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Φως Φαναρίου
Από τις 16-22 Σεπτεμβρίου 2016, στην πόλη Chieti της Ιταλίας, συνεδριάζει
η 14η (XIV) Ολομέλεια της Διεθνούς Μικτής Επιτροπής Θεολογικού Διαλόγου
μεταξύ της Ορθοδόξου και της Ρωμαιοκαθολικής Εκκλησίας.
Την Κυριακή 18 Σεπτεμβρίου, σε Ναό του Chieti, τελέστηκε διορθόδοξη Θ. Λειτουργία, προεξάρχοντος του Συμπροέδρου του Θεολογικού Διαλόγου, Αρχιεπισκόπου Τελμησσού κ. Ιώβ (Οικουμενικό Πατριαρχείο).
Παρέστησαν συμπροσευχόμενοι οι Ορθόδοξοι και Ρωμαιοκαθολικοί κληρικοί και καθηγητές που συμμετέχουν στον Διάλογο.
Δημοσιεύουμε στη συνέχεια την ομιλία του Αρχιεπισκόπου Τελμησσού κ. Ιώβ,
που πραγματοποίησε κατά την διάρκεια της Θείας Λειτουργίας.
Homily at the Orthodox Divine Liturgy
During the 14th Plenary Session of the Joint International Commission of Theological
Dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches
Manoppello Sanctuary, September 18, 2016.
Eminences, Excellences, Reverend Fathers, Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
On this Sunday after the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, we
heard the words of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ addressed to each
one of us: “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and
take up his cross and follow me” (Mk 8:34). By His sacrifice on the
Cross, our Lord and Saviour has offered himself once for all for the
salvation of all, as we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “having been
offered once to bear the sins of many” (Hb 9:28).
The mystery of our salvation has been accomplished by the sacrifice of
Christ on the Golgotha and through His Resurrection. This event became
the foundation of our faith as well as the central event of our
ecclesial life. Through baptism, which is our incorporation to Christ
and our entrance into this ecclesial life, we have participated in
mystery in the death of Christ and in His Resurrection, and we have “put
on Christ” (Ga 3:27). Therefore, we can appropriate to ourselves the
words of Saint Paul in today’s epistle: “I have been crucified with
Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the
life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who
loved me and gave himself for me” (Ga 2:20).
As Saint John Chrysostom has noted, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
does not oblige us, neither constrain us to be saved, but invites us,
through our free-will, to participate in His heritage. “If anyone wishes
to come after me…” He says! In order to follow Him, we need to renounce
to three things: first to deny ourselves, secondly to take our cross,
and thirdly to follow Him.
To deny ourselves means to leave out our individualism, our egoism, and
our egocentrism, which according to His Beatitude Archbishop Anastasios
of Albania is the greatest problem and danger in the ecclesial life. To
take our cross means to be ready to die for Christ, to be a martyr, that
is to be a witness for Christ and for His Gospel. We must therefore be
courageous in the testimony we bring about Christ in our contemporary
society. To follow Christ means to practice and to incarnate in our life
all the Christian virtues, so that we might say that is no longer we
who live, but Christ who lives in us (Ga 2:20).
Thus, by choosing freely to follow Christ, putting aside our egoism and
egocentrism, being ready to witness Christ by every little deed in our
daily life and reflecting thus the image of Christ around us, we will
progress with Him on the path towards His Kingdom.
Today, with the blessing and on the invitation of His Eminence
Archbishop Bruno Forte, the local archpastor of the local Roman Catholic
diocese, we, the Orthodox members of the Joint International Commission
of Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox
Churches have the great blessing to celebrate this Divine Liturgy here,
in this sanctuary of Manoppello, where the holy relic of the image of
Christ not made by human hands is kept since the beginning of the XVIth
century.
According to some scholars, this veil corresponds to the soudarion, the
cloth mentioned in the Gospel of John, that had been wrapped around
Jesus’ head and that was lying separate from the linenin the empty tomb,
after His Resurrection (Jn 20:7). According to another tradition,
recorded in the Acta Pilati, this would be the holy face of Christ
printed on a veil, the veil of Veronica. On the way to the Golgotha,
Veronica encountered Christ and gave him a veil to wipe off the blood
and sweat, and the image of His face was then imprinted on the cloth.
Venerating this holy relic of the Passion and of the Resurrection of
Christ, which unites East and West, Jerusalem and Manopello, we are
invited to encounter Christ by being His true disciples, by denying
ourselves, taking our cross and following Him. We are called to receive
Him in the Eucharist, and therefore, the sad situation that we, divided
Christians, cannot share the same Chalice, as it is the case today at
this Divine Liturgy, is a scandal and a wound in the Body of Christ that
must be healed.
A very important and significant event in that perspective was the
lifting up of the anathemas of 1054 between the Churches of Rome and
Constantinople at the end of the Second Vatican Council on December 7,
1965. Since that significant event, our Churches are now standing in the
situation they were before the imposition of the anathemas, that is a
state of rupture of communion (akoinonesia), due to historical events
and theological disputes. This state of rupture of communion has to be
resolved through the theological dialogue our Churches have engaged into
since 1980, which has precisely as a goal the restauration of the full
communion between our sister Churches, through the resolution of
theological disagreements.
As the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church has declared last
June, “the Orthodox Church, which prays unceasingly for the union of
all, has always cultivated dialogue with those estranged from her, (…)
she has played a leading role in the contemporary search for ways and
means to restore the unity of those who believe in Christ. (…) The
contemporary bilateral theological dialogues of the Orthodox Church and
her participation in the Ecumenical Movement rest on this
self-consciousness of Orthodoxy and her ecumenical spirit, with the aim
of seeking the unity of all Christians on the basis of the truth of
faith and Tradition of the ancient Church of the seven Ecumenical
Councils” (Relations, 4-5). This is why the Holy and Great Council has
also underlined that “the Orthodox Church considers all efforts to break
the unity of the Church, undertaken by individuals or groups under the
pretext of maintaining or allegedly defending true Orthodoxy, as being
worthy of condemnation” (Ibid., 22).
Eminences, Excellences, Reverend Fathers, Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
It is in this spirit that we, the Orthodox members of the Joint
International Commission of Theological Dialogue between the Roman
Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church have come together with our
Roman Catholic brothers and sisters to Chieti, and are now working
together towards a common understanding of synodality and primacy, one
of the most delicate questions in the relationship between our two
sister Churches.
May the Lord, whose image not made by human hands we venerate and who
invites all of us to deny ourselves, take our cross and follow him,
inspire our work for the unity and the glory of His Church, and for the
salvation of His people. To Him, glory and adoration to the ages of
ages. Amen.
Archbishop Job of Telmessos
