Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Is Pope Francis about to get played by the Russians in Cuba?

(Timeline) - When people who haven’t talked in 1,000 years finally decide to bury the hatchet, that’s a hell of a Kumbaya moment to get excited about. On Friday, the Vatican said Pope Francis would meet with Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill I in Cuba next week. A pope and a Russian Orthodox patriarch have never met.

That’s big news in the Christian world. The Eastern Christian churches and the Roman Catholic church split in 1054 in what’s since been called the Great Schism, or the East-West Schism. The leader of each church excommunicated the other — a punishment that held until 1965.

The AP called next week’s meeting a “historic step to heal the 1,000-year schism that split Christianity” and said it “marks a major development in the Vatican’s long effort to bridge the divisions in Christianity.”

But there’s a wrinkle. The Russian Orthodox Church is just one of 14 self-governing churches that make up the Eastern Orthodox Church, and while it’s the biggest (about two-thirds of the world’s Orthodox Christians) and wealthiest, Kirill isn’t the group’s leader. Symbolically, and according to internal church law, it’s the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, who is the first among equals in Eastern Christianity.

And Bartholomew meets with Pope Francis pretty regularly — five times in three years.

“The patriarch of Moscow speaks only for the church of Russia,” said George E. Demacopoulos, a theology professor at Fordham University. “When these 14 groups get together, Bartholomew gets the shiny chair.” Which means what? It doesn't mean he got to set the agenda for the upcoming council. It doesn't mean he gets to declare autocephaly unilaterally. It doesn't mean the episcopal assemblies set up across the world are bodies destined to become appendages of Ecumenical Patriarchate authority. It doesn't mean he can interfere in the operations of another Church. Such grandiose authority of the "shiny chair" doesn't even extend into the autocephalous Church of Greece.

The reason lies in the early history of the Christianity, when the church was growing rapidly, and its leaders found the need to meet now and again to maintain its rules and theology. The most significant of these meetings — called the “seven ecumenical councils” — beginning in 325 were held in and around Constantinople.

Roman emperors typically called such meetings, a practice that continued, at a reduced pace, into the Ottoman empire from the 14th to 19th centuries. While the Orthodox churches share one agreed-upon theology, they each govern themselves, and are now essentially a unified group of national churches. Over the last century, the absence of a single pan-national leader who can call the churches together has led to “an enormous amount of dysfunction,” according to Demacopoulos. Some (read: me) would say this conciliar, almost decentralized process also protected the Church from the woeful innovations that have beset the Catholic and Anglican bodies. Watch how the Anglican Communion (not to mention other Protestant bodies) kept voting on hot-button issues over and over until the more liberal of their number were able to force some unholy idea through. Papal prerogative has not been a friend to the dogma of the Catholic Church when it unilaterally inserted doctrines into its Church anathema to Orthodoxy (not to mention many of its people).

It has taken 40 years for Orthodox leaders to organize the first major church council in more than 1,200 years. That meeting, scheduled to take place in Crete in June, is the reason, Demacopoulos said, that Kirill agreed to meet with Francis next week. That is not why either Rome or Moscow said they are meeting. The Russian Church stated quite clearly that the primary purpose was to save Christianity in the Middle East. The upcoming council is not going to be a place for beating shoes against a desk. It's going to be, by all signs, a place where pre-written declarations are going to be read aloud and distributed.
“A week after this meeting is finalized, Kirill agrees to meet with the pope for the first time in history?” he said. “There’s no way that’s coincidental. Kirill is trying to represent himself, in the lead up to [meeting] of Orthodox leaders, as public face of Orthodoxy. He’s trying to usurp Bartholomew.” What wild and meritless speculation. There's nothing here to usurp. The Ecumenical Patriarch is chairing the meeting. He neither set the agenda or has a vote more powerful than any other of the autocephalous voters does. If he votes for something and even one primate votes no it doesn't matter how much he wants it to happen. The decision must be unanimous.

So, does that mean Pope Francis is a pawn in some kind of Eastern Orthodox power grab? In November 2014, Francis told Kirill he would “go wherever you want. You call me and I’ll go.”

That said, like Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict XVI, Francis is interested in a detente with the Russian church, which has long accused it of sheep stealing — poaching believers in former Soviet lands and converting them to Roman Catholicism. Normalizing relations with the Russians would also allow the Vatican legitimate access to the country’s Christians. Not that I can see. The Russian Church sees the Slavic lands under her control to be her territory. There is no universal jurisdiction in Orthodoxy. I don't see the Pope wanting to spread Catholicism into Orthodox countries. A by far better target would be the quickly secularizing Europe.

