I don’t know how many of our subscribers are Orthodox Christians. But from those who are, we get frequent complaints that insufficient attention is paid that very large part of the Christian world. So here goes. The occasion is a remarkable address by Professor John H. Erickson of St. Vladimir Orthodox Seminary in Crestwood, New York, delivered at the National Workshop on Christian Unity, which met last year in San Diego, California. Erickson reports that in 1990 he opined, “The Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and with it, communism. With it also fell ecumenism as we have known it.”
The last decade, he believes, has only reinforced that judgment. The Orthodox churches of Georgia and Bulgaria have withdrawn from the World Council of Churches (WCC), and other churches are under pressure to withdraw. In 1997 at Georgetown University, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew spoke of Orthodoxy as being “ontologically different” from other churches. This is sometimes referred to as the “friends, brothers, heretics” speech. Patriarch Alexei II of Moscow remains adamantly opposed to the Pope’s visiting Russia, and his other visits have met with a very mixed reception. At St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai joint prayer was carefully avoided; in Jerusalem Patriarch Diodorus made a point of noting that he had not prayed with the Pope. (But note that, as of this writing, there are signals that the Russian Church may be weakening in its opposition to a papal visit.)
Is it the case, as Samuel (Clash of Civilizations) Huntington has said, that ecumenism was a Cold War phenomenon that has given way to the stark division between the “West” and the “Orthodox” civilization of Russia and the Balkans? Erickson writes: “Some alarming questions arise. If the Orthodox mental world is so radically different from that of the West, what implications does this have for ecumenical relations, whether globally or here in North America? What implications does this have for people like me, who call themselves Orthodox Christians and belong to Orthodox churches, but who certainly are not only in the West but also in many respects of the West? From personal experience, I can tell you that the authenticity of our Orthodoxy increasingly is being questioned, both from abroad and here as well. And another, more far”reaching question also arises: Is ecumenism”like liberal democracy and for that matter communism”in fact simply a product of the West, one of its many ideologies, whose universal claims and aspirations will inevitably fail in the emerging world order, now that Western hegemony can no longer be taken for granted, now that the legitimating myths of the Enlightenment have lost their persuasive power?”
Already in the nineteenth century, some Orthodox reached out ecumenically, mainly to Anglicans and Old Catholics. Orthodox theologians were significantly involved in Faith and Order during the interwar period. When the WCC was formed in 1948, the Soviet regime required Orthodox leaders to condemn it as part of a Western plot, but that changed dramatically in 1961. “At the New Delhi assembly of the WCC in 1961, the Orthodox churches of Eastern Europe joined the WCC en masse. Their membership was advantageous for all concerned. In various ways Orthodox membership made the WCC itself more ‘ecumenical,’ more global, more sympathetic to the diversity of situations in which Christians struggle in their witness to the gospel. At the same time, membership gave the Orthodox churches in question an opportunity to be seen in the West and gain contacts in the West, thus also raising their status back home. And the price seemed negligible. The WCC itself from the 1960s onward was becoming ever more concerned about issues like racism, liberation, and economic justice; it was especially sensitive to the strivings of churches and peoples of what was then the ‘third world.’ The Orthodox churches of Eastern Europe could express concern about such issues with little risk of running afoul of the Communist authorities back home”and indeed they might benefit by contributing in this way to building up a good image for the Socialist states, and possibly even a cadre of fellow travelers.”
“Dialogue of Love”
At Vatican Council II, the Catholic Church became ecumenically assertive; soon mutual anathemas between East and West were consigned to the memory hole and a “dialogue of love” was proclaimed. With both Catholics and the WCC, the Orthodox produced promising ecumenical statements. “But on the Orthodox side at least,” says Erickson, “this ecumenism remained at the level of professional theologians and high Church dignitaries. For the faithful in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, ecumenism brought little more than the occasional photo of the Pope greeting a prominent hierarch, or of a long row of Orthodox bishops, all with their black klobuks and jeweled panaghias and crosses, seated prominently in a WCC assembly.”
