Catholic, Orthodox Move Toward Unity

Reuters via The Moscow Times ^ | 9/27/10

[marshmallow]

VIENNA — Roman Catholic and Orthodox theologians reported promising progress in talks on overcoming their Great Schism of 1054 and bringing the two largest denominations in Christianity back to full communion.

Experts meeting in Vienna last week agreed that the two could eventually become "sister churches" that recognize the Roman pope as their titular head but retain many church structures, liturgy and customs that developed over the past millennium.

The delegation heads stressed that unity was still far off, but their upbeat report Friday reflected growing cooperation between Rome and the Orthodox churches traditionally centered in Russia, Greece, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

"There are no clouds of mistrust between our two churches," Orthodox Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon said at a news conference. "If we continue like that, God will find a way to overcome all the difficulties that remain."

Archbishop Kurt Koch, the top Vatican official for Christian unity, said the joint dialogue must continue "intensively" so that "we see each other fully as sister churches."

The churches split in 1054 over the primacy of the Roman pope, the most senior bishop in early Christianity. The Orthodox in Constantinople, now Istanbul, rejected Roman primacy and developed national churches headed by their own patriarchs.

The Vatican has sought closer ties for years, but the Russian Orthodox Church — whose 165 million followers are the largest branch of the world's 250 million Orthodox — responded slowly as it emerged from more than seven decades of Communist rule.

Roman Catholicism is Christianity's largest church, with 1.1 billion of the estimated 2 billion Christians worldwide.

Pope Benedict has close ties to the spiritual leader of the Orthodox, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul, and hopes to meet Russian Patriarch Kirill, who has shown great interest in better ties since taking office in.....

[wideawake]

A formal meeting between Benedict, Bartholomew and Kirill would be the most concrete sign of real development.

[maryz]

Good article (though it does abbreviate the sources of the schism beyond recognition!).

One thing I found interesting:

To work this out, they are studying Christianity's early history to see how the Latin-speaking West and Greek-speaking East worked together for 1,000 years before the Great Schism.

[Genoa]

Before the schism, the doctrine of papal infallibility hadn't been articulated. It's hard to imagine how the Orthodox could get past that without its being watered down beyond recognition.

[Yudan]

This is a really good summary of the Schism from the Orthodox POV.

http://orthodoxwiki.org/Great_Schism

In particular, read the section entitled, “Papal Supremacy and Pentarchy.” A lot is boiled down right there, and by following the hot link to “Primus Inter Pares” in the final sentence of that section.

Warm regards,
Yudan (Orthodox)

[sprtslvr1973]

Rome is welcome to rejoin the Orthodox church. All it has to do is renounce the deep seated heresies that caused the split to occur and worsen over the years.

[mas cerveza por favor]

Before the schism, the doctrine of papal infallibility hadn't been articulated. It's hard to imagine how the Orthodox could get past that without its being watered down beyond recognition.

Aside from Scripture, the Church never articulates her doctrines until they are challenged. Until the schism, Easterners did not challenge the belief that the Roman Pontiff was needed to validate council teachings just as Peter was needed to validated the teachings of Paul. The primacy Peter's successor was always implicit but had to become explicit after it was challenged.