Celebrating the Pan-Heresy

Though certain adolescent apologists sneer and hyperventilate about the "pan-heresy" of ecumenism whenever the word is mentioned, that need not distract us from the real, if difficult, achievements, of the search for Christian unity, a search that is binding on all Christians and has never involved the "relativistic" and facile "watering down" of doctrine that people fatuously claim. If it were that easy, we would have achieved full unity a long time ago. 

A new book helps us take track of what has been done, and what remains. John A. Radano, ed., Celebrating a Century of Ecumenism: Exploring the Achievements of International Dialogue (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012).

About this book we are told:

Modern ecumenism traces its roots back to the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh. Celebrating a Century of Ecumenism brings readers up to date on one hundred years of global dialogue between many different church traditions, including Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, Evangelical, Orthodox, Baptist, Disciples of Christ, Oriental Orthodox, and more. Eighteen essays by authors representing a wide spectrum of denominational interests outline the achievements of this movement toward unity.

The first part of the book focuses on multilateral dialogue that involved a variety of churches attempting to delineate common ground, with considerable progress reported. The second part describes bilateral discussions between two churches or groups of churches. Celebrating a Century of Ecumenism is one small marker along the way to the unity that many Christians desire, and the report it provides will encourage those involved in ecumenical discussions.

Among many noteworthy chapters, three are of special interest to Eastern Christians:

• Peter Bouteneff, "The World Council of Churches: An Orthodox Perspective" 
• Ron Roberson, "The Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church."
• Id., "Oriental Orthodox-Catholic Dialogue."

Oriental Orthodox Spirituality

I have long thought that one of the challenges within the world of Eastern Christian studies is the dominance of the Byzantine Churches--especially the East-Slavic Byzantine Churches, particularly the Russian which, on paper at least, numerically dwarfs all other Eastern Churches. Too often Oriental Orthodox Christians are overlooked even by those who know better. Now, happily, Les Éditions du Cerf has just brought out a new book that will be of interest to all students of Oriental Orthodoxy--the Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, and Ethiopian traditions:

Christine Chaillot, Vie et spiritualité des Églises orthodoxes orientales: des traditions syriaque, arménienne, copte, et éthiopienne (Cerf, 2011), 478pp.

The preface is written by the renowned Boris Bobrinskoy, some of whose works on the Trinity and God the Father have been translated into English:

« Les orthodoxes orientaux des traditions syriaque, arménienne, copte et éthiopienne sont les témoins vivants d'un christianisme très ancien. La Mésopotamie fut le berceau des Syriaques orthodoxes qui pratiquent encore une langue cousine de l'araméen que parlait le Christ. Les Arméniens furent les premiers à fonder un État-royaume chrétien au tout début du IVe siècle. Les Coptes orthodoxes ont répandu le christianisme en Égypte dès le temps de l'évangéliste saint Marc. Quant aux Éthiopiens, rattachés juridiquement à l'Église copte jusqu'au milieu du XXe siècle, ils ont christianisé officiellement leur région dès le IVe siècle. Ce livre peut être un guide pour tous ceux qui visiteront les pays évoqués avec une âme de pèlerin. Ce livre peut aussi servir au dialogue œcuménique entre chrétiens, et également au dialogue interreligieux, en particulier avec les musulmans, autres enfants d'Abraham. Le dialogue passe aussi par la découverte de la spiritualité. Et c'est bien cette spiritualité profonde et vivifiante des Églises orthodoxes orientales que ce livre nous permet de découvrir. » [P. Boris Bobrinskoy]

I look forward to seeing this reviewed in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. 

Ethiopian Christology

Gorgias Press just sent me a slender volume on a topic about which almost nothing else has been written recently in English: Ethiopian Christology. 

Mebratu Kiros Gebru, Miaphysite Christology: An Ethiopian Perspective (Gorgias Press, 2010), xii+112pp.

The publisher provides us with the following blurb:

As in the case of the Christology of the other non-Chalcedonian Oriental Orthodox Churches, Ethiopian Christology is usually nicknamed as Monophysite Christology - an erroneous Christological position which indicates the absorption of the humanity of Christ by its divinity . Disproving such a pejorative designation, this book contends that the Christological position of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC) should correctly be termed as Miaphysite Christology, which highlights the one-united (tewahedo) nature of the Word of God incarnate. Besides, the book proves the orthodoxy of Ethiopian Christology, demonstrating how it is based on the Christology of St. Cyril of Alexandria (+ A.D. 444).

And the great scholar of Oriental Christianity, Sebastian Brock of Oxford, has this to say on the back of the book:

The Christology of the Oriental Orthodox Churches has all too often been misunderstood by the various Churches of the Chalcedonian tradition (Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed). Qesis Mebratu Gebru's study of the Christology of the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches is thus greatly to be welcomed, for it provides a clear and solidly based presentation of the teaching of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

In his preface and acknowledgments, the author tells us this is not a comprehensive study, but simply an introductory one for English-speakers unfamiliar with Ethiopian Christianity. The author further notes that the book originated as an M.A. thesis at the Toronto School of Theology, where he is currently a doctoral student.

This will be reviewed in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, to which you may subscribe here.

