The Melkites came to visit the Pope of Rome and this is a redacted (read: hacked up leaving only the immediately meaningful bits). The entire article is here.
May 8, 2008 (Journey of Faith)
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Collegiality: strength and unity
A strong, united Church means, ad intra, effective and affectionate collegiality between the Patriarch and the Hierarchs who are members of the Holy Synod. It means a Church where love is the bond that unites the faithful with their pastors and with each other.
It also means a Church strong in its faith, that precious deposit that we must be capable of transmitting to younger generations. We have invented and popularized a saying in our community, “A Church without young people is a Church without a future. Young people without a Church are young people without a future.”
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Presence in the mainly Muslim Arab world
That is the quintessential meaning of the Christian presence in the mainly Muslim Arab world (15 million Christians out of 300 million people.)
It is the leitmotiv (recurring theme) of our role as Church in Arab countries, but also in countries of emigration. We have a unique responsibility in and to this Arab world.
I have illustrated that by perhaps over-bold turns of phrase, saying that we are not only an Arab Church, but also “Church of the Arabs,” and even “Church of Islam.” I mean by that that we Arab Eastern Christians, living as we do in a world with a Muslim majority, have with regard to that world, a unique, irreversible, irreplaceable, imperative, almost exclusive mission, since we have been living together for the last 1429 years. We have the same language and culture. Besides, part of our Christian culture has elements derived from Islam, just as part of Islamic culture has a Christian content. This role is ensured through our presence and witness in the Arab world, a role that is especially important in Lebanon and Syria.
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Efforts of His Holiness
The outlines of this new dialogue were your meeting with Germany’s Muslim community in Cologne in 2005, your magisterial lecture in Regensburg in September 2006, your visit to Turkey (including the “spiritual” presence of Your Holiness in Istanbul’s Blue Mosque), and the very meaningful reactions that followed.
There were negative reactions, and even acts of violence (that is how a big building, the property of our Patriarchate in Damascus, was firebombed, though our adjoining parish church of Saint John of Damascus was itself spared and even protected.) Then there came other reactions: the letter of 38 sheikhs and ulemas (scholars or "The people of Islamic Knowledge") in 2006 and, last year, that very positive one from 138 sheikhs and ulemas of the Muslim world. That letter of 2007 was characterized by an irenic, positive tone, founded on the Word of God amongst Christians and Muslims.
Ecumenical role
The other aspect of the ad extra mission of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church is its role in the ecumenical journey towards Christian unity.
Our Church has always been conscious of this role. The history of our Melkite Greek Catholic Church of Antioch, in full communion for close on three hundred years with the Church of Rome that “presides in love,” has been marked by many vexations. In particular, it has had to live in the catacombs for about one hundred and thirty years. Indeed, we are a Church of martyrs and confessors of the faith, especially in Lebanon and Syria. There are, standing before you, Most Holy Father, descendants of martyrs.
Absolute communion with Rome
These were martyrs for unity, martyrs of communion with Rome, that communion which was, and still is for us, an historic, existential choice for commitment, that is both effectual and emotional, a definitive and irreversible constituent of glory and humility.
Orthodox and Catholic
However, that communion with Rome does not separate us from our Orthodox ecclesial reality. We say this with profound humility, a deep ecumenical awareness and a touch of humor: we are an Orthodox Catholic Church.
Peter III
Nearly nine centuries ago, a Patriarch of Antioch, Peter III, prefigured this role: few are aware of his courageous reaction at the time of the dispute between Patriarch Michael Cerularius and Cardinal Humbert of Silva-Candida, which caused the schism of 1054. His mediatory letter to Patriarch Cerularius closes with a plea, in a very “ecumenical” tone, “With all my strength, I appeal to Your Holiness not to enter upon this business with the spirit of contention. Otherwise, it is to be feared that in wishing to mend the tear you may enlarge it. Think carefully: could not all the current misfortunes, all the troubles which ravage kingdoms, all calamities, plagues and famines that devastate our towns and countryside, all the defeats of our troops, stem from this, I mean this long separation, this misunderstanding of our Church with the Apostolic See? Let the Latins correct their Creed, and I’ll ask for nothing more, even discarding as a matter of indifference the question of unleavened bread.”
Gregorios II
That is the role played by our predecessors, Gregorios II Youssef-Sayyour at the First Vatican Council, and Maximos IV Sayegh at Vatican II, with the pleiad of members of our Hierarchy.
That role is very apparent in several documents and decrees of Vatican II, and in the institutions originating in and promoted by that Council: Episcopal Conferences, the Synod of Bishops, liturgical reform, ecumenism…
Maximos IV at Vatican II
Patriarch Athenagoras, of blessed memory, thanked my predecessor Maximos IV for having spoken in his name at the Council. And Maximos IV replied: “Every time I spoke at the Council, I thought of you.”
Most Holy Father,
The ecumenical role of our Church is founded on this long Antiochian tradition, on our ecclesial experience of communion with the Church of Rome. We feel that it is an imperative duty and an essential part of the reality of our Church that is fully Eastern and in full communion with the See of Peter. Feel the last nail in your coffin Latinizations. Let the dirt fall on your casket and never more be seen.
Ecumenical contribution
This role is intended to be a contribution to the ecumenical movement, and to be humbly added to ecumenical efforts in the Roman Dicasteries and in the International Joint Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Our role is always to make ever present the great Absent One: Orthodoxy.
We are indeed rather the Eastern “enfant terrible” (French term for a child who is terrifyingly candid by saying embarrassing things to adults.) in communion with the Church of Rome. That was the goal of the initiative of the late Archbishop Elias Zoghby (Memory Eternal!) in 1996: to be in full communion with the Church of Rome and with Orthodoxy. That may be a dream, an Utopian vision, but it is also a prophetic vision.
The great absentee
We would like to live, in the very heart of the Catholic Church, a life that could be accepted by Orthodoxy. Let us do so, Most Holy Father. That is the key to all real progress along the ecumenical way. Accept us, Holy Father, as we are: Eastern Orthodox, who want to live our full and complete Eastern Orthodox tradition in full communion with Rome. That is the really big challenge for the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, as has been evident at every stage of the ecumenical dialogue since 1980 and especially at Belgrade and Ravenna.
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