Building Bridges Between Orthodox and Catholic Christians

An interview with Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ, prominent Byzantine liturgical theologian and lifelong healer of Christian relations between East and West

A welcome interview from the always direct and charitable Fr Robert Taft (Building Bridges Between Orthodox and Catholic Christians)!

Yes there is a stubborn streak of anti-Catholicism among Orthodox Christians that needs to be called out and repudiated by all Orthodox Christians of good will. I certainly have encountered this bias in parishes I’ve served and it is a bias that, sadly, is not limited to any demographic within the Church.

One criticism if I may of the interview.

Christopher refers to “the Orthodox Churches and the Catholic Church.” As I understand Catholic ecclesiology, the One Catholic Church is a communion of Churches that embraces both the Latin rite and the various Churches who follow the Eastern rite. Likewise, the Orthodox Church though a communion of autocephalous local Churches is nevertheless One Church.

Referring to the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches I think obscures the fact that, whatever our other differences, both Churches are simultaneously One Church and a communion of Churches. Too frequently Orthodox Christians trumpet the local Churches at the expense of the One Church even as Catholic Christians emphasize the One Church at the expense of the existence of autonomous, self-governing particular churches in full communion with the Pope that make up the various Eastern Catholic Churches.

So heres the interview.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

The April 22nd kidnapping of Syrian archbishops Mar Gregorios Ibrahim of the Syriac Orthodox Church and Paul Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, and the killing of their driver, has reminded us once again of the vulnerability of ancient Christian peoples living in the Middle East. More than 1,000 Christians have been killed to date in the Syrian conflict and more than 80 churches have been destroyed. The majority of Christians in Syria are Greek or Syriac Orthodox or Melkite Greek Catholic. This recent violence in Syria can remind us to pray for suffering Christians in the Middle East and afford us the opportunity to practice solidarity with our Greek Catholic and Orthodox Christian brothers and sisters.

Catholic World Report had the recent privilege of asking Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ for his perspective on current Orthodox-Catholic relations. Father Taft has been the leading scholar in Byzantine liturgical studies for decades. Taft has devoted his life to preserving the liturgical treasury of the East and building bridges between Orthodox and Catholic Christians. As a young Jesuit, Taft first became interested in the liturgical traditions of the Christian East while teaching at the Baghdad Jesuit College in Iraq (1956-1959).

In 1963, Taft was ordained a Catholic priest of the Byzantine Slavonic (Russian) Rite. He is Professor-emeritus of Oriental Liturgy at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome, where he received his doctorate in 1970 and remained to teach for 38 years. The Oriental Institute is the most prestigious institute in the world for Eastern Christian studies.

A prolific writer, his bibliography comprises more than 800 articles and 26 books, including A History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (vols. II-VI), Orientalia Christiana Analecta, Rome, 1978-2013. Several of his writings have been translated into other languages.

Taft is the personal friend of many prominent Orthodox scholars, living and deceased, like Father Alexander Schmemann and Father John Meyendorff. He has many friends in and ties to the Russian Orthodox community, where he is admired and respected. For example, he directed the doctoral studies for both of St. Vladimir Seminary’s liturgical professors: Paul Meyendorff and Father Alexander Rentel.

CWR: Father Robert, thank you very much for your willingness to share with us some of your recent thoughts on Eastern Christian ecumenism.

Many people who are sensitive to Orthodox-Catholic dialogue noticed that when Pope Francis appeared on the balcony a month ago, he was not only very humble, but spoke of the Church of Rome as the Church “which presides in love” and referred to himself as the bishop of Rome concerned for the Christians of Rome. These past few weeks he has definitely set the tone for his pontificate.

This quotation from the second-century letter of St. Ignatius of Antioch to the Roman Church, “which presides in love,” could not have been coincidence considering Pope Francis’ noteworthy sensitivities to Eastern Christian ecclesiology. Plus, the historically unprecedented response to Francis’ election in the form of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s attendance at the papal installation Mass seems to mark Pope Francis as another welcomed bridge-builder between East and West. As an aside, I think it is beautiful that pontifex means “bridge-builder” in Latin. Perhaps Pope Francis will bring a new understanding of that title through his ecumenical dialogue and his local focus on the duties of the bishop of Rome? Could you comment on how you think Pope Francis’ humble “style” will be viewed by Orthodox Christians? Continue reading

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The Paschal Message of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon

Source: OCA

To the Venerable Pastors, God-loving Monastics and Devout Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America

“We celebrate the death of death and the overthrow of hell, the beginning of another life which is eternal; and in exultation, we sing the praises of its source.  He alone is blessed and most glorious, the God of our Fathers.”

