Constantinian Christianity

source: fineartamerica.com

Popular now among Catholics, Schmemann-derived Orthodox, and various stripes of protestants is the narrative that Constantine corrupted Christianity by bringing about its legality and the official juridical preference given to it by his successors. Malachi Martin promoted this telling in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Church as did Alexander Schmemann in his Church, World, Mission. A complimentary narrative purports that the schism between Rome and Constantinople occurred in 1054, was solidified in 1204, and was the consequence of papal ambition. There is some truth to the last part of the second story, but it wholly misses the point. The un-caused cause of the schism is Constantine, who created "Byzantine" Christianity.

He is called "St. Constantine, equal to the Apostles" in the Greek liturgy—"equal" in his influence in spreading Christianity and in no other way whatsoever. Emperor Constantine was accorded by Russell Kirk the same appellation Edmund Burke gave Oliver Cromwell: "a great bad man." After the miraculous apparition prior to the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantine found himself the ruler of a war torn empire stirred by the upstart Catholic faith. Constantine presided at the Council of Nicaea, partially to resolve a theological dispute which caused angst within the large Christian community and partially to baptize Christianity into the reformed and Hellenized Roman Empire. 

In the years following Nicaea the bishop of Constantinople, formerly a minor bishopric of little prestige (antipodal to Jerusalem, a prestigious bishopric of no political importance) exercised greater and greater authority within the Eastern Roman Empire. The fourth ecumenical council, held at Chalcedon, effectively pushed out of the Church Coptic Christians who were duped by the heresiarch Eutyches. The same council promoted the bishop of Constantinople to Patriarch, second only to the Apostolic See of Rome. This promotion bypassed the eminence of the Petrine see of Antioch and the newly-alienated see of Alexandria in favor of political expediency. Slowly the Christianity at Constantinople became separated from Roman Christianity. By the time of the iconoclast controversy, we could say that there was such a thing as Byzantine Christianity, supported by the state and defined both by its Platonic language, its liturgy, and its prominence in conciliar decisions.

All this time the popes sat in Rome doing exactly what they should have done, absolutely nothing. Fr. Hunwicke once said it best: the strongest point of the popes during the period of Byzantine domination of theology is that they themselves contributed next to nothing. The popes of the first millennium, in stark contrast to the 20th century popes, were distinctly allergic to any kind of renovation, innovation, or evolution of the faith whatsoever. The papal reaction to the iconoclast dispute exemplifies this. While the Byzantines fought in the streets over proactive veneration of icons against the imperials who want them erased from the churches altogether, Pope Gregory III condemned iconoclasm and at the same time suggested a pastoral resolution, to put icons on the walls and ceilings of churches where veneration would not become an issue. After Greek control of the papacy detumesced and the Western Roman Empire fell apart, the Bishops of Rome and their Greek counterparts found themselves presiding over two increasingly distant parts of the universal Church.

The schism, contrary to popular opinion, did not happen in 1054. It did not happen in 1204 either. 1054 was not a breech between Rome and the rest of Christianity, which had long ago itself been separated from the former-Byzantine Empire. 1054 marked the culmination of a bickering match between Rome and Constantinople that began with the creation of a uniquely Byzantine Church, which was nurtured by the Photian affair and the triumph over the iconoclasts, and which was brought to a head by the re-assertion of Papal power. Over the two previous centuries, the popes had been a remarkably bad bunch (philanderers, simonists, murders, and the occasional heretic). Meanwhile the various patriarchates became accustomed to operating without the popes and their judgments. One could say Papal power was stronger in the 5th century than in the 10th. The all-time nadir of the Papacy came during the reign of Benedict IX, who bought and sold the papacy to marry a woman, held the Petrine chair thrice, and raised an army to dispute his uncle for the Roman see. After such a soap opera, the re-assertion of papal primacy under Leo IX, Gregory VII, and Urban II seemed absurd to the Byzantine patriarchs, who now presided over a tradition separate from that of Rome. A rift that had been taking root for centuries flowered with the dispute between Cardinal Humbert and Archbishop Michael Cerularius. The Emperor rightly ignored the separation when his kingdom was put at risk. The Crusades created a cultural animosity between the Greeks and Latins that spilled over into religion and in the years after the fall of Constantinople Greek Christians, understandably, looked to blame the Latin Church for its sins in meddling with Byzantine affairs. The Pope became the absolute head of all matters in the Latin West and the Greek Patriarch became Vice President of non-Islamic Religions in the Ottoman Empire; many patriarchs, even given their animosity towards the Roman Church, should be admired for their sufferings under the Turks. Individual cases of reunion, like that of the Melkite Church, were often disrupted or brought to naught by Turkish and Constantinopolitan intervention. Moreover, the roles of the Pope as Patriarch of Rome and "head bishop," as Armenian king Vartan II called the Roman bishop, became blurred.

