Reading Louis Bouyer: Newman's Son or Cousin Once Removed? Orthodox Ecumenism?

Some time ago I ordered the recent English translation of Louis Bouyer's memoirs, which have received several positive reviews from Catholic writers of traditional and mainstream bends. The back cover has several short commendations from the non-FSSPX luminaries of post-1988 traditionalism: Msgr. Fabian Bruskewitz, Dr. Uwe Michael Lang, Scott "Alcuin" Reid, Tracey Rowland and Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, who also penned the forward. Everyone who endorses the book wants to make Bouyer their own in a quest to question Vatican II, the liturgical reform and the related changes. Having read half his Memoirs today, I see little ammunition for them, although I am not yet at the chapter on "the Council." Thus far Bouyer is less a son of Ottaviani and more a son of John Henry Newman, or at least a close cousin.

Bouyer's conversion parallels Newman's very closely, a fact Bouyer never shies from from broadcasting to the reader, but it is very true. Their conversions were similar, although not identical. Both entered the Church beginning with a genuine, youthful love of the Gospel in its simplicity. Bouyer emphasizes early that he never conscientiously disbelieved the Church's teachings, he just happened to be born into a protestant family. His studies of the Church Fathers, especially of the Alexandrian Fathers who inspired Newman, and of St. Thomas Aquinas nurtured a healthy diet of continuous doctrine and dogma from ancient days until the middle ages. He read the Greek Fathers, too, and, as was the fashion until quite recently, spent time with several men of the Eastern Orthodox Churches (Robert Taft once wrote that the "Western romance with the East" ended in the 1980s). Through praying the Roman Office and spending a great deal of time with Benedictines and Oratorians, he was received into the Catholic Church a few months after the Second World War began.

Unless one is an Anglo-Catholic, one has difficulty reading of the cast of characters in Newman's conversion with any excitement; modern followers of Dr. Pusey are confined to St. Giles Street in Oxford. On the contrary, Bouyer's more experiential conversion involved the who's who of early 20th century ecumenism, which, for good or ill, influenced the direction of the Church in the 1950s and 1960s. He met or knew Beauduin, Lealine, Conger, Brilioth, Ramsey, Gillet and many others before his conversion. Newman's conversion involved substantial reading and a bit of travel Bouyer's was uniquely reliant on travel and popular interaction, which placed him into the center of the rapids when the waves of change rushed into the Church.

This work has some memorable phrases and probably deserves a review on its own later. Here is a quotation about the spirit of conformity that arose within the Latin Church, speaking specifically about a fellow priest:

"The more I became familiar with this new milieu, the more I was struck by the fact that its best elements in the generation before mine, such as Father Brillet, seem never to have recovered from the brutal repression of modernism. Sheltered under a half-skin-deep, half-sincere conformism akin to a kind of family loyalty, they had concocted their own little religion within Catholicism...."

On a friend:

"I cannot complain since this excellent man paid me a very decent salary for the thankless task [of editing his book]. The poor man was saddled with a wife who must have been very beautiful once, but whose stupidity, alas, had never waned."

Of a peculiar interest to me was chapter four, "Initiation". It was not an initiation into the formal Catholic Church, but an initiation into Christian prayer life through the influence of Orthodox ecumenists around him. Bouyer met Fr. Lev Gillet, who surreptitiously received him into the Orthodox fold while still a Lutheran seminarian and on his way to ordination in the Lutheran church. Gillet was himself a Benedictine monk who left for Ukrainian Greek Catholicism, received ordination from the Ukrainian patriarch, and then was received into the Orthodox fold without renouncing a bit of his prior establishments; he happily received Bouyer secretly without asking him to change anything about his life. An episcopus vagans who was unable to rejoin the Catholic Church after marriage found his way into Orthodoxy and created "Occidental Orthodoxy" in France and named his church St. Genevieve. The Moscow patriarch got word of this and, rightly in Bouyer's mind, excommunicated the bishop. Fr. Gillet took over the effort of Western Orthodoxy, despite having written a book on the Jesus Prayer under the nom de plume "A Monk of the Eastern Church." Despite his Orthodoxy, Gillet calls Francis of Assisi, Bernard of Clairveaux, and many other Latin Churchmen saints. Kallistos Ware, in the introduction to my version, recounts Gillet's "reception" into the Orthodox fold without having to make a profession of faith and seems quite at peace with the method. I doubt many Orthodox would be at peace with this reception; I myself am not. 

To readers with more knowledgeable Orthodox connections: do the Orthodox have an ecumaniacal problem, or did they in the 20th century? If so, is it prevalent or restricted to the English and French Orthodox diaspora? Can it be traced to certain individuals or is it, like Latin ecumenism at the same time, a gradual acceptance of elements of the world at large?

