Papal Primacy - Russia Heads the Resistance Against Rome

Sandro Magister's account of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, October 2010


The patriarchate of Moscow is a great admirer of the current pontiff. But it is also the most hesitant to recognize his authority over the Orthodox Churches of the East: The results of the talks in Vienna

 

While the Eastern Churches are slowly approaching the convocation of the pan-Orthodox "Great and Holy Council" that should finally unite them in a single assembly after centuries of incomplete "synodality," the other journey of reconciliation, which sees the East in dialogue with the Church of Rome, is also taking small steps forward. The object of this dialogue concerns the only real sticking point dividing Catholicism and Orthodoxy, the primacy of the pope.

The latest evidence came a few days ago, in Vienna, where from September 20 to 27 the joint international commission for theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church met as a whole, precisely on the universal role of the bishop of Rome during the first millennium of Christian history. At the head of the Catholic delegation was the new president of the pontifical council for Christian unity, Swiss archbishop Kurt Koch. While for the Eastern Churches, there was the metropolitan of Pergamon Joannis Zizioulas, a great ecumenist and trusted theologian of the patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, as well as an old friend of Joseph Ratzinger as theologian and pope (see photo Rupprecht/Kathbild). The Orthodox were fully represented, with the sole exception of the patriarch of Bulgaria. There was the metropolitan archbishop of Cyprus, Chrysostomos II, another champion of ecumenism, whom Benedict XVI met this year during his trip to the island.

The patriarch of Moscow had sent to Vienna his most prominent associate, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, also fresh from a meeting with the pope, with whom he has a relationship of great respect. The presence of the patriarchate of Moscow in Vienna was all the more important because in Ravenna, in 2007, when agreement was reached on the document to serve as the basis for discussion on the universal role of the bishop of Rome, the Russian Church was not there, because of a disagreement with the patriarchate of Constantinople. The disagreement was smoothed over, and the Ravenna document was also approved by the patriarchate of Moscow, which had helped to prepare it.

The document affirms that "primacy and conciliarity are mutually interdependent." And in paragraph 41, it highlights the points of agreement and disagreement: "Both sides agree that... that Rome, as the Church that 'presides in love' according to the phrase of St Ignatius of Antioch, occupied the first place in the taxis, and that the bishop of Rome was therefore the protos among the patriarchs. They disagree, however, on the interpretation of the historical evidence from this era regarding the prerogatives of the bishop of Rome as protos, a matter that was already understood in different ways in the first millennium." "Protos" is the Greek word that means "first." And "taxis" is the structure of the universal Church. Since then, the discussion on controversial points has advanced at an accelerated pace. And it has started to examine, above all, how the Churches of East and West interpreted the role of the bishop of Rome during the first millennium, when they were still united.

The outline of the discussion was, until this point, a working document drafted by a joint sub-commission at the beginning of autumn 2008, at a meeting in Crete. In October of 2009, in Cyprus, the joint international commission for theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, with the Russians present, examined and discussed the first part of this outline, on some historical cases of the universal exercise of the "primacy" of the bishop of Rome, in the first centuries of the Christian era.

The discussion was supposed to continue in Vienna. But there were surprises right from the beginning. The Russian delegation raised objections against the working text provided in Crete, and ultimately succeeded in having it rewritten. The main objection of the Russian Church is the one summarized by Metropolitan Hilarion shortly after the meeting, in a note published on the website of the patriarchate of Moscow: "The 'Crete Document' is purely historical and, speaking of the role of the bishop of Rome, it makes almost no mention of bishops of other Local Churches in the first millennium, thus creating a wrong impression of how powers were distributed in the Early Church. Besides, the document is lacking any clear statement that the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome did not extend to the East in the first millennium. It is hoped that these gaps and omissions will be made up in revising the text."

 

As a result, the Russian delegation asked and obtained that the text from Crete not be included among the official documents of the commission, nor bear the signature of any of its members, and be used simply as working material for a new rewriting of the working outline. A rewriting more attentive to the theological dimensions of the question. In effect, at the end of the talks in Vienna, the participants agreed to set up "a sub-commission to begin consideration of the theological and ecclesiological aspects of primacy in its relation to synodality."

 

Next year the sub-commission will present the new text to the coordinating committee of the commission for theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. So that the following year, 2012, the commission will be able to revisit and continue – on the basis of the new outline – the discussion begun in Cyprus and Vienna. The two co-presidents of the commission, Archbishop Koch for the Catholic side and Metropolitan Joannis for the Orthodox, at a press conference on September 24, gave a positive assessment of the talks underway. Koch recognized the differences between the Catholic and Orthodox visions: while the Catholic Church has strong primacy and weak synodality, for the Orthodox Churches it is the other way around. So it is necessary "that we exchange our respective gifts, as done, for example, by Benedict XVI when he welcomes the Anglicans into the Church with all of their traditions and liturgies." Joannis said that he agreed: the Orthodox must clarify their conception of primacy, just as the Catholics must strengthen synodality. He observed that the history of the first millennium shows that the Church of Rome was universally recognized as having a special role, but the pope exercised it by consulting with the other bishops.

 

As for the continuation of the talks, the metropolitan of Pergamon said that a move will be made to "a slight change of our subject, namely to make the historical material focus on theological questions more." In reality, the journey will not be easy, if one looks at the extremely restrictive views that the patriarchate of Moscow, through the pen of Metropolitan Hilarion, expresses of the pope's role in the first millennium: "For the Orthodox participants, it is clear that in the first millennium the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome was exercised only in the West, while in the East, the territories were divided between four patriarchs – those of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. The bishop of Rome did not exercise any direct jurisdiction in the East in spite of the fact that in some cases Eastern hierarchs appealed to him as arbiter in theological disputes. These appeals were not systematic and can in no way be interpreted in the sense that the bishop of Rome was seen in the East as the supreme authority in the whole universal Church. It is hoped that at the next meetings of the commission, the Catholic side will agree with this position which is confirmed by numerous historical evidence."

 

In this regard, neither the patriarchate of Moscow nor the Orthodox Church as a whole is forgetting that Benedict XVI, in one of the first actions of his pontificate, removed from the attributes of the pope listed in the Annuario Pontificio the designation "patriarch of the West." When it became known, this decision prompted protests from many representatives of Eastern Churches. Some saw it as "proof of the claims by the bishop of Rome to universal primacy." On March 22, 2006, the pontifical council for Christian unity published a statement justifying the change. On June 8 of that same year, a note from the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople stated that, if anything, the pope would have done better to have stopped calling himself "supreme pontiff of the universal Church," because "the Orthodox have never accepted his jurisdiction over the whole Church." After that the disputes died down and the two sides began that direct examination of the question which, begun in Ravenna and continued in Cyprus and Vienna, promises further steps forward. But as can be seen, the question is certainly a thorny one, with no solution in sight.