At this point the "Hull thesis" takes over. The Latin Church been self-reflective and encumbered in her own legal system, her own theology, and her own devotions with no external oversight from the other patriarchates as existed centuries earlier. The Roman objectified theology and turned it into a variation of Greek logic. Conversely, the Greeks began to hold in suspicion things that were not Greek: the Roman Canon, the primacy of the Pope, St. Augustine, and the like. One epigraph in Banished Heart referred to the Pope as the "ghost of Caesar." Similarly, historian John Romer called the Orthodox churches the last "relic" of the lost Byzantine Empire. Both statements are exaggerations, but do procure strong elements of truth for modern consideration.

Now the Roman Church is in administrative and bureaucratic shambles; Mass attendance is in the gutter. The Byzantine Orthodox world is de facto run by Russian primacy, and Russia is among the most secular countries in the world; Orthodox churches are often strong centers of faith, but just as often seem to function as cultural hubs (Eastern Catholic churches are just as guilty here). The Greeks triumphantly uphold the religion of a defunct world power while the Romans have dismantled their once ubiquitous, virile praxis. And the Oriental Catholic and Orthodox Churches are forgotten.

Patriarch Gregory III of the Melkite Church

The cultural divide begun by Constantine continues to this day, separating Byzantine Christianity from both Rome and the far East. Coptic Catholics and Orthodox have inter-Communion in Egypt and have for years. The Melkites and their Antiochian Orthodox brethren also have inter-Communion, shared Sacraments, and even shared parishes; they use the Greek liturgy, but have carefully spurned any excessive embrace of non-Arabic culture. The non-Byzantine Eastern Catholics have displayed very little trouble adapting to the teachings of the last millennium without vitiating their own perspectives. Why must the Byzantines be different? Perhaps it is post "Uniate" guilt wrought by de-Latinization, pro-Orthodox ecumenism, and cultural pull. One Slavic Byzantine Catholic said to me "Well, we should all really be Orthodox and would be if not for the Union of Brest." Ignoring the fact that the Union of Brest influenced the Slavic churches and not the north African or far Eastern churches, my mind nearly prompted me to ask "Are you Catholic by birth or by faith?" I held my tongue.

The healthiest Byzantine Catholic parishes I have seen in the United States have embraced Byzantine spirituality as their future and reeled in the ethnocentrism that once dominated those churches. The Melkites and Ruthenians are doing well enough in the United States while the Ukrainian Catholic Church is struggling (but doing well in missionary areas). Was this not what Alexander Schmemann wanted his own Russian Orthodox Church to do decades ago? God became Man neither as a Greek, nor Slav, nor Roman, but as  Palestinian Jew. Constantine did not intend to drive a wedge between the various parts of Christendom, only to use part of it to strengthen his declining Empire. In that he succeeded. He was not the immediate cause of the East-West Schism, but he is the most necessary one.

This short reflection carefully advocates nothing. The purpose of this post is to summarize why the author believes the seeds of division of Byzantine Christianity (Orthodox and Catholic) from the rest of Apostolic Christendom were planted long before most think. Such a long division brings about many questions. Answers will not be found with the Moscow Patriarchate, the Congregation for Oriental Churches, or weekend conferences in Ravenna. They will only be found at the ground level.

"The Church"?

"Well, there I'm troubled by the debate over Sacraments and that sorta stuff," said a protestant fellow student to me one night over dinner years back. "There are so many fundamental disagreements in the Christian Church."

"Not as far as I am concerned," replied the Raddiest Trad.

