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THE SYNODAL THEOLOGICAL COMMISSION STUDIES ISSUES RELATED TO THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE ORTHODOX AND ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCHES The commentary on the documents of the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue On April 18, 1997 the Synodal Theological Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church under the chairmanship of Metropolitan Philaret of Minsk and Sluts had a meeting at the Department for External Church Relations to study the document of the VII Plenary session of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue Between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches on Uniates, Method of Union of the Past and the Present Search for Full Communion, which was adopted in Balamand, Lebanon, in June 1993. This document gave rise to a dispute at the All-Bishops Council of the Russian Orthodox Church last February which resulted in the decision of the Council to transfer the document to Synodal Theological Commission for study and to have the Holy Synod work out an official position on it. In this connection, the Theological Commission found it essential to give some information on the background of the Balamand document. The theological dialogue between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches goes back to early 1960 s following Vatican II and Pan-Orthodox Conferences on Rhodes.
As early as 1961, the First Pan-Orthodox Conference, among other topics for the forthcoming Pan-Orthodox Council, chose the following: V. Relations of the Orthodox Church with the rest of the Christian world. () C. Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic Church. a) Study of Positive and Negative moments in the relations between the two Churches: 1) on the faith; 2) on the government; 3) on the activity of the church (especially, propaganda, proselytism, Unit) b) Establishment of relation in the spirit of Christian love, as envisaged in Patriarchal encyclical of 1920 (JMP No. 11, 1961) The second Pan-Orthodox Conference in 1963 unanimously agreed that our Eastern Orthodox Church should propose a dialogue with the honorable Roman Catholic Church on conditions of parity. (JMP No. 11, 1963) Three meetings of Orthodox technical theological commission for the preparation of the dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church preceded the work of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
The list of topics for the primary stage of the dialogue was worked out by the Third conference of the Commission which took place at the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chamber, Switzerland, on June 25 - 27, 1978. Representatives of ten Local Orthodox Churches with the exception of the Serbian, Polish, Czechoslovak and Finnish Churches took part in the meeting. The conference described the aim of the dialogue thus: The objective of the dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches is to establish full communion. Such communion is to be based on the unity in the faith, on a commonly shared life and Tradition of the early Church and is to be realized through the celebration of one Eucharist. On the method of the dialogue, the conference said that it should proceed from the elements which unite the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. By no means does it imply that it is desirable or even possible to avoid problems still dividing the two Churches.
This only means that the dialogue should be built up in a positive spirit, prevailing over the interpretation of the problems accumulated during several centuries of division. () In this light, the points of division between our Churches could be dealt with by applying a new method. There is a hope that in this way it would be possible in a consistent and successive manner to remove certain obstacles impeding the return of our two Churches to a commonly shared life. Agreement to start a theological dialogue between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches was reached during the visit of Pope John Paul II to Planar in 1979, following which Patriarch Demetrius I of Constantinople announced the formation of a Joint International commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, and so was it done with the agreement of all Local Orthodox Churches. The working schedule of the Commission envisages its plenary meetings twice a year. In between the sessions there are working subcommission's and a joint coordinating committee.
The First session of the Commission took place on Patmos and Rhodes in 1980. Three subcommission's and a coordinating committee were set up then. The subcommission's worked on one common theme The Mystery of the Church and Eucharist in the Light of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity. They met in Chevetogne, Belgium, from October 5 to 8, 1980; in Rome, from December 27 to 30, 1980, and in Belgrade from April 29 to May 1, 1981. From May 25 to 30, 1981, Venice hosted the Coordinating Committee which discussed the results of the subcommission's work and issued a communique. The second meeting was held in Munich from June 30 to July 6, 1982.
It continued to discuss the theme of the previous meeting on The Mystery of the Church and Eucharist in the Light of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity. The discussion was based on the materials which had been prepared after the Rhodes meeting. The third meeting was convened on Crete from May 30 to July 8, 1984. Its theme was The Faith, Sacraments and Unity of the Church. Its documents were consequently reviewed by the Coordinating Committee at its meeting in Opol, Poland, on June 3 - 8, 1985. In addition, the Opol meeting discussed another theme The Sacrament of Ministry in the Sacramental Structure of the Church, and the importance of the Apostolic Succession for the Consecration and Unity of the People of God.
