Signs Of Hope In Orthodox - Catholic Dialogue

In the age of theological strife and incessant debates, the great Cappadocian Fathers protested against the use of dialectics, of Aristotelian syllogisms, and endeavoured to refer theology back to the vision of faith.

  Patristic theology could only be “preached” or “proclaimed” – preached from the pulpit, proclaimed  also in the words of prayer and in the sacred rites, and indeed manifested in the total structure of Christian life.   Theology of this kind can never be separated from the life of prayer and from the exercise of virtue.   “The climax of purity is the beginning of theology,” as St John the Klimakos put it. (Scala Paradisi, grade 30)

On the other hand, theology of this type is always, as it were, “propaideutic,” since its ultimate aim and purpose  is to ascertain and to acknowledge  the Mystery of the Living God, and indeed to bear witness to it in word and deed.   Theology is not an end in itself, but a way.   Theology, and even the “dogmas” present no more than  an “intellectual contour” of the revealed truth, and a “noetic” testimony to it.   Only in the act of faith is this “contour” filled with content.   Christological formulas are fully meaningful only for those who have encountered the Living Christ, and have received and acknowledged Him as God and Saviour, and are dwelling by faith in Him, in His body, the Church.   In this sense, theology is never a self-explanatory discipline. It is constantly appealing to  the vision of faith.   “What we have seen and heard we have announced to you.”   Apart from this “announcement”,  theological formulas are empty and of no consequence….To follow the Fathers does not mean to quote them.  To follow the Fathers means to acquire their “mind”, their phronema.  

 It is by sharing their “mind” that we can think, pray and act within Tradition.   Only if we have the vision of faith, given by the Spirit, can we make head or tale of the Truth that the formulas express.   When I was studying theology in the early sixties, we did not call the theology of de Lubac, Danielou etc resourcement theology; we called it kerygmatic theology.   Reading Florovsky, we can begin to understand why: it is embedded in the liturgical tradition of the Church and proclaimed in the kerygma, and theological reflection can never separate it’s formulations from the Christian ecclesial life of faith that gives them substance.

  Tradition being the product of the Holy Spirit and the Church acting in synergy, popes, bishops, general councils and faithful are subject to it, and not the other way round.   It is the context in which the New Testament was written, its books were recognised and are read and interpreted, the liturgies of the Church were formed and have developed, where dogmas have been expressed in words and interpreted.   If you want to see the role of Tradition in the Catholic Church, then read the teachings of Vatican II and some of the words and actions of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

We have…studied…the history of the expression Vicarius Christi as a papal title.   The use of the title has continued but its meaning has changed.   Its older sense in Catholic theology was that of a visible representative of a transcendent and heavenly power which was actually active in its earthly representative.   The context and atmosphere surrounding the idea were those of the actuality of the action of God, Christ and the saints working in their representative.   This is a very sacramental, iconological concept linked to the idea of the constant presences of God and the celestial powers in our earthly sphere.   It is this quality of actuality and of “vertical” descent and a presence which has its source in the celebrated text in Luke 10: 16, “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me.”   Although this quality does not disappear, it is overlaid by another quality which is also not entirely new – what is new is its marked predominance over the former one – namely a “power” given at the beginning by someone, by Christ, to his “vicar”, that is, to a person who takes his place and who hands on to those who come after him, in an historical sequence of transmission and succession, the power thus received.   The predominant feature is not a vertical movement, an actual presence, an iconological representation,  but the “horizontal” transmission of a power vested in the earthly jurisdiction and which, though received from on high, is genuinely possessed by this jurisdiction which uses it in the same way as any authority may use the power attached to it.

The modern “mystique” of authority in the Church comes from the movement whose characteristics we just described.   But, and this is where its strength lies, once again, strength comes from the mystique and not from the legal aspect – it has combined the actuality of the power possessed with the vision of the “vertical” descent of divine power upon the actual historic authority…..I believe that the spirit of the time introduced something new into this continuity [of Tradition], namely, a certain legalistic aspect…..legalism is characteristic of an ecclesiology unrelated to spiritual anthropology, and for which the word ecclesia indicates, not so much the body of the faithful, as the system, the apparatus, the impersonal depositary of the system of rights whose representatives are the clergy or, as it is now called, the hierarchy, and ultimately the pope and the Roman Curia.

The movement back to the sources must go forward until it restores a completely evangelical concept of authority, a concept that willbe fully supernatural and fully communal.   We are on the right road, we have gone far to recover the agape beyond mere moralism, the function of the laity, the community, and our mission and service as dimensions essential to and co-extensive with.   We have better understanding of the the religious implications of the covenant, and these involve our acceptance of God’s gift through faith, and the life of this gift through agape the diakonia, witness and thanksgiving….Since we are returning to a pre-Constantinian situation in a pagan world, since we are aware that we are in a minority, that it is our task to preach Jesus Christ, we are doubtless approaching a period in which, while we shall lose nothing of value acquired in the course of history, we shall recover wholly evangelical ways of exercising authority in the new world in which God calls us to serve him.

The change from a sacramental way of interpreting the authority of the Church to a legalistic one arose from the habit of popes of comparing their authority with that emperors, and of archbishops like St Thomas a Becket with that of kings.   Also there was  the separation of theology from cult as theological activity went away from monasteries and cathedrals and into universities.   This weakened its essential connection with the liturgy and Christian living.   As the Church came to be seen as a world-wide perfect society, held together by papal jurisdiction, so jurisdiction was separated from the celebration of the Eucharist in which Christ himself is actively engaged in deepening our understanding through the liturgy, as we collaborate through humble obedience.   Finally, to fit in with the idea of the Church as a perfect society, the Eucharist and the Church lost the sense of participating in the heavenly liturgy.  

 But it is in the Roman liturgy’s participation in the heavenly liturgy that St Peter is really connected with the church of Rome, and the Roman Church is united to all other places where the Eucharist is celebrated.  St Peter and St Paul are buried there, and their bodies await resurrection on the Last Day.

   The Roman Eucharist, like the Eucharist in Constantinople and Moscow, embraces heaven where our divisions don’t reach as well as earth, but the Romans cannot help but celebrate their special relationship with these two apostles; and this relationship is bound to show from time to time in the words of the Roman bishop.

The way to reunion with the Orthodox is, as far as we are concerned, the way of making the insights of Vatican II a concrete reality.   There is much yet to be done, but it is marked out for us in the documents of the Council.   We must have a liturgy that celebrates our participation in the liturgy of heaven.   This is yet to be realised.   Going back to the pre-conciliar past won’t help because the extraordinary rite is no better than the novus ordo in that regard.   We must have true collegiality both world-wide and regionally and allow the episcopates in the regions to make their own decisions. Collegiality and primacy belong together; but this is yet to become a reality in the Church.  Here I have hopes that Pope Francis will go further than either John Paul II or Benedict XVI were able to do.  Almost finally, we must work together with our Orthodox brothers and sisters to evangelise the world.   We must never accept the dominance of secularism.   If we do, then we are already beaten.  We must take it on: we have resources that the secularists cannot even dream about; if they did, they wouldn’t be secularists.

Finally, as the madman Grisha said to the boy Prokher (St Seraphim of Sarov), when he asked how he could re-build the Church, we must, “Pray, pray, pray.”

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