The Tower of Babel lives on, but it has been planted too in the midst of those who wish to follow Our Lord, and yet cannot communicate with other followers who come from different traditions. Words like "Communion", " priesthood of believers" and the like are actually stumbling blocks now, to those of us who sincerely seek the truth and each other in Christ. They are obstacles because of the hundreds of years of separate history, history being the fertile soil in which language grows and changes, soil in which the truth sometimes is buried.
Obviously, Holy Scripture becomes a focal point for differing interpretations over the years, and thus a separate tradition of theology grows, out of which comes the visible traditions of liturgical and communal practice. Just who interprets Scripture for the rest, thus sounding out the meaning of these important words for the rest, becomes of paramount importance. Only Our Lord's true "Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church" could interpret Scripture. But then here I am thinking like a Westerner and not like an Orthodox....so let's discuss one of these stumbling blocks between Catholics and Orthodox believers: the word "church". Out of this confusion comes the hydra-headed disagreements about interpretation of Holy Scripture, the role of believers, and the means of salvation, among others. The list is endless; because how one sees the Church is how one sees Christ. There is no difference.
Christ is the Logos, the Word of God made flesh. The Incarnation is a physical sign, a meeting place for God and man, like the place between the fires, in Abraham's time, through which the lamb was passed in the making of a covenant. The Church which Christ established was to be a visible and mystical continuation of that Incarnation, the Way through which all who looked for Christ would find Him and be saved; for we are not spirit only, but a conglomeration of spirit and flesh; and in our meshed nature, we need both the Flesh and Blood of God and His Spirit to save our flesh and spirit. Our Lord wished to establish a Church, His Church, and He prayed that it would be one, a sign of the unity of the Godhead. The Church, in a very real and mystical way, both flesh and spirit, was to become Him, to be His Body. It is said that at the time that the Church, His Body, has matured in time as He did, then the world would end. What this means is hard to understand before it happens; but surely the drawing of all true believers in the Lord, those who desire Him but do not yet know Him and those who know Him but yet imperfectly; and finally those among us who are most like Him, His saints- surely these must come together as part of the process of maturing.
The Catholic and Orthodox have a similarity here, in that each sees the necessity of a True Church of Christ, a Body which is both visible and mystical, and has members performing different tasks; also there is a similarity in the concept of the necessity of unity. However, the different understandings of what the Church is and how It was meant to develop and function is very different. And this is not meant simply in hierarchical or political matters; this difference strikes at the very elements of the Church and how they relate to the whole.
I am not an expert on Holy Orthodoxy, but I am a devout Catholic who has a love for the Orthodox: I lived as a child in Greece, and so lived with the Orthodox there; and I lived in Russia for a time and studied the history and culture of that country with great interest. I have always had a love of the Orthodox liturgies and the mysticism that literally pours out of the church walls and the processions, especially at Easter. I sensed, both as a child and as an adult, the visible and powerful signs pointing to the Presence of God in the Holy Eucharist as well as in every believer, every priest. This is not to say that all Orthodox believers are saints- it is just that there is such tangible evidence that each person coming devoutly to an Orthodox church is focused on the otherworld, that world of love and saints and holiness. There is a lack of attention on the present world in the posture, the clothes, the facial expressions of the devout Orthodox. I remember two events in Russia, and one in Greece which have stayed with me and fostered my admiration for the Orthodox Faith. The first was the sight of a man dressed in a black habit, laying on the ground in the dust in front of a little church just outside Moscow. He was laying in front of the church like a man lays in front of a bishop as he is ordained a priest, his arms stretched out on the ground like a man on a cross. He was covered in dust, and to this day I think of the dust and equate it with sin, and guess he was a penitent. The other memory from Russia is when I was out in the countryside, near a small village. I walked over the bridge towards the distinctive onion domes and as I drew closer, I heard singing. I stopped in my tracks and was simply transported; the very scene around me gathered a glow into itself, every color and sound was drawn into that glory. It was the church choir practicing. In Greece, when I was a child of eight or nine, I traveled with my parents to the edge of Mt. Athos. I waved goodbye to my father and watched him ascend the mountain, to where the monasteries were perched on separate peaks. It was like he was dying and going to heaven, and we were left to look after him in hopes of meeting him there someday. I always think of the monks of Mt. Athos, as sinful men who were halfway to heaven.