"The Church." It is a term used and abused like none other, but it is rarely given any proper definition. In vogue now is a propensity among practitioners of "high" Christianity to obscure very serious and heartfelt delineations between various parts of Apostolic Christianity—which I define as groups with valid Holy Orders which can be traced back to ancient patriarchal sees—almost to make "the Church" neither black nor white, but every shade of grey. One wonders how people of this tendency would react to St. Polycarp's denomination of Marcion as the "first born son of Satan."

This obscurantism comes after the collapse of several centuries of juridical identification of "the Church," which in turn meant "the Church" was defined by one's patriarchal position. Catholics de facto believed the Roman patriarchate to be "the Church" and all outside of it to be either schismatic heretics or probable "Uniate" would-be heretics. The Orthodox, continuing what was left of the Byzantine Empire, likewise identified communion with Constantinople as "the Church." Non-Chalcedonian Orthodox are tougher to pin down, as no one see defines them nor one cultural tradition, setting them apart from post-Byzantine Eastern Orthodoxy and Counter-Reformation Catholicism. At yet the absence of definite leadership is something of an enduring problem in the non-Chalcedonian Orthodox churches, perhaps the reason why the Ethopian Church re-united with Rome until cultural imperialists masquerading as missionaries bungled the situation beyond repair and Ethiopia returned to non-Chalcedonian Orthodoxy. Indeed, to be in "the Church" could mean to think Latin is heaven's native tongue, to think those born outside of Greek ancestry were un-favored, or that anyone outside of nothern Africa was not to be trusted. The Anglicans, even before the Tractarian days, further complicated the matter by positing themselves to be the via media betwixt "Romish" superstition and continental protestantism. To be English was to be Anglican which was to be authentically Christian.

How things have changed!

Nowadays most protestants believe anyone who professes Christ and attends services at some sort of ecclesial community a few times a month is a member of the "Christian Church." Some Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, although juridically out of communion with each other, consider each other both fully part of "the Church," a feeling particularly powerful within the Melkite and Orthodox patriarchates of Antioch. Most Roman Catholics and Orthodox admit some degree of communion with each other. Similarly non-Chalcedonian Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox profess a common faith. The hard line Roman Catholics and Russian Orthodox most often play party pooper in ecumenical dialogue. 

Still, this sort of thing is only true to an extent. "Communion" means many things, above all the sharing of Sacraments. It also means fellowship, community, and union with God in the sharing of the Sacraments. There is certainly a high degree of communion shared by the Melkite Catholics and the Antiochian Orthodox (inside Lebanon). Similarly there is some communion, loosely understood, between Rome and the various Orthodox Churches and between the Orthodox who accept and those who deny Chalcedon. But it is not a complete fellowship or communion. These groups normally only share Sacraments under conditions of extreme duress, such as immanent death or danger of death. Painting "the Church" as the collective of these groups—which share much in common—dangerously brushes past their serious differences.

The watery divide between the Greek and Roman Churches, in my opinion, began long before the year 1054 and did not coagulate until after the destruction of Byzantium. If one is to take an honest approach one finds the bickering between Rome and Constantinople began because of the Greek patriarch's imperially subsidized ambition in the late first millennium and became a lasting schism because of Roman stubbornness. Indeed, the anti-legalism and anti-rationalism that has come to define post-Byzantine Orthodoxy contrasts sharply with the juridical and rationalistic approach of Bellarmine and Liguori, more so than Palamas contrasts with Aquinas.

What is the point? "The Church" can, I think, be found on three levels:

1. What we believe
2. How we believe it
3. With whom are we in communion

The third point is often the target of those who were earlier labelled obscurantists (seeing the organizational aspect of the Church as an artificial construct) while the most legalistic persons often focus on the second point (good luck convincing some Roman Catholic clergy that Eastern Catholics just do not have a concept of Original Sin). In the example of the Melkites and Antiochian Orthodox, the first and second points match near perfectly, but the third point is contended. Does that mean we must discount the third point? Certainly not.

