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(mospat.ru) - The Coordinating Committee of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church began its work in Rome on 22 November 2011. Taking part in the meeting as consultants on behalf of the Russian Orthodox Church are Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, and archimandrite Kirill (Govorun), first deputy chairman of the Education Committee of the Russian Orthodox Church.
At the beginning of the meeting, members of the committee decided unanimously to send congratulations to His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia on his 65th birthday. The two co-chairmen, His Eminence Metropolitan John of Pergamon, Patriarchate of Constantinople, and Cardinal Kurt Koch signed the message.
In his address, Metropolitan Hilarion reminded the participants that a discussion of the problem of unia was a precondition of the return of the Russian Orthodox Church to the process of the dialogue. This position was espoused by the Orthodox participants in the meeting. The problems of general methodology of elaborating the document on the primacy of the Roman Pontiff were discussed at the suggestion of Metropolitan Hilarion, who believes that the methodology should reflect the centuries-old experience of the Orthodox dispute against papal claims to universal authority in the Church.
The Commission will continue its work till November 25th.
Posts
Let's hope that the Coordinating Comittee of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and Orthodox Church, which is now meeting in Rome, will help to bring Catholicism and Orthodoxy into a closer relationship.
ReplyDeleteAmen
ReplyDeletePardon me, but why would I want that? Some of us became Orthodox to get AWAY from papism.
ReplyDeleteRE a discussion of the problem of unia
ReplyDeleteSince one mans "problem" is another mans religious freedon, I will be interested to know the results of this discussion.
@Merwyn Bogue:
ReplyDeleteThe problem of "Uniatism" is that we Orthodox in communion with Rome are separated from communion with our elder brothers in the Faith, with our mother Churches, and that jurisdictions that should be one body are split. The Orthodox can solve this problem by returning to communion with Rome as we did hundreds of years ago. Rome can help smooth this problem by permitting us to be who we are (by letting us actually be sui juris, by freeing us from our subjugation to Latin discipline regarding indulgences, fasting, holy days of obligation, and the ordination of married men to the priesthood) and by clearly affirming the dogmas that are deeply and inseparably ingrained in the teaching of the West and the unanimous opinion of the Western doctors and Fathers, but which strangely the Orthodox understand as contrary to Catholic teaching, namely our freedom from PERSONAL guilt of Adam's sin, theosis, the fact that the Father is the sole fount of divinity, and the death of the Theotokos before her Assumption into Heaven.
The Orthodox should understand that Rome is not going to turn us away from communion with her for being of the Byzantine rite. I utterly fail to understand why the Orthodox would even want that - Eastern Catholicism is a witness that Rome recognizes the validity of Eastern Christianity, and the degree to which the Eastern Catholics are forcibly latinized by Rome is a measure of the tolerance Rome is going to have for the East.
If the Orthodox are going to complain about Uniatism, then why do they have Western-Rite Orthodox? At least we Rusnicki and Italo-Greeks are historical eparchies and apostolic Churches that simply happen to be in communion with Rome rather than Moscow. And some of us, the Italo-Greeks, have always been in communion with Rome without ever any separation. The Western-Rite Orthodox are not only uniates on the Orthodox side, but they are groups made up in the 20th century without any Western-rite bishops and without any continuity with any historical Western-rite Church. There has never been any hierarchical divine liturgy in the Western rite within Orthodoxy, and yet you will find quite a few Western-Rite Orthodox parishes using a Gallican liturgy that has been defunct for over a millennium.
I'm not intending this as a complaint against the Western Rite in Orthodoxy - I'm thrilled at the official recognition of the validity of Western Christianity within Orthodoxy, although the Western-Rite Orthodox are as horribly byzantinized as we are latinized - but just as a complaint about the hypocrisy of the Orthodox in ecumenical dialogue.
There is no hypocrisy in Orthodoxy as a result of the Western Rite. Western Rite Orthodox are people who freely came to us and asked to become Orthodox. The Western Rite of the Orthodox Church has not been Byzantinized, but is actually more faithful to traditional Latin forms than the modern Post Vatican II Mass.
ReplyDeleteMost of the groups that make up the Unia exist because Roman Catholic monarchs pressured the Orthodox to submit to Rome and persecuted those who refused. Aside from its origins, the major problem with the unia is that they misrepresent themselves as “Orthodox in communion with Rome.” They are not Orthodox because they have rejected the Orthodox Faith and have accepted Roman Catholic doctrine and papal domination. Since the end of communism, some uniates have resorted to physical force to obtain control of buildings that have been Orthodox for generations.
Archpriest John Morris
Nobody is Unia if they don't want to be. People in Europe and the West are politically free to change churches. Eastern rite churches are increasingly appreciated by the Latins. I know of many Eastern Catholic churches where large numbers of the Sunday attendees are Latins. People like Archpriest John need to abandon the silliness that Eastern Catholics are in communion with Rome against their will today, as well as the 'who me?' attitude when it comes to the Western Orthodox Rite. The Orthodox know what they're doing when they open Western rite missions in countries like Mexico and the Philippines. All conversions today are voluntary. The Orthodox cannot negotiate a deal with Rome where Rome unilaterally orders Eastern Catholics to join the Orthodox. It doesn't work that way, and the Orthodox should WANT it to work that way. Let everyone dialogue and negotiate in good faith. And let's drop the pretenses and the hypocrisies. Everyone is guilty of everything.
ReplyDelete"shouldn't" want it to work that way, rather
ReplyDeleteThe Antiochian Western Rite parishes in the Phillipines are there because they came to us and asked to join the Orthodox Church. As I have already written the Unia has a very different history. Western Rite ommunities clearly identify themselves as Orthodox. They
ReplyDeleteare not involved in the kind of deception that Uniates use when they claim to be Orthodox in communion with Rome. They are not Orthodox. They are Eastern Rite Roman Catholics.