The fourth session took place in Bari, from May 29 to June 7, 1986. It continued the discussion of the theme the Faith, Sacraments and Unity of the Church dealt with by the preceding meeting on Crete; the general document was thoroughly revised. The Bari meeting also considered the document dedicated to the theme The Sacrament of Ministry in the Sacramental Structure of the Church, in particular, the Significance of Apostolic Succession for the Consecration and Unity of the People of God. With the absence of representatives from a number of Churches in Bari, the next session of the Joint Commission was to be convened at the earliest possible opportunity. Archbishop Antonio Ma grassi of Bari in a press-release said that it would take place again in his diocesan city on June 8, 1987. And so it did.
The next session of the Joint Commission took place in Bari, in June 1987. The Russian Orthodox Church was unable to attend for technical reasons. (Technical reasons had prevented our Church from attending the previous meeting in 1986 too). The fifth session of the Joint Commission was held from June 19 to 27, 1988, at the New Valamo Monastery in Finland and discussed the theme The Sacrament of Ministry in the Sacramental Structure of the Church, and the importance of the Apostolic Succession for the Consecration and Unity of the People of God. The years between late 80 s and early 90 s saw the worsening of the relations between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. The main cause was the inadmissible violent methods employed by the Greek Catholic churches to restore their legal parish life after an underground existence.
This violent process was most painful for the Orthodox in Western Ukraine (Lvov, Ternopol, Ivan-Frankovsk regions, Transcarpathia). There the tension was such as to lead to mass disorders, clashes, seizures of the Orthodox churches when Orthodox communities were forced out of their places of worship; discrediting campaigns were conducted against the Orthodox of the Moscow Patriarchate in the press; the Greek Catholic newspapers, like Meta and I Believe would openly call them the fifth column of Moscow, or agents of Russias imperial influence. It was necessary to exercise every possible effort to change the situation. Unfortunately, direct contact with the Uniate's was impossible, because the Greek Catholics had left the so-called Quadrennial Commission. That commission was formed in January 1990 and had among its members representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate, of the Roman Catholic Church, of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Catholics of Eastern Rite from Western Ukraine. The Uniate members withdrew from the commission under the pressure of the extremist members of the Ukrainian political movement RUKH, who promised, in case they came to power, to take church buildings from the Orthodox and give them over to Eastern Catholics.
Therefore, they thought it unnecessary to carry on dialogue with the Orthodox Church. The attempts to come into contact with the local or central authorities and to urge them to insure human rights and religious freedom, brought no result. The Orthodox continued to be forced out with ever growing malice. Moreover, world public opinion was distrustful of the protests on the part of the Moscow Patriarchate, believing that what was going on in Western Ukraine was the reversal of historical injustice. In such a situation it was important to do the utmost to bring it home to public opinion, to international organizations, to Christian Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, that beating Orthodoxy in Western Ukraine was not only an act of violation of human rights and religious freedom, but also an annihilation of whatever progress the dialogue between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches had made in the previous years.
It was essential to show that uniates was a dangerous and unacceptable way for achieving unity. Unit has brought about new divisions, tearing the One Body of the Orthodox Church. The four centuries of its maintenance have revealed it as a dangerous form of proselytism against Orthodoxy. Human sufferings and even bloodshed were the sad aftermath of the divisions it had caused. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that while repudiating Unit as a method, the Churches do not abjure people.
The Greek Catholic communities existing today, with a legal right to existence, like any other religious organization or association, should cease to be the source of divisions and conflicts between the Orthodox and Catholics. To serve this purpose, there should be worked out rules to regulate co-existence and relations in places where there is tension causing the sufferings of the people of God. That is precisely why, on the initiative of the Russian Orthodox Church, which found the support of all Local Orthodox Churches, the Orthodox-Roman Catholic theological dialogue was suspended. The decision was that the dialogue could be resumed after the problem of uniates has been jointly studied and resolved. On the basis of jointly worked out documents, the International Joint Commission for the Theological Dialogue, at its sixth plenary session in Freising (Munich) on June 6 16, 1990, issued a Statement, saying, among other things, that Unit, as a method, failed where it was introduced to bring the Churches closer. On the contrary, it caused further disunity.
