“Devotion versus Theology? Some Mariological Issues of Interest to Patristicians and Ecumenists” (original) (raw)

2010, Cristian Badilita, ed., Patristique et oecuménisme: thèmes, contexts, personnages (Paris: Beauchesne), 147-158.

This paper will look at some mariological issues, first from the perspective of late Roman Catholic theologian and cardinal Yves Congar, and then from an Orthodox perspective, trying to make some suggestions for the ongoing ecumenical dialogue among Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants. Throughout his life the late Congar was involved in the ecumenical movement striving for the unity of all Christians. As any serious theologian, he did not seek quick and easy solutions that would relativize the differences among us for the sake of unity, but rather tried to identify and address the real differences with the utmost honesty and with the risk of being silenced by his own Church at times. In recognizing that our differences are due to our ecclesiologies and that ecclesiology is determined by christology, in his book titled Christ, Our Lady and the Church Congar proposed that we take a closer look at our christologies to understand what went wrong there. 1 Congar recognized that, compared to the Churches which emerged from the Reformation, the Orthodox Church has much more in common with the Roman Catholic Church. Consequently, our christologies and the doctrines ensuing thence (ecclesiologies and mariologies) have also a lot more in common. Congar notes that, while most Protestants recognize only the first four ecumenical councils (and some will perhaps accept the decisions of the sixth), Orthodox and Roman Catholics accept seven ecumenical councils. It was precisely at the latter three councils that the consequences of the christological dogma formulated at the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon were expressed 1 Y. M.-J. CONGAR, Christ, Our Lady and the Church. A Study in Eirenic Theology, tr. H. St. JOHN, Westminster, MD, The Newmann Press, 1957.