-- who was one of the first Orthodox bishops to admit that he had cooperated with the secret police under the Communist regime-- has a record of friendship with Romanian Catholics. He was among the few Orthodox leaders prepared to return church properties that had been seized by the Communist government from Catholic ownership in 1948 and handed over to Orthodox control.

Church Unity and Legitimate Variance, Part II: Two Other Voices

Some thought provoking reflections on Church unity from Wei-Hsein Wan at his blog Torn Notebook. This is the second in what I hope will be a series of essays. The first can be found here: "Church Unity and Legitimate Variance: A Lesson from St. Basil the Great." I am most impressed that in the essay below is based on the work of Bishop Hilarion of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Well do read and let me know what you think.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Church Unity and Legitimate Variance, Part II: Two Other Voices

First, St. Gregory the Theologian. In one of his orations, he remembers the endeavors of St. Athanasius of Alexandria to hold together the Greek East and the Latin West despite their different approaches to Trinitarian theology:

For as, in the case of one and the same quantity of water, there is separated from it, not only the residue which is left behind by the hand when drawing it, but also those drops, once contained in the hand, which trickle out through the fingers; so also there is a separation between us and, not only those who hold aloof in their impiety, but also those who are most pious, and that both in regard to dogmas of small importance (peri dogmaton mikron), which can be disregarded (parorasthai axion), and also in regard to expressions intended to bear the same meaning.

We use in an orthodox sense the terms "one Essence and three Hypostases", the one to denote the nature of the Godhead, the other the properties of the Three; the Italians [i.e. Latins] mean the same, but, owing to the scantiness of their vocabulary, and its poverty of terms, they are unable to distinguish between Essence and Hypostases, and therefore introduce the term "Persons", to avoid being understood to assert three Essences.

The result would be laughable, were it not lamentable. This slight difference of sound was taken to indicate a difference of faith. Then, Sabellianism was suspected in the doctrine of Three Persons, Arianism in that of Three Hypostases, both being the offspring of a contentious spirit. And then, from the gradual but constant growth of irritation—the unfailing result of contentiousness—there was a danger of the whole world being torn asunder in the strife about syllables.

Seeing and hearing this, our blessed one [i.e. St. Athanasius], true man of God and great steward of souls as he was, felt it inconsistent with his duty to overlook so absurd and unreasonable a rending of the word, and applied his medicine to the disease. In what manner? He conferred in his gentle and sympathetic way with both parties, and after he had carefully weighed the meaning of their expressions, and found that they had the same sense, and were in no way different in doctrine, by permitting each party to use its own terms, he bound them together in unity of action. (Oration 21, 35-36; emphasis added)

Of course I haven't studied the Fathers enough to discover a text like this on my own. Rather, I came across it (together with yesterday's letter by St. Basil) in Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev's wonderful book, The Mystery of Faith: An Introduction to the Teaching and Spirituality of the Orthodox Church. Here is Bishop Hilarion's commentary on the words of St. Gregory:

In the text quoted above, St. Gregory advances several important ideas. First, differences in dogmatic terminology do not necessarily presuppose disagreement in understanding the dogmas themselves. Not all arguments about dogmatic questions reflect differences in faith: many are simply "strife about syllables". The history of the Church sees many cases where the confession of faith of a certain local Church, translated into a different language or understood in the context of a different theological tradition, was misconstrued, considered heretical, and was rejected by another Church. In this way, many schisms and divisions arose: some of them were later remedied, but some have remained unhealed to the present.

St. Gregory's second thesis is no less significant: there are "dogmas (teachings) of small importance" about which disagreements are to be tolerated. These are the dogmas that can simply be "disregarded" for the sake of the unity of the Church.

The third point is that not only the "impious" but also the "most pious" separate themselves from the Church for various reasons; for example, in their different understanding of a dogma "of small significance". These people, one may consider, somehow remain within the Church while being formally separated from it. Thus, not all Christians who are separated from the Church are to be treated as heretics: a schism can often be a result of a mere misunderstanding. Any contemporary theologian who compares the dogmatic traditions of two Churches which are separated from each other must be able to distinguish between what is a heresy, incompatible with the Church's teaching, what is a disagreement on a "dogma of small significance" that can be "disregarded", and what is simply "strife about syllables" resulting from misinterpretation or misconception.

If we apply to our present situation what St. Gregory and St. Basil [see Letter 113 in yesterday's post] have said about their own age, we will see that they were in fact much more "liberal" than the most advanced "ecumenists" of today. Neither Gregory nor Basil regarded the disagreement on the question of the divinity of the Holy Spirit as an obstacle for reconciliation among the Churches; nor did they claim that those who did not confess the Spirit as God were outside the Church. Moreover, it was a common practice in the fourth century—indeed, approved by St. Basil—to accept Arians into the Church through repentance, not requiring baptism or chrismation. In our own times some Orthodox say that Roman Catholics, being "heretics", are outside the Church, and should be rebaptised when received into Orthodoxy. Yet neither Catholics nor Protestants would deny the divinity of the Son of God, as did the Arians, not would they deny the divinity of the Holy Spirit, as did most fourth-century theologians and bishops. And surely the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit is less significant than the question of his divinity. To regard today's Catholics and Protestants as "pseudo-churches" is totally alien to the spirit of the ancient Church Fathers such as Basil the Great and Gregory the Theologian. Their understanding of the divisions among the Churches was much more dynamic and multi-dimensional, and much less rigid. Many divisions between the Churches could be healed if contemporary theologians used the methodology advanced by St. Gregory.

When dealing with the difficult question of Christian divisions, we must also bear in mind that God alone knows where the limits of the Church are. As St. Augustine said, "Many of those who on earth considered themselves to be alien to the Church will find on the Day of Judgement that they are her citizens; and many of those who thought themselves to be members of the Church will, alas, be found to be alien to her". To declare that outside the Orthodox Church there is not and cannot be the grace of God would be to limit God's omnipotence and to confine him to a framework outside which he has no right to act. Hence faithfulness to the Orthodox Church and her dogmatic teaching should never become naked triumphalism by which other Christian Churches are regarded as created by the "cunning devices" of people, while the whole world and ninety-nine percent of humankind is doomed to destruction. (The Mystery of Faith, pp. 125-127; emphasis added)

How we need more bishops like these!