Eastern Orthodox Churches and Oriental Orthodox Churches in Dialogue: Reception, Disagreement and Convergence (original) (raw)
Related papers
From division to dialogue and beyond: the quest for eastern and oriental orthodox unity
Russian Journal of Church History
The modern quest for unity of the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches goes back to the mid-20 th century, beginning with informal consultations in the 1960s and continuing with the work of the Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue in the 1980s onward. This has led to a paradoxical situation. The Christological issues that prompted the division of the churches in the 5 th century appear to have been resolved, yet the division continues. Why? This article begins by exploring the specific context of our current quest for unity: the modern ecumenical movement and modern historical scholarship. Then, after surveying pre-modern quests for unity, the article explores some of the ways in which liturgical and disciplinary differences came to be invested with new meaning, becoming symbols of division rather than expressions of legitimate diversity. We may now have reached a point where such differences no longer are taken automatically as signs of Christological disagreement, yet the impulse towards reunion of the churches appears to have slowed in recent decades. New questions have arisen. Who has the authority to lift anathemas which the churches hurled against each other in the past? What is the meaning and authority of an "ecumenical council"? How will the results of dialogue be received and effectively implemented in church life? The basic question now is whether we really desire unity more than the disunity of the status quo.
2013
Collection of all official agreements and common declarations between the different Oriental Orthodox Churches plus the Church of the East and the Catholic Church existing till to 2013. This publication was the result of a meeting of a small group “Old Friends of PRO ORIENTE” still including the pioneers of ecumenism among the Oriental Orthodox theologians, Their Graces Achbishop Mesrob Krikorian and Metropolitan Mor Gregrorios Yohanna Ibrahim. The visit of Mor Gegorios to Vienna for the 2nd meeting, when the collection of the agreements could already be presented was the last time I have seen him. We had great ideas. We wanted to prepare a round table meeting of all heads of the Oriental Orthodox Churches together with the Pope, in those days still Benedict XVI. But soon everything changed. Pope Benedict retired, Pope Amba Shenuda passed away, Mor Gregorios was kidnapped. Soon also the patriarchs in Damascus and in Addis Abbeba changed and also Archbishop Krikorian left us. So the collection of agreements may be the lasting result of this hopefully started initiative. – An Ethiopian translation of this collection was started 2016, its presentation was to take place in December 2018. But appearently this did not yet happen. – Unfortunally I have to apologize for many typing errors, which I was not able to correct in this PDF to be uploaded.
The article deals with the ecclesiological challenges that rose after the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church in Crete (June 2016) following the encounter between East and West, as far as the orthodox-catholic dialogue is concerned. The conciliar restrictive formulations (included in the document " Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World ") concerning the denomination of other Churches caused negative reactions from the roman-catholic side, which questioned the future of the dialogue with the Orthodox Church. From that perspective, this study analyses the above-mentioned document and some other documents of the Council in Crete and sketches future perspectives on the orthodox-catholic dialogue. The main thesis of the present study is that, considering the ecclesiological debates that were held in Crete and afterwards, it becomes obvious that the theological orthodox-catholic dialogue needs a restart, arising from the spirit of the beginnings (the so called " plan for dialogue " adopted in Patmos/Rhodes, 1980). Some of the premises for this restart should be: the liberation of church-political strategies, the emphasis of the spiritual relevance and responsibility of the inter-Christian dialogue and a deeper consideration and implementation of the theological results of the different regional or unofficial dialogue groups. The study finalizes with concrete proposals of alternative themes of reflection for overcoming the aporias that the official theological dialogue is dealing with.
Odium Theologicum: Eastern Orthodox Church against Oriental Orthodox Churches
Since 451, where the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon took place, Orthodoxy experiences a major division in its very roots, and although a lot of efforts, both official and unofficial, have been made in order to achieve reunification, esp. after the 20th century, it seems that we are not really progressing. The latest common Statements of the Joint Theological Commission that were drafted in Chambesy in 1993 declared full theological agreement on the Christological dogma . Since the main reason for the division is based on theological dispute, it would be easily assumed that an agreement on reunification should have already taken place (or at least being very close). Unfortunately, this is not the case. The problem remains and is realised in the everyday ecclesiastical life where a number of people who belong to Oriental Orthodoxy and live in various countries esp. in the western society, visit Eastern Orthodox temples in order to participate in the Eucharist and receive the Holy Communion, bringing the orthodox priests in an awkward position.