1920 - 2005

THE GREAT UNIFIER

BY JAROSLAV PELIKAN [1]

On June 3, 1979, a few months after Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became the first Slavic pope, he set out as the vision of his pontificate "that this Polish pope, this Slavic pope, should at this precise moment manifest the spiritual unity of Christian Europe", even though "there are two great traditions, that of the West and that of the East", with roots in Old Rome and "in the New Rome, at Constantinople".

He spoke these words at a time when all Slavic peoples, whether Orthodox or Catholic (or Protestant) were subject to the atheist tyranny of Marxism-Leninism, and one of his principle contributions to the realization of that vision was, in his native Poland but with ripple effects throughout the Soviet empire, to help set in motion powerful impulses of mind and spirit - and of the Spirit - that would bring down the walls and topple the regimes. The relative importance of that contribution in comparison with Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and Ronald Reagan's defiance will continue to be debated by historians. But he did manage, by a curious form of divine irony, to answer the question attributed long before to Stalin: "How many divisions does the pope command?" The spiritual rebirth of all the Churches of Slavic Europe, which is going on even as we speak, is a major consequence of that revolution.

With several Eastern Churches his vision of spiritual unity has made significant progress. With the Assyrian Church of the East, traditionally referred to as the Nestorian Church, he signed a declaration in 1994 in which it was agreed that "the controversies of the past led to anathemas" and that "the divisions brought about in this way were die in large part to misunderstandings". Two years later, in 1996, he signed a similar declaration with the Catholicos Karekin I of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church, acknowledging that "linguistic, cultural and political factors have immensely contributed towards the theological divergences that have found expression in their terminology of formulating their doctrines" and expressing the shared "hope for and commitment to recovery of full communion between them". There have been several noteworthy expressions of mutual charity and respectful visits between this pope and Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople cordial enough to elicit criticism from isolationist elements in the various Orthodox Churches.

The least progress toward reconciliation has occurred in relations with the Orthodox Church in Russia. The end of Communist rule has brought with it a rebirth of the rivalry and mutual recrimination that have been tearing Slavic Europe apart since its conversion to Christianity more than a millennium ago by St. Cyril and St. Methodius of Thessalonica. The Venerable Bede gave the Gospel credit for unifying the peoples of Britain, but we Slavs are the only people to have been divided by the Gospel: whether to follow Cyril and Methodius in their affiliation with Constantinople (and therefore a Slavonic liturgy and autonomous national Churches), or to follow them in their appeal to the authority of the Bishop of Rome (and therefore a Latin liturgy and the centralized authority of the papacy).

The Bulgarians, Russians, Serbs and Ukrainians chose the first alternative; Croats, Czechs, Poles and Slovaks the second. The most ambitious attempt to heal that schism came in 1596, with the Union of Brest, in which several dioceses of the Church of Ukraine accepted the authority of the papacy while retaining their own liturgy and canon law. But the adherents of this union (disparagingly named "Uniats") have also been a major source of hostility between East and West. Ruthlessly persecuted by Stalin and forcibly reunited with the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow, they regained their freedom and their properties only after the fall of Communism. [2]

But as a consequence of the latter-day struggle over those properties and, more broadly, of obstreperous tactics from all directions, everyone's old suspicions have been confirmed. After decades of neglect (and worse), churches were in serious disrepair, but whose responsibility was it to put them back into share for worship, the Orthodox or the Greek Catholics? As in any ancient feud, it is impossible to roll things back to the status quo ante and to fix the blame.

For the old pope, this dispute was a major source of heartbreak. As he said to me at Castel Gandolfo a few months after I had been received into the Orthodox Church [3], he always believed that ever since the schism of 1054, "Western Christianity has been breathing on one lung". But, he was implying, so has Eastern Christendom! When so many of the historical sources of division between them have proved to be negotiable (even the central doctrinal question of the source of the Holy Spirit) and when, in the encyclical "Ut Unum Sint" ("That They May Be One") [4], this pope opened the question of papal primacy up for discussion, one cannot escape the feeling that everyone has missed a great opportunity.