(Paschal Canon, Ode 7)

Dearly Beloved in the Lord:

The central mystery of the Christian Faith is the glorious Resurrection of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, through which mankind is offered the gift of another life, which is eternal. This miracle of divine and everlasting life was wrought for us in a most remarkable way, for our Lord accomplished it by voluntarily suffering His Passion, being nailed to the Cross and descending into the tomb and into hell.

Pascha

To the world, suffering is understood as something to be avoided at all costs.  The Cross is perceived as foolishness, while the reality of death is ignored as often as possible. But Christ takes the very things the world fears and uses them, not only to reveal His glory and His power, but to share that power and glory with us. He voluntarily endures suffering to free us from our suffering.  He ascends the Cross to bring joy to a world that is so often shrouded in war, destruction and hatred.  And He willingly endures death so that He might trample it down and reveal that, in the risen Lord, it has no power over us.

Throughout our beautiful Paschal services, we sing of the great paradox of eternal life, revealed and accomplished through death: of mortality, clothed in the robe of immortality; of the Sun of Righteousness shining forth from the tomb; of death being trampled down by death. Christ, Who is Life itself, dies for us, so that we who are dead might live. We no longer fear those things that the world fears, for they no longer have power over us. As Saint John Chrysostom reminds us in his magnificent Paschal homily, “Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free. He who was prisoner of it has annihilated it. By descending into hell, He made hell captive.”

Let us, therefore, rejoice in the Risen Lord and be strengthened to face our own struggles with courage and hope, knowing that the Lord is ever with us. As we celebrate the bright and joyous day of His Resurrection, let us exclaim with the Apostle Paul, “O death, where is thy sting? O hell, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55).  And let us all partake of the Banquet of Immortality, the Feast of Faith, with joy and thanksgiving.

With love in the Risen Lord,

SIGNATURE
+TIKHON
Archbishop of Washington
Metropolitan of All America and Canada

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An appeal to President Obama…

… and his government for the release of two Orthodox Christian Archbishops, namely Archbishop Paul Yazigi and Archbishop Youhanna Ibrahim who were abducted by armed rebels on April 23, 2013 in the suburbs of Aleppo, Syria.  The driver of the Archbishops was murdered and the Archbishops were forced by the rebels to go to an unknown location either in Syria or in Turkey.

We appeal to you beloved in Christ and peace loving people to sign this petition urgently asking the American administration to use all its influence for the release of these two Archbishops and to bring a peaceful settlement to this bloodletting Syrian conflict through a negotiated settlement.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/appeal-president-obama-and-his-government-release-two-abducted-orthodox-christian-archbishops-syria/xNskxL1q

When I signed the petition a few minutes ago, it had only 1,600 of the 100,000 signatures needed to get the White House to act. So please sign the petition, post it on Facebook and Twitter and ask your friends to sign.

Attached as well is a letter from Patriarch JOHN X of Antioch regarding the situation in Syria and the Palm Sunday Procession.   His Beatitude requested all the parishes of the Patriarchate of Antioch to do the following: “Let our processions be this year with candles tied with black ribbons, chanting the hymn: ‘To Thee O Champion Leader….’ Instead of the Hymn ‘Rejoice O Bethany…’ asking the Virgin Mary to keep our Church as a fortified city.”  Please read the full attached letter.