The entire point of belonging to a communion is to know where the Church can be found visibly. Schism of course comes from the Greek word for "tear" or "rip." Ripping up the Church is serious business. Schism is not necessarily the same as heresy, but often relates to it. When the Alexandrian Church rejected Chalcedon few outside of Alexandria doubted that the Egyptian patriarchate had separated itself from the Church. Perhaps at that point the Church—which was Latin, Greek, Armenian etc—felt diverse enough that a consensus between her various contingent groups sufficed to define a schism. But what to do when the only remaining portions, the Greeks and Latins, withdraw from each other? What then? Re-define "the Church" to mean all groups regardless of substantial differences? The Church is communion and where communion lacks the Church lacks. Obscuring this obscures the root cause of much schism: the difference in what is believed and how it is believed.

привет!

The most substantial problem, to my view, of glossing over the institutional aspect of "the Church" and the communion which visually defines it is that one would paradoxically call the Church united and divided. Go to a rural Russian village and tell the peasants that they really believe the same things as Katharine Jefferts Schori! The institutional aspect of the Church—which is often a disaster—is still essential because it signals to the faithful where they need to be. If a "house divided against itself cannot stand" why can a Church, in several degrees of schism from itself, continue to be "the Church?" When a couple divorces and the children go off to college the spiritual bonds between the former spouses remain, although they go ignored, yet de facto there is no family any more. Communion and Church cannot be imagined. Christ came to call twelve men who He firmly united in the Holy Spirit and guided in Truth. "The Church," for the welfare of the faithful, must continue this feature, which I believe is essential. Why would one be Coptic Orthodox over Romanian Orthodox unless one was of Egyptian descent? Yet we as Catholics can at least point to Rome as the visible marker of the Church's communion. This facet of Rome may be more important than infallibility of the Pope, given that the Church already understands herself to be infallible in dogmatic matters. If one holds communion with this man, the Pope, the visible marker of the Church, one holds definite communion with the Church of Christ. The Fathers of the Church rarely talk about Matthew 16:18 when they referred to the Bishop of Rome and when they do they speak of him both as the rock and as the marker:

"On him [Peter] He builds the Church, and to him He gives the command to feed the sheep; and although He assigned a like power to all the Apostles, yet he founded a single Chair, and He established by His own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were that also which Peter was; but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one Church and one Chair. So too, all are shepherds, and the flock is shown to be one, fed by all the Apostles in single-minded accord. If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?" (St. Cyprian)

It is quite useless to speculate on the would-be opinion of someone deceased, but I think the above passage summarizes why Adrian Fortescue, despite his openness to Greek Christianity at the height of Pius X—a pope he rather disliked, he remained a Catholic and a Roman one at that.

Far from fomenting division, I favor building unity from a realistic point of view. I would like the Catholic Church to cut off all ecumenical dialogue with pagan sects and even with protestants, with whom we have little in common aside from most of the Bible and Baptism. The Church cannot be divided, but it certainly can be built up. If we really must do ecumenical gatherings let it be private, local conferences with Eastern Orthodox and non-Chalcedonian Orthodox. I would not oppose some level of inter-communion with the Orthodox, but I suspect that they would have a hard time selling the idea to their homeland congregations.

Talk about substantial matters and fear not to be one's self. Bishop Nicholas Samra, Melkite bishop of the American eparchy, announced at his enthronement that Melkites must have the courage "to be ourselves." We Romans, after the long overdue collapse of our business corporation hierarchy, have ignored in both liturgy and theology much of our Roman roots. Those must also be recovered to build up communion within the Church and to entice others to communion. 

The Church, by its nature, is not divided, but it certainly is troubled and has been from the beginning. 

"For peace in the whole world, the well being of the holy churches of God, and the union of all, let us pray to the Lord!" -Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom

The Great Schism: Old Wounds

As a "radical [Roman] traditionalist" I find it quite ironic that my first post has a distinctly ecumenical theme and perspective. I currently attend a Byzantine rite Catholic parish, specifically the Melkite church in Antioch, and went to my father confessor today to be absolved of my endless offences against the Lord. Afterward the priest, who for privacy will remain anonymous, and I discussed the relations between Eastern rite Catholics and the Orthodox churches. After poking some fun at archbishop John Ireland he stated his belief that the schism between the Catholic Church and the various Eastern churches called Orthodox will only be healed "when the people in the pew stop caring" about the separation.