The situation, as a whole, gave occasion to confrontation and pain which became imprinted in the historical memory of both Churches. Ecclesiological motives, too, call for some other methods to be found. Archbishop Irene of Round and Ostrog and Professor Archpriest Nicholas Gundyaev took part in that session. The Joint Commission reached another stage in its work at a meeting of the Coordinating Committee in Ariccia, Italy, (June 10 - 15, 1991). It produced the first draft of the joint statement with the title Uniates, Method of Union of the Past and the Present Search for Full Communion, which unambiguously affirmed that, Because of the way in which Catholics and Orthodox once again consider each other in their relationship to the mystery of the Church this form of missionary apostolate which has been called uniates, can no longer be accepted either as a method to be followed nor as a model (par. 12). In addition to that, the document offers practical recommendations for overcoming the tension between the Orthodox and Greek Catholics on the local level, especially in Western Ukraine.
It points out, that Pastoral activity in the Catholic Church. no longer aims at having the faithful of one Church to pass over to the other; that is to say, it no longer aims at proselytizing It aims at answering the spiritual needs of its own faithful (Greek Catholic IB ed. ). Within this perspective, so that there will be no longer place for mistrust and suspicion (par. 22) This text served as a basis for the Balamand Document, adopted on June 23, 1993 by representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and those of nine Local Orthodox Churches, except the Church of Jerusalem the Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian and Czechoslovak Churches. The Document excludes Uniates as a method (par. 4) and offers recommendations for overcoming tension in bilateral relations. The Document adopted in Balamand, Lebanon, is of three parts, namely: Introduction, Ecclesiological Principles, and Practical Rules. Already the Introduction, referring to the texts worked out in Freising and in Ariccia, underlines that we reject it (uniates) as method for the search for unity because it is opposed to the common tradition of our Churches (par. 2) Under the Ecclesiological Principles the Document analyses theological teachings which have generated proselytism and Unit as methods of bringing back to the Church her fallen-off members.
According to the Balamand Document, todays vision of each other by the Orthodox and Catholics is based on the concept of sister Churches. This term was introduced in early 60 s by the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoros; later it found its way into the documents of Vatican II (Constitution On Ecumenism). At the same time, par. 15 underlines, that While the inviolable freedom of persons and their obligation to follow the requirements of their conscience remain secure, in the search for re-establishing unity there is no question of conversion of people from one Church to the other in order to ensure their salvation. In this regard, the document reminds of the joint statement issued by Pope John Paul II and the Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrius I on December 7, 1987, which, among other things said: We reject any form of proselytism, any position which could be suggestive of non-respect.
Under the Practical Rules the document points out, that Religious liberty requires that, particularly in situations of conflict, the faithful are able to express their opinion and to decide without pressure from outside if they wish to be in communion either with the Orthodox Church or with the Catholic Church. Religious freedom would be violated when, under the cover of financial assistance, the faithful of one Church would be attracted to the other, by promises, for example, of education and material benefits that may be lacking in their own Church. In this context, it will be necessary that social assistance, as well as every form of philanthropic activity to be organized with common agreement so as to avoid creating new suspicions (par. 24) The document encourages churches to create joint local commissions or make effective those which already exist, for finding solutions to concrete problems and seeing that these solutions are applied in truth and love, in justice and peace. If agreement cannot be reached on the local level, the question should be brought to mixed commissions established by higher authorities (par. 26) The document continues: It is necessary that Catholic and Orthodox bishops of the same territory consult with each other before establishing Catholic pastoral projects which traditionally form part of the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church, in view to avoid parallel pastoral activities which would risk rapidly degenerating into rivalry or even conflict (par. 29) The above-mentioned examples make it absolutely clear that the Balamand Document is no mysterious Unit; on the contrary, it is intended to lessen the tension caused by the activities of the Greek Catholics. This text is a provisional working document of the Joint Commission for the Theological Dialogue, and because of that it was not signed by representatives of the Churches. Hegumen Nestor Zhilyaev attended the Balamand meeting in 1993 as a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church; that is why his name is mentioned among the members of the Commission.
The document was published in Russian in 1995 in the Unity collection (vol. II), a periodical issued by the monastery of the Nativity of the Theotokos in the Moscow diocese, along with other documents related to Orthodox-Catholic theological dialogue. The reaction to the document among the Roman Catholic was rather complex; some Uniate Churches in Rumania, for example greeted it with open hostility. Bishop George Get, the Apostolic Administrator for the Greek Catholics in Rumania, in 1994 sent a letter to Pope John Paul II criticizing precisely those parts in the document where Uniates was rejected as a method contradicting the tradition of the two Churches, and accusing the Rumanian Orthodox Church of that it does not admit computing the Rumanian Uniate Church by the Rumanian Orthodox Church by means of violence and terror in 1948 (Cretiens en marche, No. 43, 1994) The letter concludes with downright rejection not only of the Balamand Document, but also of all other fruit brought by the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue on Unit, saying this: The Rumanian Church in communion with Rome accepts none of the texts, signed on Rhodes, in Freising, Ariccia and Balamand, and declares the signatures under the texts invalid (Ibid. ) That was the reaction of the Rumanian Uniate's.