Patriarchal Address for Palm Sunday Part 1 Patriarchal Address for Palm Sunday Part 2

You can find this same letter in many languages, including Arabic, on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Antiochpatriarchate.org.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

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Letter to Secretary of State John Kerry

Source (ACOB)
Saturday, April 27, 2013

Download the Letter in PDF format

The Honorable John Kerry
United States Secretary of State

Dear Secretary Kerry,

We, the Members of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America, kindly bring to your attention the urgent and very serious plight of the Greek Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox Archbishops of Aleppo, Paul Yazigi and Yohanna Ibrahim, who were abducted this past week by “a terrorist group” in the village of Kfar Dael as they were carrying out humanitarian work. Continue reading

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The Virtue of Chastity

Fifth Sunday of Great Lent, the Commemoration of St Mary of Egypt

Epistle: Hebrew 9:11-14
Gospel: Mark 10:32-45

April 21, 2013: St Ignatius Orthodox Church, Madison WI

Today we thank God for His mercy and love our out in the life of our sister

St Mary of Egypt (Orthodox icon)

St Mary of Egypt (Orthodox icon) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

St Mary of Egypt, a woman as extreme in her asceticism after her repentance as she was in her sin before her repentance.

In her Vita we discover that unlike others who lived the life she did before her repentance, Mary was not motivated by economic necessity. No what Mary did, she did not for monetary gain but because she took pleasure in wickedness. For Mary the degradation of others—even at cost to her own dignity—was the goal.

Understanding this helps us make sense of the Gospel appointed for the feast. Given Mary’s life we might have expected to hear the Gospel of the woman taken in sin (John 7:53-8:11), or maybe of the woman who washes Jesus feet with her tears (Luke 7:36-50), or possibly even of parable of the 10 virgins (Matthew 25:1-13). But instead of one of these, we hear about how the Apostles James and John try to exploit their intimacy with Jesus to gain an advantage in the life to come over the other Apostles. Continue reading

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More on Humility

Jesus Christ is the standard of what it means to be fully and wholly human. And it is to Christ that we should look to understand what it means to be humble. Unfortunately, we tend to look at our own ideals about Jesus rather than at Him.

But look what St John Chrysostom says about the Jesus in his Paschal Homily:

He has destroyed death by undergoing death.
He has despoiled hell by descending into hell.
He vexed it even as it tasted of His flesh.
Isaiah foretold this when he cried:
Hell was filled with bitterness when it met Thee face to face below;
filled with bitterness, for it was brought to nothing;
filled with bitterness, for it was mocked;
filled with bitterness, for it was overthrown;
filled with bitterness, for it was put in chains.
Hell received a body, and encountered God.

It received earth, and confronted heaven.
O death, where is your sting?
O hell, where is your victory?

Look at the lines towards the end of the quote “Hell received a body and encountered God.//It received earth and confronted heaven.” Far from being weak or a door mat, Jesus is subtle, clever even. And He uses His ingenuity not simply to liberate us from the power of sin and death. No, He “destroyed death” and “despoiled hell.” Hell is made bitter, “brought to nothing; … mocked; … overthrown; … put in chains.” The humility of Jesus is anything but passive; divine humility is strong because it reflects God’s love for us.

Humility makes me strong because it frees me from myself and makes me eager to give myself away on love for the sake of your sake. And this it does not by stripping me of self-worth but by showing me my value in the eyes of God.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

 

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Degradation and Humility Are Not the Same

From Dom Mark Daniel Kirby, Conventual Prior of Silverstream Priory in Stamullen, County Meath, Ireland, has a good word about humility:

Sacrament of the Divine Humility
Mother Mectilde speaks often of the anéantissement, the ennothingment of the Son of God in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. The Eucharist is the sacrament of the divine humility. It is the descent to the altar of the Word made flesh, the crucified Word, the glorious Word, risen and ascended into heaven. There, upon the altar, the substance of a little piece of bread becomes the very substance of the Body and Blood of Christ, leaving only the appearance of bread to serve as veil concealing the awful Mystery.

Raised Up by Grace
There is no fall from grace, no fall into disgrace, no descent into the vile gutters of sin that cannot be reversed by the humility of the Son of God adored, received sacramentally, and appropriated to oneself. It is by the humility of His Son — in His passion and in the sacramental state of lowliness assumed for our sakes in the Most Holy Eucharist — that every soul fallen low into sin can raised up by grace, and restored to communion with the Father in the Holy Ghost.

Read the rest here.