What did he mean by this? When Catholics and the Orthodox may communicate without hesitation at each other's Masses and Divine Liturgies, and partake of the other Sacraments, or Mysteries. The priest proceeded to tell me of one Melkite priest who semi-regularly concelebrates with a Orthodox priest, albeit illicitly. Similarly, he said, there are Orthodox priests who, when on vacation, attend and communicate at Roman rite Catholic Masses when there is no church from their Orthodox tradition available. This inevitably brings up the question: what are we to think of the schism that occurred in 1054 between the archbishop of Constantinople and the Bishop of Rome, the Pope? First, we should consider that the conventional narrative about the East-West schism is quite wrong.

The conventional narrative goes something like this: Ever since the Apostolic era, the five major bishops of the world (the "patriarchs") were considered quite equal in every way, although the bishop of Rome was seen as having some sort of honorary primacy. This status of church government remained throughout the first millennium until the Westerners, or Latins, began to fiddle with the Creed and the bishop of Rome began to get uppity in his claims to have total and complete authority over the entire Church. In a fit, he ex-communicated the archbishop of Constantinople, who, upholding the purer Eastern tradition would have none of this Papal nonsense, and who then ex-communicated the Pope back. And since 1054 the two sides have not spoken.

The real story is a bit more involved, and perhaps more revealing about the current state of affairs. 

Fr. John Berg FSSP celebrates the old Roman Mass at St. Peter's tomb in the 

Clementine Chapel of St. Peter's Basilica

The case for ancient Roman primacy among the bishops of Christendom is not a very difficult case to make, but defining it in specific terms is quite a challenge. Ss. Peter and Paul died in Rome during the 60s AD. I have been honored by Almighty God to stand at the tomb of the Apostle Peter under the high altar of St. Peter's Basilica. St. Peter clearly possessed some sort of great authority over the other Apostles, and was indeed the "rock" of the Church:

And Jesus came into the quarters of Caesarea Philippi: and he asked his disciples, saying: Whom do men say that the Son of man is? But they said: Some John the Baptist, and other some Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. Jesus saith to them: But whom do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.  And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven. Then he commanded his disciples, that they should tell no one that he was Jesus the Christ. —The Gospel According to St. Matthew 16:13-20

The Roman Church's closeness to the Prince of the Apostles and to St. Paul, the greatest preacher of the Gospel, would already give Rome a certain amount of prestige. In the second century St. Irenaeus, born in Asia Minor and eventually bishop of Lyon in Gaul, wrote:

Ad hanc enim ecclesiam propter potentiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam, hoc est, eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his, qui sunt undique, conservata est ea quae est ab apostolis traditio. —Adversus Haereses, 3:2

or:

In fact, it is with this church, by reason of her more excellent origin, that every church must necessarily be in agreement—with this Church in which the tradition that comes from the apostles has always been preserved by everyone.

Certain proceeding events solidified the foundation for the Roman Church, and her bishop, to enjoy and exert power over the rest of Christendom in doctrinal and jurisdictional matters. The foremost of these was the Council of Chalcedon, which had been called to combat the monophysite heresy so popular in the far east to this day. Pope St. Leo the Great presided over the Council, but through a legate. The Pope, who only spoke Latin and knew no Greek, declined to make the journey from Rome. When Leo sent his analysis and opinion of the monophysite question to the Council, the Council concluded:

After the reading of the foregoing epistle, the most reverend bishops cried out:  This is the faith of the fathers, this is the faith of the Apostles.  So we all believe, thus the orthodox believe.  Anathema to him who does not thus believe.  Peter has spoken thus through Leo.  So taught the Apostles.  Piously and truly did Leo teach, so taught Cyril.  Everlasting be the memory of Cyril.  Leo and Cyril taught the same thing, anathema to him who does not so believe.  This is the true faith.  Those of us who are orthodox thus believe.  This is the faith of the fathers.  Why were not these things read at Ephesus [i.e. at the heretical synod held there]?  These are the things Dioscorus hid away. —Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, tom. IV, col. 368

Chalcedon offered the Pope of Rome the title "universal bishop," not a small matter. In his humility, St. Leo declined its use. Similarly St. Gregory the Great, greatest of all Roman Pontiffs after Peter, only signed himself as "bishop" when addressing international clergy, but he certainly put a stop to contemporary attempts of John IV of Constantinople to style himself as "ecumenical patriarch."