Moreover, the dialogue of love had to cope with what the Orthodox call “uniatism.” “Uniate” or “Eastern Catholic” refers, of course, to those Christians in the East who retained their liturgy and other practices while entering into full communion with Rome, beginning with the Union of Brest in 1596. “Uniate” is a term that is eschewed in polite ecumenical discourse today, but the Orthodox have a long history of resentment against what they view as Catholic poachers on their ecclesiastical turf. Erickson: “Given this troubled history, it is understandable why the Orthodox churches have viewed ‘uniatism’ as a sign of Catholic hostility towards them, as an attempt to subvert them by dividing brother from brother, and as implicit denial of their own ecclesial status. And of course it is also understandable why Eastern Catholics have resented the Orthodox for their complacent acquiescence in the suppression of the Eastern Catholic churches following World War II.” He continues: “The term ‘uniate’ itself, once used with pride in the Roman communion, had long since come to be considered as pejorative. ‘Eastern Rite Catholic’ also was no longer in vogue because it might suggest that the Catholics in question differed from Latins only in the externals of worship. The council affirmed rather that Eastern Catholics constituted churches , whose vocation was to provide a bridge to the separated churches of the East. But if, as subsequent dialogue was emphasizing, the Orthodox churches themselves are truly ‘sister churches,’ already nearly at the point of full communion with the Roman Church, what rationale”apart from purely pastoral concern for Christians who might otherwise feel alienated and possibly betrayed”can there be for the continued existence of such ‘bridge churches’?”
Animus is exacerbated by the demand of Eastern Catholics that their property, expropriated by Stalin and given to the Orthodox, be returned. The demand that all property be returned ( restitutio in integrum ) is, says Erickson, unreasonable, at least in some cases, because of demographic and other changes over the years. Then there is the matter of “proselytism.” Not only Catholics but armies of Protestant evangelizers, mainly backed by the religious groups in the U.S., are, claim the Orthodox, failing to recognize that there is an indigenous Christianity in Russia and Eastern Europe. In what Erickson calls “ecumenism as we knew it,” the Orthodox acknowledged that, while Orthodoxy actualizes the one true Church, there was a possibility of dialogue with other churches aiming at greater unity and fuller communion. Erickson writes: “But not all Orthodox would agree with these assumptions. Some would take Orthodox claims to be the one true Church in an exclusive rather than an inclusive sense, so that outside the canonical limits of the Orthodox Church as we currently perceive them there is simply undifferentiated darkness, in which the Pope is no better than a witch doctor. How are we to evaluate these conflicting views? The exclusive view today claims to represent true Orthodoxy, traditional Orthodoxy. In fact”as I could argue at greater length”this ‘traditionalist’ view is a relatively recent phenomenon, basically an eighteenth-century reaction to the equally exclusive claims advanced by the Roman Catholic Church in that period. Nevertheless this view has gained wide currency over the last decade.”
Capitulation Charged
So who is pushing this very untraditional traditionalism? “What is important to note is that those most committed to the ‘traditionalism’ they preach are not pious old ethnics and émigrés but more often zealous converts to Orthodoxy. Like Western converts to Buddhism and other more or less exotic religions (New Age, Native American . . . ), these converts are attracted by their new faith’s spirituality, which seems so unlike what the West today has to offer. They also are especially quick to adopt those elements which they deem most distinctive, most anti-Western, about their new faith”not just prayer ropes and headcoverings but also an exclusive, sectarian view of the Church that in fact is quite at odds with historic Orthodoxy. Superficially their message, proclaimed on numerous websites, may seem to be at one with that of the established, ‘canonical’ Orthodox churches”at one with some of the statements of Patriarch Bartholomew or the Russian Orthodox Church, which, as we have seen, have been critical of the WCC and the Vatican. But in fact their message is different, even radically different. Their message, in my opinion, is more a product of the late-modern or postmodern West than an expression of historic Eastern Christianity. According to them, any participation in or involvement with the WCC or similar bodies represents a capitulation to the panheresy of ecumenism; Orthodoxy’s claim to be the one true Church is relativized, a ‘branch theory’ of the Church is tacitly accepted, and church canons against prayer with heretics are repeatedly violated in practice and in principle.”
Breakthrough and Alarm
During centuries of polemics, Rome tended to present itself as “the Universal Church,” and the only thing for others to do was to come home to Rome. In an earlier time, East and West recognized one another as “sister churches,” and that understanding, especially on the part of Rome, is making a comeback, most notably with the pontificate of John Paul II. Erickson writes: “Significantly, the expression ‘sister church’ did not cease to be used for the Western Church even after full eucharistic communion ended. For example, in 1948 Patriarch Alexei I of Moscow”certainly no great friend of the Roman Catholic Church”nevertheless could refer to it as a ‘sister church.’ What is remarkable about the use of the expression since 1963, when Patriarch Athenagoras I and Pope Paul VI reintroduced it into modern Orthodox”Roman Catholic dialogue, is not that the Orthodox should use it with reference to the Roman Church but that Rome should use it with reference to the Orthodox churches. While the precise significance and practical implications of the expression have not been fully explored”it is not, after all, a technical term in canon law”it must be acknowledged that its use by modern popes represents a remarkable breakthrough in Orthodox”Catholic relations.”
