***Now perhaps it is among our many failings that we are not so fervid for reunion as the Latins. It probably is, but perhaps the Latins should think twice about letting a bunch like us into their church. In the meantime they should rest assured that virtually no Orthodoxer loses sleep at night worrying that Latins won’t “go to heaven”, notwithstanding their claimed concern for us.
I suggest that all this talk of reunion simply stop. We have much in common, certainly enough to make a powerful witness of The Faith to the world. A secular or pagan world isn’t concerned about the filioque, or our respective ecclesiologies, or created or uncreated grace, the IC, purgatory or who is primus inter pares and what that means in practice. I suggest that if Rome stops “lusting” after the Orthodox churches and simply makes it clear that it wants nothing from us but to work together to, perhaps, actually save the West, maybe we could accomlish something.***
I think that we do need something further of a bond, maybe not blood brother unification, but something more than what we have. We think of the Orthodox as more insular and clannish - that brings with it both good and bad.
But what I am personally after is a strong ally and example of Orthodoxy. We need the very model of Orthodoxy. I was conversing with one late 60s member of our parish who is very active and is our cantor and the conversation fell to the movement of the Church back towards Orthodoxy. I said that the bishop would make a powerful statement about his commitment to orthodoxy by having us push the altar against the east wall and putting the tabernacle in the center and holding Mass in Latin. He stated that he would leave.
And he just might; but he did admit later in the conversation that the other churches (he was Calvinist, born in Geneva and converted later in life) had marshmallow for doctrine and weren’t worth joining anyway.
Yes. Well said. I, too, think that at this point the priority in the West should be lower-case orthodoxy inside the Latin Church.