10. Ecclesial Dialogues: East and West II

Articles:

1. Manifesting Persons: A Church in Tension
   Author: Andrew T.J. Kaethler Show more...

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   In the Republic Plato views the city as the human soul writ large, and by exploring the visible nature of the city he seeks to unravel the invisible mystery of the soul. Likewise, but in the inverse, this paper begins from a theological notion of personhood in order to provide a broad framework or an imaginative construct to conceive of Church unity. This framework will be formed in light of a relational notion of personhood inspired by Joseph Ratzinger. It will be argued that an ecclesial dimension is necessary for the fulfilment of what it means to be a human person, a being in relation; the Church manifests persons. As human persons exist in the midst of history it means that an important aspect of personhood also concerns how one interacts within the present. To interact, to participate, rightly requires right perception. Following Romano Guardini’s conception of personhood formed in tension, it will be contended that right perception, a proper harmony in this life, requires tension, a tension that only the Church can provide. Analogously, this paper suggests that the Church, East and West, will most flourish in a united tension, a

   coming together of difference rather than a complete dissolving of our respective distinctions.

2. Ab astris ad castra: An Ignatian-MacIntyrean Proposal for Overcoming Historical and Political-Theological Difficulties in Ecumenical Dialogue
   Author: Jared Schumacher Show more...

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   Beginning from a footnote in Kant, this essay argues that the Orthodox and Catholic ecumenical dialogue must confront three preeminent difficulties to achieve practical unity: the recognition of plurality, the problem of synthesis or integration, and the problem of orientation implicit in any synthesis. An Ignatian ‘star’ will be posited by which future ecumenical dialogue—especially concerning primacy—might be steered, as well as a MacIntyrean proposal for the achievement of unity through the pragmatics of tradition in the face of epistemological crises caused by the historical conflict of traditions.

3. Simon Peter in the Gospel according to John: His Historical Significance according to the Johannine Community’s Narrative
   Author: Christos Karakolis Show more...

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   In the interconfessional theological dialogue between the Orthodox and the Roman-Catholic Church, there has been much discussion about the famous passage 16:16–19 of Matthew’s Gospel. However, not much attention has been paid to the testimonies of other New Testament books about the Apostle Peter’s person, work, and historical impact. This paper examines the narrative character of Simon Peter in John’s Gospel to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the great apostle’s historical significance in early Christianity. In our analysis, we make use of the narrative-critical method focusing on the comparison between Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple. This approach opens a window to how the Johannine community evaluated Peter’s person and significance at the time of the composition of the Fourth Gospel, and, thus, helps us better understand the biblical foundations of the theological debate on the papal office.

4. The Scythian Monks’ Latin-cum-Eastern Approach to Tradition: A Paradigm for Reunifying Doctrines and Overcoming Schism
   Author: Anna Zhyrkova Show more...

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   In trying to find a proper way to proceed in respect of a dialogue between churches that have already been living for centuries under the shadow of schism, we struggle to see that there is already a paradigm for such a dialogue to hand. This was furnished already in the first half of the sixth century, in the midst of what was probably one of the most important theological quarrels afflicting both East and West: one which concerned two issues, the union of natures in Christ and the doctrine of grace. Those who stood behind this paradigm were the Scythian monks, who united, in both their faith and their overall way of thinking, Western and Eastern traditions. The Scythians saw both traditions as one, and therefore did not hesitate to address problems simultaneously of concern to both Rome and Constantinople, putting forward a solution based on a synthesis of Augustine’s and Cyril’s theologies. Their proposal was not well received in Rome, but was surprisingly welcome in Constantinople and exercised a significant influence on the defense of the Chalcedonian faith. The present paper will be devoted to analyzing it from a meth- odological point of view, as well as to the question of whether and how it could be adopted as a model for modern theologians.

5. Beauty is the Church’s Unity: Supernatural Finality, Aesthetics, and Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue
   Author: Norm Klassen Show more...

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   The subject of church unity can be approached through the nature/grace question. The Catholic and Orthodox communions are joined by their shared recognition of supernatural finality. It underscores their shared ontology (despite a recent assertion that they have become ontologically different). This paper takes up Rowan Williams’s implicit claim that their shared stance on the nature/grace question gives the two communions a common understanding of beauty as well. The approach to beauty of Catholic and Orthodox artists reveals ecumenically meaningful shared theological commitments. To reflect on beauty in the context of fraught ecumenical discussions is to resist modernity’s fact-value split, in which questions of beauty might well seem secondary to more practical and pressingly specific issues of difference confronting the two communions. Building on Williams’s conjunction of ecumenism and beauty, the paper highlights two instantiations of a Christian aesthetic: the emerging consensus that the Church needs a pope who sees himself as the servus servorum Dei; and the historic determination of the positive implications for the arts of the Incarnation. To reflect on beauty in the search for greater visible unity, as Pope Benedict and others have recently stressed, is to turn to a resource of encouragement and hope.

6. Ecumenism and Trust: A Pope on Mount Athos
   Author: Andreas Andreopoulos Show more...

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   The usual way to address interdenominational differences and even the question of the (re)union between the Eastern and the Western Church is usually modelled after legal or political negotiations, (i.e., with meetings at higher levels of clergy), with extensive references to the canonical tradition, which aim to achieve some sort of theological illumination, clarity, and eventually agreement or compromise. Nevertheless, the distance between the Eastern and the Western Church today (as well as between other similar historical rifts, as well as rifts that are being formed today) is more a question of psychology and (the lack of) trust, rather than politics and philosophical theology. This pursuit of trust would necessarily include the monastic tradition (Athonite monasticism in particular), which is quite influential in the way the ecumenical movement is received in the Orthodox world. To this end, along with the ongoing theological interdenominational dialogue, it is necessary to establish ways to address the lack of trust between the Eastern and the Western Church, and to recognize the pastoral need to include the contribution and voice of monasticism in the process of rapprochement between them.