It is precisely that breakthrough that alarms the untraditional traditionalists in Orthodoxy. Many of them, Erickson notes, are drawing their polemical ammunition from apocalyptic Protestant “Bible prophecy” sources on the Internet and elsewhere. Traditionalist Orthodox employ these sources to depict everything from the New World Order and the use of contraceptives and implanted microchips to the papal “Antichrist” as signs of the final catastrophe from which their version of Orthodoxy is the only refuge. This accent on the Orthodox difference, Erickson says, has undermined ecumenism “as we knew it.” “The modern self-confidence which gave rise to the ecumenical movement in the first place”confidence in the possibility of reaching agreement and achieving unity through dialogue, common reflection, and common action”has given way to postmodern self-doubt. We are in the midst of a radical decentering in which many new voices are clamoring for recognition”and on the religious scene this means not only traditionalists and fundamentalists but also contextual theologies of many sorts. In principle this decentering should help us appreciate diversity and facilitate dialogue. But this does not seem to be happening. Instead we seem to be entering the age of the parallel monologue. What counts are my own people, my own tradition, my own group, my own orientation. Those formed by other contexts may be tolerated or even honored with faint words of praise, but they are, as it were, ‘ontologically different’ (to quote Patriarch Bartholomew’s Georgetown speech once again). They are, for me, spiritually empty. No solid basis exists for dialogue, communication, and communion.”
What has happened to Orthodoxy and ecumenism is, of course, taking place within a cultural milieu in which all differences are fundamental, and fundamental differences are assumed to be insurmountable. Erickson reports, “Recently I was speaking to a Serbian Orthodox student from Bosnia Herzegovina. He kept insisting, ‘You here in the West just do not understand our situation.’ He really was saying, ‘You cannot understand our situation”so uniquely painful is it. You”in your very different situation”are incapable of understanding our situation.’ These days many people are saying much the same thing: women, gays, people of color, the poor, those marginalized in various ways, and even white males of the West whose position in the world now seems threatened. We are all tempted to say, ‘I am situated within a unique interpretive community. I have no need for dialogue with you or anyone else. Indeed, no basis exists for dialogue with you.’”
Waiting a Thousand Years
Erickson’s conclusion offers nought for our comfort: “We may still be convinced of the desirability of Christian unity. We may even be convinced of the need for Christian unity. But how convinced are we of the possibility of Christian unity? How many of us really believe that in Christ, crucified and risen, it is possible for us to overcome division, to understand each other’s situation, to make each other’s pain and joy our own? These are the some of the questions that face each of us involved in the ecumenical movement today.”
Erickson’s essay is remarkably candid and more than bracing. It goes a long way to explain the nonresponse, indeed hostility, of the Russian Church and others to the unprecedented initiatives of John Paul II. In the 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint (That They May be One), the Pope invited others to join in rethinking the function of the papal office itself, suggesting that reconciliation is more important than questions of jurisdiction. As one Orthodox theologian told me, “We’ve been waiting a thousand years for a pope to say what he is saying. Now this Pope has said it, and we act as though nothing has happened.”
It is safe to say that the dearest hope of this Pope for his pontificate has been ecclesial reconciliation with the Orthodox, so that, as he has often put it, “the Church may again breathe with both lungs, East and West.” It is also safe to say that such reconciliation will not happen on his watch. That is very sad. We must hope, however, that the initiatives taken since the Second Vatican Council (and there have also been constructive initiatives from the Orthodox side), combined with a revival of an authentically traditional ecclesiology among the Orthodox, will in the years to come move us beyond “ecumenism as we have known it,” and beyond “parallel monologues,” to the fulfillment of Our Lord’s prayer, Ut unum sint . For all the reasons that Prof. Erickson discusses, that seems at present to be a wan hope. But then, we Christians were long ago given our instructions, and warned that we would have to walk by faith and not by sight.
