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Msgr. Paul
McPartlan is the Carl J. Peter Professor of Systematic Theology and
Ecumenism at The Catholic University of America. He has been a member of
the International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman
Catholic Church and Orthodox Church since 2005.
On Sept. 21, in Chieti, Italy, an international group of Catholic and
Orthodox bishops and theologians reached agreement on how the role of
the pope was understood in the first millennium of Christian history and
what that role might look like with unity restored between Catholics
and Orthodox. The 60 or so members of the Joint International Commission
for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the
Orthodox Church were continuing a long process of dialogue aimed at
restoring full communion after nearly 1,000 years of separation between
Christian West and East.
Pope and patriarch
That effort really began with the meeting of Pope Paul VI and the
Patriarch of Constantinople, Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras, in
January 1964 on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Many warm meetings
between popes and patriarchs of Constantinople followed, and, when
visiting Constantinople (modern Istanbul) in 1979, Pope St. John Paul II
stressed that if the world is to be evangelized, Catholic-Orthodox
reconciliation is urgent.
Pope Francis and the present patriarch of Constantinople, Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew, who celebrated the 25th anniversary of his
election on Oct. 22, have a warm and strong relationship. Patriarch
Bartholomew attended the inauguration of Pope Francis in 2013 — the
first time a patriarch of Constantinople had ever attended a papal
inauguration — and they have met many times since then. For example,
they met in Jerusalem in May 2014 to mark the 50th anniversary of their
predecessors’ meeting, and then Pope Francis visited Istanbul for the
patronal feast of St. Andrew in November 2014. He and Patriarch
Bartholomew pledged their firm resolve “to intensify our efforts to
promote the full unity of all Christians, and above all between
Catholics and Orthodox.”
Those high-level meetings and all the initiatives to restore mutual
love and respect belong to the “dialogue of charity” between Catholics
and Orthodox, and that is the essential basis for the theological
dialogue, the “dialogue of truth,” between the two sides.
Churches in dialogue
The theological dialogue began in 1980, resolving to start by
emphasizing how much Catholics and Orthodox hold in common, and then
gradually to move outward to tackle dividing issues, especially
regarding the papacy. Since 1980, the international commission has
produced a series of “agreed statements,” expressing what Catholics and
Orthodox believe they can affirm together, as we progress toward our
goal of full communion.
| Other recent milestones |
|---|
The journey for unity between Catholic and Orthodox Christians has seen other breakthroughs in recent years:
◗ In 2014, the Vatican lifted a
ban on the ordination of married men in Eastern Catholic Churches
outside their traditional territories. The ban, which affected Eastern
Catholics in the United States, had been in place since 1929. The move,
while not directly involving the Orthodox, signaled Rome’s willingness
to respect Eastern Christian traditions and practices.
◗ In February, Pope Francis met
in Cuba with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the first-ever meeting between a
pope and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. The meeting followed
decades of tension and delicate dialogue between Moscow and Rome.
|
“Full communion” means that Orthodox and Catholics will actually
cease to belong to two distinct churches and will recognize each other
once again as brothers and sisters in one Church, East and West. We will
celebrate the Eucharist together and be welcome to Communion in one
another’s churches. Preserving the rich variety of our respective
traditions of liturgy, theology and devotion, we will fully share those
treasures with one another and rejoice in growing closer to Christ and
to one another as members of one family instead of two.
That goal has guided the course of the theological dialogue. If
Catholics and Orthodox want to celebrate the Eucharist together again,
we have to agree about what the Eucharist is. That was the purpose of
the first agreed statement in 1982, which was called “The Mystery of the
Church and of the Eucharist in the Light of the Mystery of the Holy
Trinity.” The basic idea is that the holy Communion we receive at Mass
when we receive Jesus himself is a share in the life of the Trinity —
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Church is the body of Christ, and all
the members of that body are in communion with one another. So the
Church is a mystery of communion, anchored in the Trinity and regularly
renewed by the Eucharist. That first statement provided the fundamental
framework within which the dialogue has worked ever since.
Baptism and faith are requirements for celebrating the Eucharist —
that’s why we profess the Creed at Mass — and the second agreed
statement in 1987 examined those vital matters. Another requirement for
the Mass is a bishop or priest validly ordained in a line that traces
back to the apostles. The third agreed statement, in 1988, showed the
agreement of Catholics and Orthodox on those points, too.
Bishops and Rome
The apostolic succession of the bishops expresses the unity or
communion of the Church “vertically,” through the ages, and the
collegiality of the bishops expresses the Church’s unity and communion
“horizontally,” across the world today. It was intended that the next
agreed statement would look at those “horizontal” bonds. It’s precisely
in that context that Catholics locate the pope, as the head of the
college of bishops — and the role of the pope is really the major issue
that has separated Catholics and Orthodox since 1054. The dialogue was
therefore starting to tackle this major dividing issue.
During the second millennium, after various failed attempts to
reunite the West and the East as a whole, some Eastern churches
individually renewed communion with the bishop of Rome. Thus we have the
Eastern Catholic Churches, sometimes called “uniate” churches,
alongside the Orthodox Churches. During the Communist era, many of those
churches were brutally repressed, but the fall of the Iron Curtain in
1990 enabled them to re-emerge, as did also the many tensions between
them and the Orthodox Churches. The dialogue treated those matters in an
agreed statement of 1993, but problems continued and brought the
dialogue to a standstill in 2000.
It resumed in 2005 and discussed those “horizontal” bonds.
A meeting at Ravenna in 2007 produced an agreed statement,
recognizing three levels of the Church’s life: local, regional and
universal. At each level, there is both communion or “synodality” and
leadership or “primacy.” The bishop is head of the local church, the
patriarchs are regional heads of the Church, and there is a universal
primacy rightly exercised by the bishop of Rome because, in an ancient
phrase often used by Pope Francis, the local Church of Rome “presides in
charity.” That was a breakthrough, but it was stressed that there is no
primacy without synodality, and vice versa.
This year’s Chieti document starts to tackle the crucial question of
how such a universal primacy might function. Looking back to the first
millennium, when East and West were largely united, it notes again that
the unity of the Church was eucharistic, and that the bishop of Rome,
i.e. the pope, played an important part in ecumenical councils and in
dealing with appeals from local bishops. So he had an important role
serving the unity of the Church in faith and communion, and that’s the
model we need to have in mind today.
Msgr. Paul
McPartlan is the Carl J. Peter Professor of Systematic Theology and
Ecumenism at The Catholic University of America. He has been a member of
the International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman
Catholic Church and Orthodox Church since 2005.
