Abstract
This essay first briefly outlines the history of the Orthodox-Lutheran dialogue, beginning in the sixteenth century, when the Ecumenical Patriarchate had contacts with Melanchthon and Tübingen’s theologians, up to today’s dialogue, focused on ecclesiology. Then, to anticipate the direction of future Orthodox-Lutheran dialogues, it addresses three themes that were prominent at the 2016 Council of Crete: first, under the influence of anti-ecumenical elements, the council did not consistently designate Western Christians as “churches,” instead using “confessions” or “communities,” which is a most recent innovation; second, the Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue will have to seriously consider the role of politics in ecclesial matters, since both our churches have suffered over the centuries from the state’s hindering of Church unity; and third, despite paralyzing intra-Orthodox dynamics and negative experiences at the WCC that have now been addressed, Orthodoxy remains committed to ecumenical dialogue, now with a conciliar mandate.
This essay was first published in Worship 91, November (2017): 518-39. Reprinted here with permission.
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Notes
- 1.
John Travis, “Orthodox-Lutheran Relations: Their Historical Beginnings,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 29, no. 4 (1984): 304.
- 2.
Risto Saarinen, Faith and Holiness: Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue 1959–1994 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 16.
- 3.
See more in Travis, “Orthodox-Lutheran Relations,” 305–07.
- 4.
For more on the history of the Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue, see Council of EKD, Wort und Mysterium: Der Briefwechsel über Glauben und Kirche 1573 bis 1581 zwischen den Tübinger Theologen und dem Patriarchat von Konstantinopel (Witten: Luther Verlag, 1958). Reinhard Thöle and Martin Illert. Wörterbuch zu den bilateralen theologischen Dialogen zwischen der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland und orthodoxen Kirchen (1959–2013) (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2014).
- 5.
Documents of the Joint Commission are available at http://blogs.helsinki.fi/ristosaarinen/lutheran-orthodox-dialogue/ and http://www.strasbourginstitute.org/en/dialogues/lutheran-orthodox-dialogue/.
- 6.
Theodoros Meimaris, “Thirty Years of the International Theological Dialogue between Orthodox and Lutherans (1981–2011): Evaluation and Prospects,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 58, no. 1–4 (2013): 189–91.
- 7.
As a general description of these dialogues, Saarinen notes a reluctance of Orthodox participants to commit to a concrete ecclesiology, be it a eucharistic or a communion ecclesiology. Even when Lutheran participants opened up to the possibility of integrating external marks such as apostolicity and ordained ministry, the Orthodox retreated further back into canonical forms of school theology, which hindered the progress of the dialogue. Saarinen, Faith and Holiness, 263–65.
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “Quelques réflexions conclusives au term du colloque,” Contacts 243(2013): 624–25.
- 11.
Thomas FitzGerald and Peter Bouteneff, eds., Turn to God, Rejoice in Hope: Orthodox Reflections on the Way to Harare: The Report of the WCC Orthodox Pre-Assembly Meeting and Selected Resource Materials (Geneva: Orthodox Task Force, WCC, 1998), 136.
- 12.
The clearest synodal instance of the exclusivist position came after the Council on November 15, 2016, when the Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church adopted a declaration on Crete’s document on ecumenism. In my opinion, the declaration is gravely lacking a solid theological foundation, honesty, and good will. Delving into obscure incursions into theories of created grace, models of Christian unity that Crete explicitly rejected, and Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism (the only quote provided in the entire document), the Bulgarian Patriarchate affirms without offering any evidence: “With regards to the search for the ‘lost unity of all Christians’ expressed and asserted in paragraph 5, we deem this unacceptable and inadmissible, inasmuch as the Orthodox Church never lost its internal unity despite heresies and schisms which represent a breaking away from the Body of the Church, by which the Body does not lose its initial ontological integrity, which consists in the ontological indivisibility of Christ’s Hypostasis. … no heretical or schismatic community can be called ‘Church.’ The presence of a multitude of churches is unacceptable, according to the dogmas and canons of the Orthodox Church.” Pravoslavie.ru, December 2.
- 13.
Georges Florovsky—though not solving the problem—was much more nuanced when he wrote about the tragedy of schisms in which the Church remains in a sense united but also suffers from schisms, the paradoxical character of division, and the abnormal state of a disunited Christianity, where no theology can properly explain how we are “separated brethren”—a paradox that deals both with our unity and our disunity. Georges Florovsky, “The Tragedy of Christian Divisions,” in Ecumenism I: A Doctrinal Approach, Collected Works of Georges Florovsky, Emeritus Professor of Eastern Church History, Harvard University; vol. 13 (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1989), 28–33.
- 14.
Gennadios Limouris, ed. Orthodox Visions of Ecumenism: Statements, Messages and Reports of the Ecumenical Movement 1902–1992 (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1994), 9–11.
- 15.
Michael Kinnamon and Brian E. Cope, The Ecumenical Movement: An Anthology of Key Texts and Voices (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), 12–13.
- 16.