Some critical comments to the Balamand Document, though in milder words and without denying its usefulness, came from the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholics Cardinal Miroslav Lyubachivsky too. Paradoxically, some Russian Orthodox periodicals, claiming to serve the interests of Orthodoxy, were found on the same side of the barricades with the critics of the Balamand Document and of the Orthodox- Catholic dialogue as such. Thus, in regard to the reproduction of the Balamand text in the Sovetskaya Russia (Appendix Rus Pravoslavnaya Orthodox Russia, No 43) one could not help noticing the tendentious tone of the comments to the document, and the text itself is not reproduced carefully, but with cuts distorting the message, though the author / s affirm that unabridged text is offered. The first five paragraphs making up the introductory part are left out, whereas these five paragraphs precisely, approaching by way of principle, give an assessment of Uniates as a method, as follows: 2. Already in June 1990, the meeting in Freising, with regard to the method called uniates, said: we reject it as a method for the achievement of unity because it contradicts the common tradition of our Churches. () 4.
The document worked out by the joint coordinating committee in Ariccia (June 1991) and adopted in Balamand (June 1993) specifies what methods could be employed by both sides for the achievement of full communion today, and explains why uniates as a method is absolutely inadmissible. In addition to that, the reproduced text in par. 10 (par. 5 in Sovetskaya Russia) after the word tendency omits a source of proselytism of the original text. Likewise, par. 12 (7) after missionary apostolate fails to reproduce called uniates'. It is absolutely clear that all these cuts are not careless omissions; without these cuts the text would have betrayed the very message of the publication, beginning with the title Balamand Unit? All the more so that the excluded passages carry a reference to the previous work done by the Orthodox-Catholic Theological Commission in Freising and Ariccia, which does not agree with the allegation of the authors of the article that the Balamand Document was a fruit of some recent plot. The newspaper also says that the document was signed by Hegumen Nestor Zhilyaev, although, as we have mentioned earlier, this document was not intended for signing or ratification by representatives of the Churches.
The term Sister Churches was introduced in the atheistic manner of the soviet period and without due preliminary study. In this connection, the ecclesiological basis of the Balamand document calls for some clarification, which we offer below. Vatican II called the Orthodox Church a Sister Church, thus recognizing the blessed nature of the Orthodox Church and the salvific nature of her sacraments. The Orthodox Church, in her turn, always recognized the validity of the sacraments of the Catholic Church.
The evidence to that is the fact that the Catholic Christians are accepted into the Orthodox Church by the so-called Third Order for joining the Orthodox membership not through Baptism, as non-Christians or sectarians, nor through Chris mation, like the Protestants, but through repentance, like schismatics. Roman Catholic clergymen are accepted in their existing orders to which they had been ordained by the Roman Catholic Church. It is no coincidence that Old Believers, who are also in schism from the Orthodox Church are accepted back in the same manner as the Roman Catholic Christians. This fact shows that despite serious fundamental differences on a number of doctrinal and spiritual issues between the two Churches, Roman Catholicism in the Orthodox mind and Tradition is viewed as a Christian community in schism with the Orthodox Church which nevertheless has preserved apostolic succession.
It is precisely to clarify the nature of doctrinal differences and then overcome them that the two Churches entered into theological dialogue with each other. The Balamand Document adds nothing fundamentally new, but follows in the manner of the traditional Orthodox attitude to Catholicism. At the same time, the Synodal Theological Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church finds it important to clarify a number of the Documents affirmations, including the use of the term sister Churches in the text, which was motivated by emotions rather than by dogmatic considerations. The Theological Commission is further proposing to open a pan-Orthodox discussion of the Balamand Document and only after that to consider its possible ratification by the Churches or the approval by the Pan-Orthodox Conference. For the information of all who are interested in the Orthodox-Catholic relationship, the Synodal Commission issues the full revised and edited translations of the Balamand Document of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.
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