Some cold water is needed
Yet again there is talk of an imminent reunion between Rome and the Russian Orthodox Church. This time, it is TAC bishop John Hepworth, who says, “they’re probably apocryphal, but we do know that the Russian Orthodox Church is very close to achieving unity with Rome.” Many Catholics are speculating that the recent overtures of Rome to the Anglicans will be looked at as a possible model for this potential East-West reunion.
I want to be clear in my next statement which is directed towards my fellow Catholics about this possible “reunion”:
IT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
I don’t want to be spoil-sport, and I don’t want to discount the possibility of a miracle from the Holy Spirit. Of course a miracle could occur and a reunion could happen, but the miracle would not be some announcement of reunion by hierarchs, it would be the acceptance of that announcement by millions and millions of the faithful. As I’ve mentioned before, there is little grassroots support in the East for reunion at this time, and so any premature announcement would be doomed for failure.
I also think the comparisons between the Anglican situation and the Russian Orthodox are faulty; they are completely different realities. For one thing, Anglo-Catholics belong to an ecclesial community which has been headed for self-destruction the past 50 years. It is a sinking ship and the Pope is mercifully throwing its remaining traditional members a life-line. This is not the case with the Russian Orthodox Church; it is a vital Church with over 1,000 years of history behind it. Its origins predate the East-West schism and they have no external “need” for reunion with Rome.
The Anglican outreach by Pope Benedict cannot be a model for the Church’s work for reunion with the East, and I’m sure the Pope realizes that. With the Anglicans you have a community that has a rich and beautiful spirituality, but it is essentially a variant of Roman Catholicism. They are very Western and the Anglo-Catholics being courted are very close to Rome on many theological fronts. But the Russian Orthodox Church, unlike the Anglicans, have a theological outlook that is quite different from the Western view; the differences between the East and the West are very deep and will need a long time to sort out. A “personal ordinariate” is a wonderful construct for returning Anglicans, but it would be an insult to Orthodox believers, as it would turn their true Church into just a “spirituality” within the Roman (Western) Church.
I pray daily for the reunion of the apostolic Churches of the East and the West and I hope that much progress is made in my lifetime towards that end. However, I am under no illusions about the barriers to union that currently exist. Like any persistent sin, our divisions will only be overcome by a whole lot of prayer, penance and hard work. Let us look to those three tasks rather than some “quicky” solution.
John L. Allen Jr. sat down with Jesuit Fr. Robert Taft of the Pontifical Oriental Institute. Taft, a pioneer in Eastern liturgical studies and a veteran of East/West dialogues, is one of the leading experts on Orthodoxy in the Catholic Church. A transcript of the interview follows.
The post-Vatican II goal of the ecumenical movement was full structural unity. Is that a pipe dream with the Orthodox?
No, it’s not a pipe dream, but it depends what you mean. The only possible aim for ecumenism is communion. The old notion that the church begins with God, then the pope, and on down in pyramidal fashion, is gone. What we’re dealing with now is sister churches. That’s what we had before the East/West schism. Does anybody think that Rome had anything to say about who became patriarch of Constantinople? Or who became the metropolitan of Nicomedia? Of course not. These guys were bishops there just like we had bishops here, and when they met they’d say, “You’re a bishop? Hey, I’m a bishop too. How’s it going?” They were all in communion. It’s not like Rome was telling them what to do.
How do we get communion?
First, let’s be clear that this is all we’re ever going to get.
When will we get it?
I don’t know. Certainly not in my lifetime. I would suspect that it’s going to take a few more centuries.
http://www.natcath.com/mainpage/specialdocuments/taft.htm
Cellarer,
I have great respect for Fr. Taft, but I think his language goes too far in that interview. It is true that in the first millennium the relationship between the Churches was not top-down. But I think simply saying “sister churches” also doesn’t reflect the reality of the position of Rome in that relationship. If we do use “sister churches” it must reflect that Rome is the elder sister with certain rights that other sisters do not have.