Christopher Bellitto, a history professor at Kean University in New Jersey, told the AP that “the two men are trying to heal a millennium of wounds.” Again, not the announced aim of the talks. The purpose of the talks is very much in line with what the Russian Church's External Media Relations arm has been saying for years: Find points of agreement on important topics and battle Christianophobia wherever it rears its ugly head. Russian Orthodox efforts done in concert with other religious bodies on topics like abortion, bioethics, religious tolerance, etc. are not efforts whose goal is for "reunion." It is for the stated goals to be met. Certainly having the two primates meet is important, but it is not two men trying to heal a rift as a chief goal.

While the meeting next week is being hailed as a moment of healing and reconciliation, it seems both sides have something to gain, though Francis’ angle might be more in line with Christian teaching.

“There’s a desire by Francis … to atone for past wrongs with the Russian church,” said Demacopoulos. “The papacy was responsible for some pretty awful things in Slavic lands, and this is an attempt at restoration. Is Francis being played? Maybe. But he has a genuine reason to want this meeting.” The Russian Church also did some horrendous things to Catholics. I don't anticipate much hand wringing from Russian clergymen. If the Pope of Rome is being "played" so that the Patriarch of Moscow gets some media attention and isn't overshadowed (a hard thing to do when your media coverage and church size are already so huge) by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, that's a pretty petty game and not one that has much of anything to do with the stated goals of either party meeting in Cuba. Actually, these critiques are simply part in parcel with the Mr. Demacopoulos anti-Russian rhetoric machine where he calls them "fundamentalists" and "crazy" without much in the way of facts or impartiality.

19 comments:

  1. "Papal prerogative has not been a friend to the dogma of the Catholic Church when it unilaterally inserted doctrines into its Church anathema to Orthodoxy (not to mention many of its people"
    What are the doctrines inserted "unilaterally" through papal prerogative?

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    1. Everything from Immaculate Conception to Indulgences to any slew of delusional body part devotions. And that's just a start.

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  2. The Russian church DID NOT "do horrendous things to other Christians." But the Jesuits using the terror architecture of the Counter Reformation did establish the religious counterfeit of Unia by crimes against humanity. Banderofascist death squads are perpetrating similar repressions and crimes against humanity today to propagate a new unia. The papacy remains silent and even is supportive of such "Ukrainian ethnogenesis."

    UNIA MUST COME TO AN END AND PAPAL SUPPORT OF BANDEROFASCISM MUST CEASE. Unia has no future. It will be ended within a generation. The quackery of Ukrainian nationalism will not long outlive the current banderofascist, colonial state. What was the Ukraine will return to its Russian past and restore its history, albeit in pieces.

    The Patriarch should not be even appearing without IMMEDIATE CONCESSIONS MADE BY THE PAPACY. It is Rome acting in bad faith yet again. Rome is taking the Orthodox for a photo op and propaganda. What is Rome offering to the Orthodox is the question begged. It is the see in heresy.

    The lifting of the anathemas for the Orthodox Church in 1965 only included Istanbul and its dependencies. While the statements of all Eastern Patriarchs concerning the pope and the papist "church" of 1848 and 1870 condemning papism as heretical are still binding and in force.

    Every autocephalous church from ancient times has had the right to grant autocephaly to her daughters. Both Antioch and Alexandria did without either Roman or Constantinopolitan recognition necessary. Otherwise, there would be no autocephalous church in Istanbul today: Byzantium was the canonical territory of Antioch. So too Georgia and Armenia.

    The Holy Canons mention no Istanbul. The Russian church alone represents 70%+ of ALL ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS. The Russian Federation defends the interests of another 15-25% representing roughly 8-9 of the autocephalous local churches. Since there is no Constantinople any longer, nor has Istanbul preserved the purity of Orthodoxy, as any slew of its Athonite monks will testify, the fact it teaches ecclesiological heresy in the form of two lungs branch theory and is openly Renovationist means that it has morally and de facto forfeited any historic primacy it may have had. And that primacy has passed on to Moscow. Istanbul and Renovationist Fr. Demacopoulos are whistling past the graveyard and hoping someone other than the schismatics they support inciting rebellion in other local churches will take them seriously. They are has beens. They act and look and worship like Renovationist, crypto-Uniate has beens. They speak up to their senior when addressing the Russian church, being the thralls of Turkish conquest and Vatican patronage.

    No one but Istanbul is calling this gathering in Crete to impose the pan heresy of ecumenism an ecumenical council.

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  3. Istanbul globally represents hundreds of thousands of "Orthodox Christians." Moscow represents and defends globally hundreds of millions of Orthodox Christians. Istanbul openly teaches ecclesiological heresy. Moscow openly professes the purity of the Orthodox Faith. Istanbul is the captive dhimmi millet of an anti Christian Turkey. Moscow is the unofficial state church of the world's Orthodox superpower.