Schisms, like divorces, take a long time to develop - and reconciliations take even longer. It will be a celebration of the legacy of Pope John Paul II and an answer to his prayers (and to those of all Christians, beginning with their Lord Himself) if the Eastern and Western Churches can produce the necessary mixture of charity and sincere effort to continue to work toward the time when they all may be one. See also: http://www.byzantines.net/epiphany/martyrs.htm

ADDENDUM

BENEDICTUS QUI VENIT IN NOMINE DOMINI

Few other words in Scripture describe better our newly elected Bavarian Pontiff who throughout his ministry has adhered to orthodoxy, to holy tradition, and to moderation in preaching the Gospel. We commend him to our readers and pray that God may grant him many years.

THE TYRANNY OF RELATIVISM

On April 18, 2005 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spoke to the cardinals of the Catholic Church assembled to elect a new pope about the "dictatorship of relativism" and thereby unleashed a storm of criticism from the liberals of the world including the para-heretical elements in the Catholic Church today. In this homily the future pope enunciated an issue which may come to characterize his pontificate. Relativism, as we see it, is nothing more or less than the deconstruction of all objectivity in our perceptions of reality. Accordingly, there is no real, objective and historical truth, only those notions which each special proponent offers as his own idea of truth.

Relativism may be defined as cultural, as, for example, in the genital mutilation of women in some societies which perceive it as a useful expedient to restrain the alleged promiscuous tendencies of women. Thus, for multiculturalists genital mutilation cannot be wrong because it is simply not perceived as wrong in those societies. Similarly, relativism may also be personal or individual as, for example, in our society where pre-natal infanticide is deemed, at least legally, as a constitutionally protected "matter of choice and privacy" free of any judgmental criticism by those who detest it. In religion, relativism teaches that one religion is as good (or as bad) as any other, unless, of course, that religion is orthodox Christianity or Orthodox Judaism, in which case it is inherently intolerant and bad. Paradoxically the attitude of liberals toward Islam (and Islamofascism) is indifferent, if not favorable, because it challenges Christianity and Judaism.

The moral and intellectual dysfunction which is liberalism and its preeminence in academia, the media and the entertainment industry has left us in the Serbonian bog of a destructive and polarizing malaise which threatens our ability to function as a coherent and unified society. We trust that our new pontiff will continue in his and our struggle against this the foremost evil of our times.

FOOTNOTES

1) The above op-ed article by Orthodox scholar and writer, Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan, appeared in the New York Times on April 4, 2005 a few days after the death of Pope John Paul II. The text in this page is Jaroslav Pelikan's; the footnotes and graphics are ours. Dr. Pelikan is professor emeritus of history at Yale University and is author of the five-volume history of "The Christian Tradition" as well as a multitude of other works about the history of the Church. He was born of Slovak Evangelical Lutheran parents and for most of his life he was associated with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. For more information about Dr. Pelikan, see The Doctrine Doctor which appears at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/newsletter/2004/dec30.html
See list of his books in print at: http://www.amazon.com

