Competing orthodoxies Why East & West don't meet
Garvey, John
OF SEVERAL MINDS JOHN GARVEY COMPETING ORTHODOXIES Can the East face Rome? Many evaluations of the pa-pacy of John Paul II have mentioned his desire for Or-thodox-Catholic reunion. The chances...
...These are some of the questions that face each of us involved in the ecumenical movement today...
...The metropolitan simply invited Father Lev to start celebrating the Divine Liturgy with him...
...It is, thank God, not the only Orthodox way, and a new book by Michael Plekon gives us some refreshing counter-examples...
...He points out that while some Orthodox believe in a dialogue that might lead us to greater unity, "not all Orthodox would agree...
...Gillet was for years a chaplain to the community founded by Mother Maria Skobtsova, also celebrated in Plekon's book...
...Living Icons: Persons of Faith in the Eastern Church (University of Notre Dame Press) offers profiles of ten Orthodox Christians, and there is a fearlessness that characterizes all of them, and an openness that contrasts refreshingly with the attitude of those we might call neo-traditionalists...
...since then, those who oppose ecumenism as a Western delusion have caused the withdrawal of the Orthodox Churches of Georgia and Bulgaria from the World Council of Churches...
...But there is more to it than that...
...The way he was received by Metropolitan Evlogy of Paris shows something of the same spirit...
...What has to be remembered, though, is that we have nothing to fear from engaging in serious dialogue, and so much to gain...
...Nevertheless, this view has gained wide currency over the last decade...
...The final questions raised in John Erickson's address are essential: "We may still be convinced of the desirability of Christian unity...
...Gillet was a convert from Catholicism, but made it clear to Catholic family and friends that he had renounced nothing in becoming Orthodox...
...How are we to evaluate these conflicting views...
...In the March issue of First Things, Richard John Neuhaus quoted extensively from what he called a "remarkable address" delivered by Professor John H. Erickson, the newly appointed dean of Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Crestwood, New York, at last year's meeting of the National Workshop on Christian Unity...
...At present, the Catholic Church has been more open to us than we have been to them, and that is a shame...
...We may even be convinced of the need for Christian unity...
...I have no need of dialogue with you or anyone else...
...How many of us really believe that in Christ, crucified and risen, it is possible for us to overcome division, to understand each other's situation, to make each other's pain and joy our own...
...It is interesting that the dialogue has gone best in countries where no one religion is predominant, or attached to national identity...
...She was killed in a concentration camp for her aid to the Jews...
...Erickson writes of the "parallel monologue," where groups are seen as so incommensurate that real dialogue is im-posible, and this is true not only of reactionary Orthodox: "These days many people are saying much the same thing: women, gays, people of color, the poor, those marginalized in various ways, and even white males of the West whose position in the world now feels threatened...
...It is not that there are not important differences among the churches...
...But how convinced are we of the possibility of Christian unity...
...The chances are, sadly, not at all good...
...We are all tempted to say, 'I am situated within a unique interpretive community...
...Some would take Orthodox claims to be the one true church in an exclusive rather than an inclusive sense, so that outside the canonical limits of the Orthodox Church as we currently perceive them there is simply undifferentiated darkness, in which the pope is no better than a witch doctor...
...One of them, Father Lev Gillet (1893-1980), incarnates the spirit of the best Orthodox ecumenism...
...Indeed, no basis exists for dialogue with you.'" It is ironic that this essentially postmodern point of view should be held by people who insist that they are the guardians of ancient Orthodoxy...
...The Orthodox were prominent in the ecumenical movement, which was especially helpful to them during the Communist era...
...While Orthodox might question some of the assumptions behind John Paul's Ut unum sint (That They May Be One), there is no denying that it is a heartfelt invitation to dialogue, and it has not been received as graciously by Orthodox leaders as it should have been...
...In fact-as I could argue at greater length-this 'traditionalist' view is a relatively recent phenomenon, basically an eighteenth-century reaction to the equally exclusive claims advanced by the Roman Catholic Church in that period...
...At times this has been due to Catholic tone deafness-Rome has made some insensitive moves with regard to the Russian Orthodox Church- but it is also a result of what can only be called a certain fearfulness and de-fensiveness on the part of the Orthodox...
...The exclusive view today claims to represent true Orthodoxy, traditional Orthodoxy...
...Erickson touches on many currently troubling trends in Orthodoxy...
...From the start, Gillet was active in interfaith dialogue, and his books, many written under the name "A Monk of the Eastern Church," continue to appeal to Christians of every tradition...
...Although there was a brief springtime following Vatican II, the relationship between the churches has been decidedly icy in recent years...
...This can be attributed in part to the fact that for much of its history most of the Orthodox Church lived under either Communist persecution or Islamic domination, and it has not quite become used to freedom in recent years...
Vol. 129 • July 2002 • No. 13