St. Gregory the Great, Pope from 590-604 AD

The second major visible turn in favor of Roman primacy, in my opinion, was the deposition of Photios as archbishop of Constantinople. In 858 AD a bright scholar named Photios, at Emperor Michael's urging, was ordained subdeacon, deacon, priest, consecrated archbishop, and enthroned in the Hagia Sophia on successive days. There was one problem: there was already an archbishop of Constantinople, Ignatios. Pope St. Nicholas, the last Pope called "the Great," sided with the humble and holy Ignatios against Michael and Photios. Emperor Michael was assassinated and went to God's Judgment seat, effectively removing Photios from the Hagia Sophia and banishing him while the new emperor sought better relations with the Pope and the West. The patriarch Photios convened his own council—which no Orthodox church officially accepts, although some Greeks do give it their ascent—and ex-communicated Pope Nicholas on the grounds of heresy and condemned the new(ish) Creed in vogue in the West. Photios was condemned by the Fourth Council of Constantinople, which Catholics accept as the eighth Church council, and Ignatios was re-instated. Years later Photios found his way back to the bishopric of Constantinople. This was a great boon and proof to the claims of the Pope to having real, tangible jurisdiction throughout the Church, even in Constantinople.

Other issues pervaded. Popes, particularly St. Leo IX, often quoted the fictitious "Donation of Constantine" in their claims to temporal authority throughout the world. By far the most divisive issue was the Latin addition "filioque" to the Latin text of the Creed: "qui ex patre filioque procedit" as opposed to the earlier "qui ex patre procedit." Easterners rightfully said that this was not the text of the Creed appointed at the Nicene Council of the Council of Constantinople, which also forbade its alteration. This emendation, which arose either in the Iberian Peninsula or Persia and which traveled to Gaul, attempted to fight remnants of the Arian heresy, which denied Christ's divinity. This clause emphasizes, especially in Latin, the closeness in divinity between the Father and the Son. In Greek though, the word for "proceed" (in Latin "procedere," which means "proceed" as in English) προϊέναι means to emanate from a single source. Not only would this clause be heretical in Greek, it would be grammatically impossible.

The other major controversy was the Western tendency to use unleavened bread for the Eucharist.

Although the Synoptic accounts would seem to indicate the Last Supper utilized unleavened bread, the early Christians simply used whatever they had, almost always leavened bread. Easterners took this to be a major violation of Tradition, and possibly invalidating. The Papacy was an issue, but not the primary or secondary one.

In 1054 Pope St. Leo IX sent Cardinal Humbert to Constantinople after the patriarch Michael condemned the use of unleavened bread. The cardinal, who possessed legatine powers, caused a stir in the patriarchal palace and, although the Pope had died, ex-communicated Michael using his defunct-legatine powers. The patriarch reacted by denying Papal authority and ex-communicating the cardinal and the dead saint. Needless to say, when Paul VI and Athenagoras lifted the ex-communications of each other, they were engaging in a needless exercise, as the initial decrees had been invalid from their inception.

Paul VI and Athengoras in Rome during the 

Second Vatican Council, c.1964

The Crusades, which had uniting potential, went quite awry when the Fourth Crusade, ignoring Pope Innocent III's strict instructions to avoid Constantinople, sacked the great Eastern city to pay war debts to the Doge of Venice (one Oratorian delightfully calls him the "dodgy Doge!"). No living person was raped, killed, or looted during that dark period in 1204, but the wounds still bleed to this day. The Eastern churches, not just Constantinople, legally reconciled, recognized Papal primacy, and the "filioque" (in the orthodox Latin and the doubtful Greek) twice, at the Council of Lyon and the Council of Florence, neither of which any Orthodox church now recognizes.

In the last council, at Florence, only one Eastern attendee, [St?] Mark of Ephesus, refused to sign the Council documents which provided the re-union, much sought by Rome for matters of faith and by Constantinople for matters of survival. Mark went as far to hold Rome and all of Western Christianity in schism and heresy. In the years after the Council the Pope was unable to keep peace in the midst of consolidating nations in Europe, much less provide protection from the ever-encroaching Muhammadans for the East. In 1453 the Ottomans arrived at Constantinople, sacked the city, massacred much of the populace, removed many crosses, and the Hagia Sophia transformed into a meeting place for the vile cult of Muhammad.