To digress from the digression, read the Memoirs. Bouyer's was an eager and genuinely Christian soul with a love of Christ and a yearning to live with His truth, something we should all aspire to want.

Greek Ecumenism

An article about the ecumenical view on Mt. Athos:

The Greek government sent riot police to Mount Athos in Northern Greece this morning, to forcibly remove a group of monks from Esphigmenou monastery, one of the twenty monasteries that form part of this famous Eastern orthodox complex. Esphigmenou monastery is renowned for the war it has waged against the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople which it accuses of betraying the Orthodox Church by opening ecumenical dialogue with the Vatican. A war which has been going on since the 70s. According to an Associated Press report, the traditionalist monks threw stones and Molotov cocktails at police and judicial officials as they attempted to storm the building .Patriarch Bartholomew declared the monks of Esphigmenou an illegal brotherhood in 2002 and ordered their eviction. But the monks ignored this, claiming the Patriarch of Constantinople does not have the power to evict them.  

The conflict has been going on for decades: it all began when Paul VI visited Patriarch Athenagoras in 1967. The Esphigmenous community protested against the two religious leaders praying together by famously raising black flags displaying the message “Orthodoxy or death”. Patriarch Bartholomew decided to resolve the question by contacting the Greek Foreign Minister who - according to the complex jurisdiction regulations which apply to the Hagiorite institutions - is in charge of the security of the twenty monasteries which make up the monastic community of Mount Athos. Over the years, the Greek authorities have tried almost everything to get the Esphigmenou community to back down. They even tried cutting off food supplies to the monks, but in vain.  

The situation was complicated further after a Greek court granted an injunction allowing the new brotherhood Bartholomew wants installed, to replace the old monastic community. There are 500 thousand Euros at stake, which the European Union could dish out for restoration work to be carried out on the 11th century monastery. But given the current crisis Greece finds itself in, the funding has been yet another cause for tension between the rebel monks and Constantinople.  

Local sources say about twenty monks have barricaded themselves inside their monastery. Some supporters apparently joined them this afternoon. On the Esphigmenou monastery website, the monks are calling on faithful to support them and accuse the government of “giving the green light to the police to raid the monastery,” ignoring the fact that “this could cause bloodshed among the monks at Mount Athos.” .

Further Thoughts on Catholic-Orthodox Relations

source: Reuters

In the conclusion of my last post, a review of Fr. Adrian Fortescue's The Early Papacy, I suggested many of the events the author adduces as examples of Papal primacy in the ancient Christian days ought to figure into ecumenical dialogue between the Catholics and Orthodox. As someone who worships at a Melkite parish and who is interested in liturgical matters, you might say I have some extra interest in affairs with the Eastern Orthodox.

A thousand years ago the filioque and the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist were the main causes of controversy. Nowadays, no Easterner who knows Latin can seriously believe the filioque is heretical, nor do many think the use of unleavened bread invalidates the Sacrament. The modern issue is the role of the Pope of Rome within the universal Christian body. There are some less apparent issues involved here: the Patriarch of Constantinople has been called the "Ecumenical Patriarch" for some time, but the Russian Patriarch and the Russian Church have been the major movers within Orthodoxy in recent years. Yet, I would be more interested in dialogue concerning micro-level issues which I think are more important than the Papacy. If both sides are honest, the faith of the Fathers will define the role of the Pope.

The Pope has very little to do with the daily life of most Catholics, except when we pray for him. What might impact, or impede, attempts at unity might be social and personal practices. What immediately comes to mind:

1. De-centralized Orthodox social teaching, which has led to much silence on Life matters and a general concession on the matter of birth control.
2. The Orthodox practice of ecclesiastical divorce. An Orthodox person can marry up to three times, although the second and third wedding would be penitential services and exclude the crowning rites. Is there any justification for this? Might require some meditation. One Eastern Catholic priest I know indicated he would be willing to give Communion to an Orthodox divorcer because said person can receive in his own church, but would still continue the Catholic Church's policy with Catholics.
3. Jurisdiction of local bishops. What would happen here? The Melkites and Antiochian Orthodox might have a fun time with this one.
4. What about Western private devotions and revelations? The Eastern Christian devotions are very liturgical and not very private in nature—akathist being a prominent example. How do these churches preserve their own identity without disparaging those who have different devotional lives?
5. Accepting converts. Eastern Catholics usually follow Roman Catholic policy in accepting most protestant baptisms and simply confirming. The Orthodox sometimes baptize, sometimes confirm, and, when the convert is a clerical of some kind, might accept by "vesting." This needs to be addressed.
6. Those Roman episcopal conferences. They are a mess. Perhaps we could discourage our own clergy from these conferences and return to a patriarchal understanding of hierarchy. Maybe the idea of an archbishop could once again have substantial meaning in the West.

These areas appear to my poor mind as needing some attention in future conferences and discussions.

Happy Bright Week to any Orthodox readers!