ORTHODOX AND CATHOLICS: TO UNITE OR NOT TO UNITE?

 Dr Vassilis Adrahtas holds a PhD in Studies in Religion (USyd) and a PhD in the Sociology of Religion (Panteion).

Stuck in a Conundrum  

Almost every day the Orthodox faithful are literally bombarded with news and discussions about the need, the prospect or the threat of global Christian unity – to be honest, the whole thing mainly revolves around the relationship between the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholics, and hardly takes into account any other Christian sensitivities or aspirations. However it is worth reflecting, first of all, on the necessity or not of this union and leave for later the threats or the prospects that it might entail. Besides, after so much talk about unity, one is entitled to ponder: to unite or not to unite? 

Unity comes in many shapes and sizes. What I want to say, is that it is so polysemic and plethoric a notion and/or reality that it ends up being tremendously ambiguous. Humans by their sheer existence as such are inherently united with one another – anyone with basic knowledge in philosophy knows this – and even when they reach the point of killing one another – to use an extreme example – they still, or even all the more, exemplify their unity insofar as they participate in and make possible the very activity that annihilates them… Furthermore, human history has never stopped being a great laboratory for the testing of this or that version of unity.  

So, in light of the above remarks, Christians are already quite united, thanks to both their Christian identity as such and their divisions over against one another. And this brings us to the big question: What more then? What possibly could a unity provide Christians with that they don’t already have through their existing unity? In other words, the fundamental issue involved in the current discussion about Christian unity – our blind spot, as it seems – is the question of what exactly we are supposed to be aiming at through the unification of Christians all around the world; what is the intentionality behind the Christian ecumenical movement, to be blunt.    

 

Christian Unity or Something Else?  

At the end of the day, we have to be able to answer the following question: what is Christian unity?
What are we talking about when we use this kind of jargon? Are we talking about dialogue, understanding, cooperation, coexistence, communion? Or are we talking about interaction, fusion, amalgamation, consolidation, homogenisation? The former are definitely what we hear about all the time, whereas the latter are not really addressed. But could it be that what we hear of basically silences what is really meant and intended? It could be both or, on the other hand, it could be the one or the other in a non-conventional way: a communion and/or a homogenisation that we haven’t yet experienced… 

Throughout history Christians have been united and disunited, that is, they have been together as one and as many, but this condition has created a whole range of situations that are not regarded any more – at least not by everyone – as acceptable, viable or proper. In other words, it is not the fact that Christians don’t have communion with one another that is seen in itself as bad, but the facts that this lack presupposes and entails that constitute the real problem. And again, it is not just the fact that Christians are divided because they espouse different credos that creates the whole issue of disunity, but the existence of entire divergent histories that has created the issue in the first place.  

If the previous remark has any analytical value at all, it suggests that Christians should start looking at things differently … the whole endeavour of their unity should be conceived otherwise. Simply put, we are done with the old ways of unity! This does not mean that unity in the sense of liturgical communion or some degree of homogenisation in practice is out of the question. What it means is that both of them cannot be the result of careful phrasing or ecclesiastical rearrangements. There’s too much historicity involved by now that cannot be ignored in favour of putting forward this or that theoretical or practical priority. To phrase it differently, the problem is not the tip of the iceberg, but the iceberg itself!  

 

Towards a New History    

Christian unity on the basis of common faith, expressed in practice through liturgical communion and combined canonical structures is still what Christians should be looking for, and as Orthodox faithful this is exactly what we believe that Orthodoxy stands for – what Orthodoxy always stood for. However, the greatest challenge we face is how will Orthodoxy manage to stand for the same thing in the future. To this question my answer is simple: differently. Orthodoxy will remain the same, that is, the expression of Christian unity, by being different, by transcending its confessional character and creating a new historical paradigm within and for the Christian sacroscape worldwide.   

You can get rid of Filioque, you can allow priests or even bishops to get married, you can change the theological jargon into a postmodern humanistic political correctness, you can reconceptualise primacy and synodality, you can do many things… but these in themselves – as signifiers – will not bring about unity, as long as the signified experiences and meanings are in a mess… as long as the marks of the signs are still visible on the historical skin of our collective Christian bodies… The divergent trajectories of this or that Christian experience require something more than language in order to start resonating once again. 

Language might not be enough, that is, sufficient, but it is absolutely necessary. What I am talking about, namely, Orthodoxy as an entirely new historical topos of Christian unity cannot be created without language – and this language is theology par excellence. In other words, the way towards Orthodoxy as a new history for the sake of Christian unity can only be paved through a new theology: a new ecumenical theology. This, in many respects, has been going on for the last one hundred years or so, but there is a big “but”… This theology of and for unity can only be the first step or steps, a kind of means, not the goal itself. Christian unit, as I said already, involves more than just words…  

If as Orthodox we were to answer the question “to unite or not to unite?” by saying “yes” to unity, then we should be ready to sacrifice our own historicity for the sake of a new one, showing thus to the entire Christian world that eschatology is not a nice, sophisticated way of putting the Christian message, but a heavy price to be paid in order to remain faithful to God’s Will. And this Will is the only Power upon history that turns the latter into the Kingdom of God where all… are one! 

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ABOUT | INSIGHTS INTO GLOBAL ORTHODOXY with Dr Vassilis Adrahtas

"Insights into Global Orthodoxy" is a fortnightly column that features opinion articles that on the one hand capture the pulse of global Orthodoxy from the perspective of local sensitivities, needs and/or limitations, and on the other hand delve into the local pragmatics and significance of Orthodoxy in light of global trends and prerogatives.

Dr Vassilis Adrahtas holds a PhD in Studies in Religion (USyd) and a PhD in the Sociology of Religion (Panteion). He has taught at several universities in Australia and overseas. Since 2015 he has been teaching ancient Greek Religion and Myth at the University of New South Wales and Islamic Studies at Western Sydney University. He has published ten books. He has extensive experience in the print media as editor-in-chief, and columnist, and for a while he worked as a radio producer. He lives in Sydney, Australia, his birthplace.

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