During the fifth week of the Great Fast, the Orthodox Church commemorates the life of St Mary of Egypt during the reading of the Great Canon of St Andrew at Compline. According to her vita, Mary engaged in immoral behavior for neither sensual pleasure or love of money. Her motivation was in wickedness for its own sake, her delight in degradation for the sake of degradation. In this see is the antithesis of what we see in Jesus Christ Who in the words of St Paul, humbles Himself to the point of death on the Cross in order that He might raise us up to new life (see Philippians 2).

There is nothing good about degradation, there is nothing good about humiliation and yet God can in His mercy draw goodness from these for us.

Where we often go wrong is imagining that because God can bring a situation to a good end that the situation itself is good. Nothing could be further from the truth however. To make this mistake is to set your foot on the path to perversion, a word that means to subvert or overturn. In the current case what is subverted is our moral sense, our sense of what a wholesome human means concretely.  Yes, it is a good and noble thing to bear patiently with injustice. But the goodness is found in the patient endurance not the injustice.

Moral confusion here is especially damaging in our responsibility to care for others in the weakness. What is laudable (at least potentially) in my personal life is a grievous  even deadly, moral failure when it fosters in me passivity and timidity when I see others being mistreated.

in Christ,

+Fr Gregory

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Mirror of Justice: I . . . and she . . . and they . . . told you so

Quote

Source: Mirror of Justice.
by Robert George

Masha Gessen is a talented writer. Her widely praised (and sharply critical) biography of Vladimir Putin is only the most recent of her books across a range of subjects from Russian history, to mathematics, to the social implications of modern genetics.  On top of her exertions as an author, she has served as Director of the Russian service of the U.S. government funded Radio Liberty.  She is a self-identified lesbian and a leading activist in the U.S. and Russia.  (She holds citizenship in both countries.) Although she is anything but a fringe figure within the movement, she is notable for her candor in discussing its beliefs and goals. At last year’s meeting of the Sydney Writers Festival (audio here: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/why-get-married/4058506 ) she spoke plainly:

It’s a no-brainer that (homosexuals) should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. . . . Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there — because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie.

The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don’t think it should exist. And I don’t like taking part in creating fictions about my life. That’s sort of not what I had in mind when I came out thirty years ago.

I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally. . . . I met my new partner, and she had just had a baby, and that baby’s biological father is my brother, and my daughter’s biological father is a man who lives in Russia, and my adopted son also considers him his father. So the five parents break down into two groups of three. . . . And really, I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality, and I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage.

Just imagine the uproar had, say, Rick Santorum said “Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what [they] are going to do with marriage when [they] get there — because [they] lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie.”  But, of course, you don’t have to take it from Rick Santorum or other defenders of marriage as a conjugal union. Masha Gessen will tell you the same thing.

Although Gessen’s willingness to put the matter in terms of “lying” is startlingly frank, it is no longer uncommon for advocates of redefining marriage to acknowledge that the effect—for them an entirely desirable effect—of redefinition will be the radical transformation of the institution. The objective is not merely to expand the pool of people eligible to participate in it, as was long claimed. In conceding (and celebrating the fact) that redefining marriage will fundamentally alter the institution, transform its social role and meaning, and undermine its structuring norms of monogamy, exclusivity, etc., Gessen is far from out of step with other leading figures in the movement. She joins influential NYU sociologist Judith Stacey, Arizona State University professor Elizabeth Brake, “It Gets Better” founder Dan Savage, writer Victoria Brownworth, journalist E.J. Graff, activist Michelangelo Signorile, and countless other important scholars and activists.

Moreover, there seem to be very few prominent scholars and activists in the movement to redefine marriage who are criticizing Masha Gessen, Judith Stacey, Elizabeth Brake, and the others, and speaking out for the norms of monogamy and fidelity and other traditional marital and familial ideals. Many are quiet, but few actually deny that the abandonment of the conjugal understanding of marriage will have the transformative institutional and social effects that Gessen, Stacey, Brake and the others (approvingly) say it will have.

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Why Do We Exchange Things?

We talk a great deal in the Orthodox Church about economia, but we do so without necessarily understanding economics. This is why I often post here about economics and business. While modern economics and economia aren’t the same thing, they aren’t so different as to be absolutely unrelated. If we’re not careful, our economic life can simply become the pursuit of wealth for its own sake. In this case, my economic life is simply a way of expressing my own self-aggrandizing wilfulness.