Damaskinos Papandreou, “Pan-Orthodox Conferences,” in The Encyclopedia of Christianity, ed. Erwin Fahlbusch and Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), vol. 4, 25–26. Given the general negative attitude of today’s Athonite monks toward the Council, it is rather ironic that this council was first prepared on Mount Athos.
- 17.
The Church of Albania, which at that time could not exist legally within its territory, joined the WCC in 1994.
- 18.
The Council of Crete referred explicitly to this important event and its contemporary relevance in the document on ecumenism, par. 19: “The Orthodox Churches that are members of the WCC regard as an indispensable condition of their participation in the WCC the foundational article of its Constitution, in accordance with which its members may only be those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior in accordance with the Scriptures, and who confess the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in accordance with the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. It is their deep conviction that the ecclesiological presuppositions of the 1950 Toronto Statement, On the Church, the Churches and the World Council of Churches, are of paramount importance for Orthodox participation in the Council. … No Church is obliged to change her ecclesiology on her accession to the Council… Moreover, from the fact of its inclusion in the Council, it does not ensue that each Church is obliged to regard the other Churches as Churches in the true and full sense of the term” (Toronto Statement, § 2).
- 19.
Matthew Baker and Seraphim Danckaert, “Georges Florovsky,” in Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism: Resources for Theological Education—“That They All May Be One” (John 17, 21), ed. Pantelis Kalaitzidis and Thomas FitzGerald (Oxford/Volos: Regnum Books International / Volos Academy Publications, 2013), 214.
- 20.
Georges Florovsky, “The Boundaries of the Church,” in Ecumenism I: A Doctrinal Approach, Collected Works; vol. 13 (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1989), 37–42. ———, “St. Cyprian and St. Augustine on Schism,” in Ecumenism II: A Historical Approach, Collected Works; vol. 14 (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1989), 48–51.
- 21.
Nicolas Afanassieff, “Una Sancta,” Irénikon 36, no. 4 (1963): 436–75. ———, “L’Eucharistie, principal lien entre les Catholiques et les Orthodoxes,” Irénikon 38, no. 3 (1965): 337–39.
- 22.
See more in Radu Bordeianu, Dumitru Staniloae: An Ecumenical Ecclesiology (New York, London: T&T Clark/Continuum, 2011), 199–205.
- 23.
The Conference was unable to agree on the issue of the diaspora, which ended up being dropped from the Council’s agenda. These drafts underwent a major revision in 2015 and the updated texts were publicized for consultation with the faithful. In this sense, the Orthodox Theological Society of America gathered an impressive number of Orthodox scholars who responded to the pre-conciliar drafts, first online at https://publicorthodoxy.org/archives/otsa-special-project-on-the-great-and-holy-council/ and then in print in Toward the Holy and Great Council: Theological Reflections, ed. Archimandrite Nathanael Symeonides, “Faith Matters Series,” (New York: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, 2016).
- 24.
- 25.
Peter De Mey, “Parallel Agendas of Vatican II and Crete I? A Close Look at ‘Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World,” forthcoming.
- 26.
Nikos Nissiotis, “Ecclesiology and Ecumenism of the Second Session of the Vatican Council II,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 10, no. 1 (1964): 20–26. ———, “Is the Vatican Council Really Ecumenical?,” The Ecumenical Review 16, no. 4 (1964): 367.
- 27.
See also: J.-M.-R. Tillard, Church of Churches: The Ecclesiology of Communion, trans. R. C. De Peaux (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992), 314–15. Francis A. Sullivan, The Church We Believe In: One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic (New York: Paulist Press, 1988), 30–32.
- 28.
November 2016 declaration analyzed earlier.
- 29.
Press Center of the Kyiv Patriarchate, July 1.
- 30.
Paul L. Gavrilyuk, “Church Council meets despite absence of four patriarchates under the sway of Russia,” in America, July 7, 2016, https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/historic-orthodox-council-meets-despite-absence-four-churches.
- 31.
“Encyclical” I.3.
- 32.
See Travis, “Orthodox-Lutheran Relations,” 306–08.
- 33.
“Decision of the Synaxis of the Primates of Orthodox Churches, Chambésy, 21–28 January, 2016,” par. 8, in Nathanael Symeonides, ed. Toward the Holy and Great Council: Discussions and Texts (New York: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, 2016), 111–113.
- 34.
Similarly, the Vatican appointed two observers to the Council: Cardinal Kurt Koch and Bishop Brian Farrell—president and secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, respectively.
- 35.
Nicolas Kazarian, The First Test for Orthodox Unity after the Holy and Great Council: The Chieti Document, https://publicorthodoxy.org/2016/10/18/the-chieti-document/. The Antiochian Patriarchate’s absence was motivated primarily by its lack of eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and only marginally by its reservations toward the document on ecumenism.
- 36.
For example, in 2007 the Russian Patriarchate withdrew its representatives from the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue in Ravenna, but subsequently retuned to the table.
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Bordeianu, R. (2021). From Conflict to Communion: Ecclesiology at the Center of Recent Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogues and the 2016 Orthodox Council of Crete. In: Mannion, G., Doyle, D.M., Dedon, T.G. (eds) Ecumenical Perspectives Five Hundred Years After Luther’s Reformation. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68360-3_9
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