Orthodoxy: Toward a Dialogue

The autonomous churches of Orthodoxy are united in faith but seldom in action—especially when dealing with Roman Catholicism. Patriarch Alexei of Moscow sends observers to the Vatican Council, and Athenagoras I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, made no secret of his high regard for Pope John XXIII. But openness of this sort cuts no ice with the Holy Synod of Greece, which prefers to remember Rome as sponsor of the Crusaders who sacked Constantinople in 1204.

When Pope Paul VI recently invited Orthodoxy to join with Rome in settling their doctrinal disputes, Archbishop Chrysostomos of Athens and All Greece denounced Roman Catholicism as “centralist and absolutist.” When representatives of other Orthodox churches gathered in Rhodes to take up the question of sending observers to the council, the Greek prelates boycotted the meeting.

This brushoff did not prevent the rest of Orthodoxy from making some notable ecumenical decisions. During a four-hour Divine Liturgy celebrated at Rhodes’s Annunciation Cathedral last week, 23 metropolitans and bishops signed an agreement that one of them called “the greatest spiritual fact of our century.” Ten Orthodox churches —including the ancient patriarchates of Moscow, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria—agreed to begin a “dialogue” with Rome on the subject of Christian unity, provided that the Pope will speak with them “on equal terms.” Athenagoras will supervise a new secretariat that will arrange for any formal doctrinal discussions with Rome, although no meetings are likely before the Vatican Council ends.

The seemingly easier problem of sending observers to the council turned out to be ironically difficult; reporters covering the four-day conference heard shouts of anger through the meeting room doors. At length, Metropolitan Meliton of Heliopolis, representing Athenagoras, proposed that the decision be left to the individual churches. With support from the Russians, this resolution passed, and five Orthodox branches will join Moscow in sending men to the council—the Patriarchate of Antioch, the churches of Bulgaria, Rumania, Czechoslovakia and Cyprus.

For the moment, Athenagoras and the other patriarchs will not join them, but not out of malice toward Rome.

Rather than isolate Greece from its sis ter churches, they hope to change the mind of the Holy Synod and thus present a united Orthodox front when the day for dialogue comes around.