But economia can also be distorted. Rather than being the fruit of the Church’s prophetic  life it can just reflect the arbitrary will of a bishop or priest. In this case, as with economics, an appeal to economia is a thinly disguised justification for preferring one’s own will to the will of the Church.

While I don’t think the study of modern economics will in and of itself make me a better priest, I do think understanding how we make, for example, voluntary exchanges in the marketplace can help me understand how people think. More importantly, it can help me understand the value of cooperation both in the Church and in the larger society.

Take for example the video at the bottom of this post. Let’s imagine that you and I each  have a boxed lunch with the same sandwich, chips, a pickle, and a cookie, why would we consider trading what we brought? As my wife can attest, I REALLY like potato chips but maybe you rather have cookies. In this case, I offer to  give you my cookie for your chips. If you say yes, then we are both happier at lunch time.

The challenge in both the Church and in society is to learn how we can cooperate with each other in ways that make us all better off. This is especially important when, as is true both in the Church, our resources in terms of time, staff and money are often severely limited. Cooperation can help us overcome what initially might seem like our poverty and to do so in a way that makes everyone better off and even happier.

Take a look at the video by Professor Michael C. Munger. He suggests some ways in which offers exchange can make people happier even when they disagree about what’s the most desirable outcome. The ability to make people better off by simple exchange may seem like magic, Munger says, but it’s just markets. Take a look…

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

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Is Europe dying?

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Source: ekathimerini.com.

By Nikos Chrysoloras

Until 2007, the Europeans were able to enjoy an enviable standard of living for two reasons: The first was the existence of a political consensus, the first in history, for the redistribution of produced wealth via social programs; the second was that enough wealth was produced to sustain this model. We may disagree as to whether the former still holds. But as far as the latter is concerned, there are strong signs that it will soon disappear. In other words, the stagnation of Europe’s economies over the past two years, at a much lower level compared to the years before the crisis, may not be a coincidence.

Let’s take a look at the factors that have historically contributed to the economic well-being of nations and empires: a rising birthrate, access to natural resources, education, technological progress and military power. The last has usually, but not always, directly relied on the others. Which of these conditions are in place today? Europe’s access to natural resources is limited. Whereas the US has fully exploited the shale gas revolution in a bid to strengthen its energy independence – thereby changing the geopolitical equilibrium – Europe is in terms of energy still largely dependent on Russia. In terms of defense, things are even worse as Europe has neither the ability nor the ambition to project its power on a global scale and is fully dependent on Washington. More worrying, if the current demographic trend continues, then in just a few decades almost a third of Europeans will be over 65.

Furthermore, according to the World Bank’s recent Golden Growth report, Europe is a laggard in terms of R&D even compared to states like India. “What has been more perplexing is Europe’s generally poor performance in the most technology-intensive sectors – the Internet, biotechnology, computer software, healthcare equipment, and semiconductors,” the report says.

The same report emphasizes that European productivity is on the wane. Meanwhile, the global ranking of European universities is getting worse compared to those in the US as well as in Asia. OECD studies on schoolchildren’s performance in reading, math and the natural sciences show students in most European countries lagging behind those in Korea, Japan, Canada and elsewhere.

Because of policy mistakes in dealing with the crisis, confidence has been tarnished in Europe’s financial system, the safety of transactions and the abilities of its economies. Unless the trends are reversed, our continent – whose geopolitical role is in decline – will be further downgraded economically. Soon it will resemble little more than a romantic tourism destination for the people of emerging economies who will visit us to admire the great monuments of our glorious past and observe the senile inhabitants of our tiny states (smaller than some Beijing districts) scuffling, wanting to break up into even smaller statelets. It’s a dark forest that we can’t see.

Turning away from the facts, eurozone leaders are appointing second-rate politicians to the senior posts of European institutions in order to cling on to their powers. They are cultivating the impression that dealing with the crisis means having the virtuous North rescuing the South, as if the former has not benefited by the single currency, as if it would escape unscathed from a breakup of the common market. North and South are both conjuring up imaginary enemies, engaging in moralizing and doing everything they can to awaken ghosts of the past. Soon it will be too late to change the game.

Tuesday April 9, 2013
Copyright:  http://www.ekathimerini.com

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