A re-construction of what the Hagia Sophia

looked like in its days as a house of God

In the years since then, over five centuries ago, the East has continued to de-centralize and the West has consolidated, both naturally. In the modern day there is very little public authority in the Orthodox churches. The Patriarch of Constantinople is the "first among equals" that the Pope was supposed to be. They have been attempting to call an ecumenical council for centuries now, without any success.

But this is all history! What does it have to do with my discussions with my confessor? Everything!

These are problems which penetrate the soul of the Roman rite Traditionalist, who one could envisage praying in front of an image of the Sacred Heart, and of the Easterner, meditating upon an icon of the Virgin. How does one find union when authority and spirituality have been divergent for nearly a millennium? It would have to be an organic effort. I am not supportive of inter-communion between the Catholic Church (in any rite) and the Orthodox church as a matter of principle: you are either in the Church, or you are not. None of this "partial communion" nonsense. I recently attended a Catholic wedding during which Russian Orthodox attendees were allowed to communicate and could not figure out how to receive in a manner congruent with the disrespect common in most Roman parishes.

I would however support permission given by local Orthodox and Catholic bishops to permit inter-communion. This allows for mutual appreciation between the clergy and laity of both groups to develop. That good will has generational effects, and does not die easily. A macro-level solution would be likely to create problems. Even if Bartholomew I became Catholic tomorrow, the Greek Orthodox Church would not simply enter the Roman communion.

Eastern hearts must be melted. Although I have noticed a genuinely ecumenical persuasion among Orthodox living in the West, many in the East still maintain that the West is heretical and its Sacraments are invalid. Some go as far as suggesting St. Augustine was a source of the West's heresies and ought to be un-canonized! Westerners, fortunately, are too ignorant of Eastern spirituality and Church history to have objections to the Orthodox on these grounds. Another major factor is the continuing cultural discontinuity between Easterners, many of whom still seek a Church on the model of Constantinople in the 5th century, and Rome, the theological deviant and invader. The end of this attitude might be best-accomplished among Orthodox living in the West, away from those social wounds.

During my university days I once attended Compline with members of the Coptic Orthodox Fellowship. In an off-handed question I asked what they do for theology and authority. The answer I received was "the Fathers." I responded with the words "but the Fathers are quite dead. We need living authority." Another person in the fellowship told me later that my comment had offended some people. I was initially contrite, until the same fellowship invited a Greek Orthodox priest to give a talk. During his speech the priest said he saw no impediment to union between the mainstream Orthodox churches and the "oriental" Orthodox churches (which reject every council from Chalcedon onward, much to the chagrin of most Orthodox). He went as far as to say "no one really believes in monophysitism any more." Other than he and I, everyone in that room did. The same priest brought handout on one Orthodoxy differed from Protestantism and from Catholicism. The first handout was barely two pages while the second was eight! We need to change our priorities!

The Catholic Church, particularly the Roman rite, has enough potential improvements to attract Orthodox interest in inter-communion to occupy the Congregation for Divine Rites for years. Without a doubt, the best thing Rome could do to demonstrate to the Orthodox that we are serious about laying bricks for the foundation of an eventual and lasting re-union would be to return to our own liturgical traditions, which are just as old, if not older, than those of most Eastern churches.

A Divine Liturgy celebrated by a bishop

Will the Orthodox take us seriously when Papal Mass 

looks like this?

And it should look like this?

I do not anticipate seeing an end to the schism, rooted it pettiness and continued in ignorance, during my lifetime (I am only 23). I do hope that serious efforts to engender respect between Rome and the rest of Christendom (those with valid Holy Orders, at least) takes place. Perhaps for some future generation the successors of Peter and his brother Andrew, depicted in the first image of this post, may be family again.

I will close with some words of Our Lord:

Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.  And for them do I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.  And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me; That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.  And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, as we also are one: I in them, and thou in me; that they may be made perfect in one: and the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast also loved me. 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

~The Rad Trad