    Fatuous and hubritic nonsense written by Istanbul's organ grinding propagandists who regale themselves in second hand papal pedophile lounge suits in the place of Orthodox cassocks has influence only in Istanbul's AHEPA dominated echo chamber. The rest of the Orthodox world does not care.

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  6. "Everything from Immaculate Conception to Indulgences to any slew of delusional body part devotions. And that's just a start." "...doctrines inserted "unilaterally" through papal prerogative?" NOT.

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  7. Immaculate Conception was. Popes establish indulgences. Sacred hearts, immaculate hearts, baby doll worship all unilaterally established without anything conciliar by papal fiat.

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  8. BTW, I believe Thomas Aquinas writes against the false teaching of the Immaculate Conception.

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  10. The Jesuits at Fordham are not Orthodox Christians AT ALL! So can someone tell me why a collaborator so-called "Orthodox theologian" with the Jesuits would be considered legitimate in any way to comment upon anything of actual import concerning Orthodox theology or praxis?

    The so-called "Orthodox theologians" in that Jesuit program only have Jesuit sensationalism to share with the world - NOT HOLY ORTHODOXY!

    Those "Orthodox theologians" are entirely bought and paid for by the Jesuits who just want to push a sensationalist agenda harmful to Holy Orthodoxy.

    I, unfortunatly, was trained by the heretical Jesuits (and a goodly number of them are sexual perverts - we Orthodox don't want what are selling.). The Jesuits have not changed and have a vow TO the pope! Not to Jesus Christ or to a wife . . . but to the pope and the Jesuit must have absolute obedience to said pope!

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  11. I can’t understand why George Demacopoulos continues to be referenced for this bolg. He is a sycophant of the Phanar. He is vehemently anti-Russian. He wrote an article labeling Orthodox Christians who follow the patrisitic understanding of the faith….as fundamentalists. This man does not represent the phronema of the Orthodox faith……and he is certainly not a theologian. He also has insulted hierarchs of multiple jurisdictions. For example, he said: “One can't help but wonder sometimes, which Primate of an Orthodox jurisdiction is the most childish: Athens? Moscow? Antioch?”

    Most of what this man says should be disregarded. His writings are disgraceful.

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  12. It's impossible to conceive that the upcoming synod in Crete and the ferment of relations between the Ecumenical Throne and Moscow have nothing to do with Kirill's sudden meeting with the Pope of Rome. The anti-UGCC rhetoric of old has been swept aside for what - a photo op? Most likely.

    Patriarch Kirill is trying to save face and come across as more influential in the Orthodox world. Of course he would not state this. Pope Francis is being had. But it's not so much a matter of usurpation as of competing for credibility and influence.

    I'm not offering any apologia for the EP at this point. But let's not pretend the Slavic/Greek tension is not a ticking time bomb sitting beneath all of us, nor be so naive as to presume there's any one party obviously at fault. "Neopapalism" is troubling, "Russky Mir" is toxic. God save and protect our bishops.

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    1. Nonsense. If anything, with the impending fall of the banderofascist regime in the Ukraine, RUSSKY MIR, will be the rallying cry which ends the garbage of Unia forever. Ukrainian quackery doesn't have 15 years. No one is backing off in the Russian church from the abolition of the Unia: I can assure you. We will allow the descendents of the Cossacks to finally have justice soon enough! We will read Schevchenko's ode to Gonta in the original Russian at the final unification sobor of the UGCC.

      The Vatican is paying for this photo op. So it is clear who wants and needs it more. The papist church is on the verge of collapse globally. Russia is the only power today standing for Christendom and traditional values. In the face of a godless, Western onslaught. Do the math. If Rome does nothing today, it will have no voice in 25 years. The Vatican is desperate for a concordat with Russia. Sycophancy for Putin and his Russky Mir will be papal policy! The price of rapproachment is the end of Unia, Russian primacy, an end to sponsorship of Ukrainian fascism and Rome's drift to restoring Orthodoxy, ie a catholic mass (novus ordo is a Protestant joke), no filioque, Orthodox Paschalion to start! So stock up on Russian pleasing lipstick, papists.

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  13. Good article and the author makes a lot of sense. The MP, no matter what it's size is, is just one of the 14 autocephalous churches.

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    1. Delusional articles for desperate people who can't accept the reality of an Orthodox Russian superpower being the sole defender of Christendom, whose church leads the Orthodox world and has influence, comity and common purpose with 8 - 10 of the autonomous local churches, including 3 of the 4 ancient patriarchates, Mt. Athos and the State Church of Greece. 90 - 95% of the Orthodox world sides with Russian Orthodoxy and rejects Istanbul's Eastern Rite Protestant Renovationist heresy: deal with it.

      This is an article for Eastern Rite Protestant has beens hoping to convince their heretical sympathizers that they still have relevance. You don't, and the fact the supreme pontiff you so adore is ready to get smoochie with RUSSKY MIR means you have no future.

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