Armenian Christology

The Armenian Church is of course counted as one of the so-called Oriental Orthodox Churches. In the last forty years, however, the whole business of the divisions after Chalcedon have come in for fresh re-examination on all sides, and dialogues between Orientals and Catholics, and between Orientals and Byzantines, have both revealed that the Chalcedonian divide was never as wide as imagined, and has today been largely bridged. Now we have a new book examining Armenian Christology:

Mesrob Krikorian, Christology of the Oriental Orthodox Churches: Christology in the Tradition of the Armenian Apostolic Church (Peter Lang, 2010), 309pp. 


The Armenian priest and theologian Daniel Findikyan will review this in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies in 2011.

Overcoming the Chalcedonian Divide

Kenneth F. Yossa, Common Heritage, Divided Communion: Advances of Inter-Orthodox Relations from Chalcedon to Chambésy (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2009), x+272pp.

Many people today, so ill educated in even recent history and having no knowledge of doctrinal history, seem to imagine the creeds fell from heaven during luncheon one Friday afternoon. These innocents continue to be slack-jawed when they hear of the debates and divisions in the aftermath of Chalcedon, and even more astonished when they hear that those divisions are still not healed. Many, perhaps most, Orthodox faithful in particular are unaware that things have advanced to such a point today that neither side of the Chalcedonian divide can justly or correctly be condemned as "heterodox."  But many misunderstandings continue to abound about Chalcedon and its aftermath. I noted earlier a recent book about all this, but thought I would post my longer review (from Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies) of a superb new book by the Romanian Catholic priest Kenneth Yossa because he helps us to see precisely where we are, and what we must do to heal the Oriental-Byzantine divide. 

Yossa's first two chapters synthesize the history of doctrinal definitions and divisions in the early Church, centering, of course, on Chalcedon. This part of the book would function very well on its own as an introduction to the ecumenical councils. He is able to describe an enormous terrain of considerable complexity, but do so in a way that never loses its focus or overwhelms the reader in a mass of tangents or distractions. 

The third chapter focuses on the beginning of Orthodox ecumenical dialogue in 1960s. The first (unofficial) 1964 Aarhus (Denmark) consultation, followed by the 1967 consultation in Bristol, England, both, in a matter of days, produced an agreement on the part of theologians and bishops on both sides stating that neither side was guilty of “the heresy suspected of it by the other” (100). The Bristol consultation also produced the (to my mind) astonishing statement that “dogmatic formulae can be transcended by the experience of the Church, which can complete them and extend them…safeguarded by the holy limits of Revelation.” If that is not an endorsement of the concept of “development of doctrine” that some Orthodox theologians sneeringly dismiss whenever Catholics raise the notion, then I do not know what is. 

After continued unofficial and official meetings over the next two decades, progress was made to such a point that, in 1990 in Chambésy, both affirmed that “we have now clearly understood that both families have always loyally maintained the same authentic Orthodox Christological faith, and the unbroken continuity of the apostolic tradition, though they have used Christological terms in different ways” (124). They went on to call for the lifting of “all anathemas and condemnations” and a consequent restoration of full eucharistic communion. As things have turned out, the greater difficulty has proven to be not the Christological debate, but the anathemas and condemnations each side hurled at the other. To retract these now would seem to suggest that the canonical and liturgical texts were somehow in error, a mind-boggling notion for many. 

Since 1993, no formal meeting of all representatives of Churches on both sides has taken place, and no individual Church on either side of the divide has actually ratified the agreed statements. Worse, in the late 1990s, as the Orthodox Churches in Eastern Europe continued to emerge from their communist pasts, some of them—the Georgian in particular—actually repudiated the earlier agreed statements, unhelpfully calling them “unacceptable.” This sad development followed on shortly from the Georgian Church’s withdrawal, in 1997, from the World Council of Churches. 

The situation in the Middle East, however, is much more positive, as Eastern and Oriental Churches there have continued the work of drawing closer to one another. The Coptic and Greek patriarchs of Alexandria, and the Greek and Syriac patriarchs of Antioch, have produced very similar agreements on limited sacramental sharing, catechetical co-operation, and other pastoral matters. Here, as in Europe, the focus has “shifted from the ‘what’ of the Christology to the ‘how’ of ecclesiology” (148). Today both sides need to grapple with the role of councils and their reception, with anathemas of saints and fathers, and with jurisdictional questions (“one bishop to one city”). 

A further question has arisen in this dialogue as in the Eastern Orthodox-Catholic one: what is the real meaning and purpose of lifting an anathema or excommunication if it does not in fact lead to a shared sacramental life around one eucharistic table? If we are not excommunicated from one another, but yet not sharing one chalice, then what are we? Is there some kind of half-way house to unity? 

Yossa recognizes that we need a widespread healing of memories, and much work must be done at the level of what he variously calls “local ecumenism” or “popular ecumenism.” He notes that “very little, if anything, has changed in the popular view regarding ‘Monophysites’ in the West and in most Eastern Orthodox communities” (185). Both sides need to overcome the ancient mentality which continues today to condemn the other side as “heretical” and, tediously, to slander all laborers for unity as guilty of the “pan-heresy” of “ecumenism.” Difficult though ecumenical dialogue and progress may be, Christians of all traditions need to realize that the will of Christ for unity among His followers is not something we can chuck because it is laborious, or condemn because it does not fit into straitened and simplistic categories of our own devising. After sixteen centuries of division, when the Byzantine and Oriental Orthodox have already come so far and unity is so agonizingly close, can any of us afford to continue to try the Lord’s patience by failing to advance towards the full and complete unity He demands of us?