7. God’s Silence and Its Icons: A Catholic’s Experiences at Mount Athos and Mount Jamna
   Author: Marcin Podbielski Show more...

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   This essay grows from a sense of bewilderment: A Catholic who encounters Orthodoxy starts wondering why there seems to be almost no room in contemporary Catholic spirituality for silence and isolation. Reliving two experiences, those of Mount Athos and Mount Jamna—the latter apparently a failed attempt by a Dominican monk to create a Catholic mount of solitude—I try to understand them from the perspective of an ordinary believer who happens to be familiar with philosophical language. Comparing the experience of silence at Athos, described in terms of an absence of Heideggerian dwelling, and Pascal’s divertissement, with the much more ordinary life going on at Jamna, I seek to present them both using a theoretical scheme drawn from Plato that opposes participation, icons, and idols. Viewed through the incomplete metaphor that this scheme provides, Athos and Jamna emerge as two different realizations of an icon given to us by Christ himself, as human instruments, which we create to point to true participation in the Divine presence of the New Jerusalem. Though imperfect, they are still true icons because they lead to true sacramental participation while anticipating the transformative, the view from the Mount which alters the one who has attained it. While similar in this respect, the two icons also differ deeply: whereas the Catholic experience tries to bring everyone into participation in the life of the New Jerusalem, the Orthodox Athos, in its silent uniqueness, testifies to a unique and ineffable transcendence.

8. Councils and Canons: A Lutheran Perspective on the Great Schism and the So-Called Eighth Ecumenical Council
   Author: Johannes Börjesson Show more...

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   The Lutheran tradition shares with the Catholic Church a reformatio ideal, which is a striking feature of the Western ecclesiological tradition of the last millennium more generally. This paper first examines some aspects of Lutheran ecclesiology as it relates to the Una Sancta, the canonical and synodical tradition, and ecumenical pursuits. It then goes on to use the ‘reformatio’ lens to reflect on the councils of Constantinople of 869–70 and 879–80 and the current estrangement between Rome and the Eastern churches in regard to the diverging standings of these councils. A solution is provided, it is suggested, in the call of Unitatis redintegratio (1964) to ‘continual reformation’ in the context of ecumenism as well as to an honouring of the conditions that held between East and West before the schism.

9. Christological Or Analogical Primacy. Ecclesial Unity And Universal Primacy In The Orthodox Church
   Author: Nikolaos Loudovikos Show more...

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   What is primacy, then, in the Church, if not precisely the initiation and protection of this step-by-step consubstantial unification of all things in Christ, in which consubstantial unification the very ecclesial being consists? And since Christ is himself not only the ontological/hypostatic event of this consubstantial unification, but also the foremost teacher and initiator of it, through the mystery of the Cross, and in the Spirit, he is indeed the only head and leader of his Church, he is her primordial and ultimate primate. But this means that when we speak of primacy in the Church, we always mean a Christ-like primacy (i.e., an analogical primacy). That means, a primacy-in-participation in Christ’s unique primacy. And the way of this participation is, according to Greek Patristic theology, analogy, which is identified, in the Areopagitic texts, for example, with syn-ergy, which means precisely participation in the divine energy as manifest- ed in Christ-as-primate. How can this be discussed in the context of the contemporary ecclesiological dialogues?

10. Ecumenism, Geopolitics, and Crisis
    Author: John Milbank Show more...

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    Christians need to see Christian decline and current global crisis as equally linked to an older division of Christendom, itself connected to theological and ecclesial inadequacies. The way forwards needs to be an integral strategy: the promotion of mixed government with different emphases at once in Church, State and International Order. This must be linked to a recovery of a true sense of natural law as involving grace as well as nature and as mediated to civil and local law only via the international ius gentium. Thus, effective ecumenism is a key to global crisis, while recovery of the sacral ‘kingly’ role, at every level, including the international, is actually a crucial aspect of ecclesiology.

11. Concluding Reflections on Mapping the Una Sancta. An Orthodox-Catholic Ecclesiology Today
    Author: Marcello La Matina Show more...

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    The Orthodox-Catholic schism is an evident breakdown in the map of the Una Sancta. Understanding its causes, so that reconcile the separated churches unifying them in just one body, is a matter for mostly historical, theological, ecclesiological inquiries. What might the philosopher of language contribute to this topic? Almost nothing if he remains within standard academic boundaries; something more perhaps if he is willing to step outside of such limits and engage in some experimentation. This is what happens in the present paper. For instance, Lacan’s optical scheme (the so-called ‘mirror-stage’) might be a good metaphor to start by. Schisms could be accordingly considered as a special class of events in a given form of life. My thesis is that both in the life of every man and in the life of a community of men, the birth of the rational Subject is achieved by means of schism-events. Through the Catholic-Orthodox schism, new forms of subjectivity emerged as the splitting point of the ecclesial Signifier. If this is the case, the emergence of a split might have something to do with some mirroring phenomena capable of perturbing the reciprocity of the gaze in the accounted ecclesial forms of life. In my analysis a special role—and a theoretical differentiation—is given to the mirrored content of this gaze, now taking the form of an Image and now of an Icon.