2) In his book, THE ORTHODOX CHURCH, Orthodox hierarch, theologian and writer, Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia (Timothy Ware), stated the following:
"A particularly thorny problem troubling Russian Orthodoxy is the revival of Eastern-rite Catholicism. In 1946 the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine, set up in 1596 through the Union of Brest-Litovsk and numbering about 3,500,000 was reincorporated into the Russian Orthodox Church and ceased to exist. While there were doubtless some Ukrainian Catholics whose return to Orthodoxy was voluntary, there can be little doubt that the vast majority wished to continue as they were, in union with the Papacy. Not one of the Ukrainian bishops was in favor of the return; all alike were arrested, and most died in prison or exile. Because of direct coercion and police terrorism, many clergy and laity chose to conform outwardly to the Orthodox Church, while still remaining Catholic in their inward convictions; others preferred to go underground. The hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate, in conniving at the persecution of their fellow Christians by Stalin and the atheist authorities, were placed in an unenviable equivocal situation. Surely, as a matter of basic principle, no Christian should ever support acts of violence against other Christians. The fate of the Greek Catholics after the Second World War is perhaps the darkest chapter in the story of the Moscow Patriarchate's collusion with Communism. Yet, though driven underground, eastern Catholicism was not exterminated. One of the fruits of Gorbachev's glasnost was that at the end of 1989 the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine was once more legalized. By 1987 it was already becoming abundantly clear that the Greek Catholics would re-emerge from the catacombs and seek to recover the churches, now in Orthodox hands, that had once belonged to them. If only the Moscow Patriarchate had taken the initiative in proposing a peaceful and negotiated solution, it would have won immense moral authority, and much subsequent bitterness could have been avoided. Regrettably there was no such initiative. In 1987, and again in 1988, the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky, approached the Moscow Patriarchate both verbally and in writing, proposing that the two sides, Orthodox and Catholic, should make a public and formal gesture of mutual forgiveness; but no such response came from the Moscow Patriarchate. It is easy to understand how wounding the Greek Catholics found [and still find] this silence. Now the moment of opportunity has passed. From 1989 onwards there have been sharp local disputes, often marked by violence, over the possession of church buildings. With passions thoroughly aroused on both sides, reconciliation is going to prove slow." pp. 164-165
Slow, indeed! All efforts by Pope John Paul II to visit Russia and to meet Patriarch Alexy II were summarily rebuffed despite the efforts of intercession by President Vladimir Putin - this even at the end of the Pope's life when he returned to the Russian Church the icon of the Mother of God of Kazan - ill thanks to the one who fought the twin scourges of the 20th century, Nazi Fascism and Marxist Communism, and who had contributed so mightily to the liberation of half a continent including Russia and Alexy's Church from the bonds of atheistic Bolshevik tyranny. Tragically Russia joined those few countries in the world like China, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc where the Pope was not welcome. In fairness to Patriarch Alexy, however, we note that he sent his condolences to the Vatican on the demise of Pope John Paul II as well as his official delegation to the funeral consisting of Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk, chairman of the Department of External Church Relations, Archbishop Mitrofan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and other clergy.

3) Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan was received into the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) on March 25, 1998.

4) UT UNUM SINT may be viewed in its entirety at: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25051995_ut_unum_sint_en.html
See also ORIENTALE LUMEN at: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_02051995_orientale-lumen_en.html

5) The miracle-working icon of the Mother of God of Kazan is of unknown provenance. According to tradition, the original was found in the 16th century in the city of Kazan. The present location of the original, if it exists at all, is unknown. Copies were made later, one of which found its way out of Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution and wandered about through private collections and auction houses until it was finally acquired by a Catholic organization which gave it to the Pope in 1993 who placed it in the papal apartments where it was the object of his personal devotions. The Pope regarded himself the temporary custodian of the icon until he might one day have the opportunity to return it to the Patriarch of Moscow and Russia in the course of a personal visit. Despite repeated Vatican efforts to arrange a meeting with Patriarch Alexy, an invitation from the Moscow Patriarchate to the Pope never came. Nevertheless, the icon was presented by Cardinals Walter Kasper and Theodore McCarrick to Patriarch Alexy on the Feastday of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary in 2004. It is now lodged in the Cathedral of the Assumption in Kazan. Pope John Paul had hoped that the icon might serve to promote his long-desired reconciliation of the Churches of Rome and Russia, sundered since 1054, but at the time that was not to be. Accordingly we have designated it as Our Lady of Reconciliation with the following words of Pope John Paul: "May this ancient image of the Mother of the Lord express to His Holiness Alexy II and to the venerable Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church the affection of the Successor of Peter for them and for all the faithful entrusted to them."