These are cursory memories, surface impressions only of a Faith which I did not and do not understand very well. However, I believe it is very worth the attempt- for all of us- because we cannot forget the Orthodox as they cannot forget about us. Surely Our Lord would have wished us to work towards love and understanding, as a sign to the world of our maturing. However, the two obstacles I think are paramount are that of "Church" and the purpose and mode of the Christian life.
My memories, therefore, served to interest me in love and admiration for a Faith which sees the Church as Itself, and Itself as the Church. The Catholic Faith claims the same, so we have a problem. Why aren't they both the Church, two different arms of the same body? They cannot be, because the true Body of Christ can be wounded but never completely divided, and His Body cannot have two heads, or twenty, for that matter. Either the Catholic understanding of the Church is correct fundamentally, or the Orthodox understanding is correct fundamentally. They cannot both claim to be the Truth and yet anathematize the other. A man cannot bite his own face.
The Holy Orthodox see the Church as fundamentally a mystically united body of churches, or believers. The believer is the Church and the Church is the believers. The Church is seen from the inside out, that is, from the Spirit that holds Her members as one Body, rather than from the outside in- that is, from the evidences of hierarchy and teaching. As I mentioned before, in one of the previous parts of this series, the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches were united until the early part of the second millennium. The original Patriarchates of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Rome were the centerpoints of the Body of Christ. To the Catholic, the Patriarchate of Rome was given primacy indirectly by Our Lord, through the presence and martyrdom of St. Peter. Therefore, the Bishop of Rome was Petrus in persona and carried all the authority which Christ gave to St. Peter: the keys of the Kingdom, the command to "feed My sheep"- thus placing St. Peter's ecclesial descendents in authority over the rest. This authority, to the Catholic, has meant temporal ecclesial authority in matters of hierarchy and governance, as well as the spiritual authority to speak solemnly on matters of faith and morals ex cathedra.
The Church became a visible structure centered on the Bishopric of Rome; the bishops of the world are seen as equal in a spiritual sense, yet the Pope is "First Among Equals". I always imagine the Pope as the father in a family, who always serves the others in love and humility, yet must at times, for the sake of clarity, comfort, and unity, preserve the family with the final decision on certain matters.
The Orthodox bishops traditionally saw the Bishop of Rome as "First Among Equals" but only in the sense of love of St. Peter, in the honoring of the First of the Apostles. Therefore the Bishop of Rome is granted honor and respect but not deference in doctrinal or temporal matters. They saw the Patriarchates as equal, indeed they see each Orthodox church as possessing a certain independence of the others. How, indeed, was the teachings, the liturgy, the doctrines, to remain intact? Does this not make the Orthodox a bit like the nice-sounding "World Council of Churches", where there is no real agreement on fundamental doctrines? The Orthodox understand their faith as kept together by the Spirit of God, much like the Catholic understanding of the Holy Spirit's guiding of the Church. However, the Orthodox see the Spirit of God, not as a guide of the Church, but as Her entire existence. The Orthodox see the Catholic understanding of a temporal hierarchy with an authoritative, visible Peter, as a sellout to "the way things work in the world". In the split of 1054 AD, one of the reasons was the perceived encroachment of a temporal figure from Rome, appointing Western bishops to Eastern provinces. It reminds one of the current issue between the Russian Patriarch and Rome, that of Catholic dioceses in lands where the Orthodox churches have traditionally served the population. It is not so much a battle over territory, as it is a battle over which conception of the Church is the true one. From the Orthodox point of view, if the Bishop of Rome understood the Orthodox Patriarch of Russia to be his brother in equality, and each church in the territory as the visible sign of the Spirit of God present in all the believers, then why is he sending Catholic bishops to Russia?
As this question can be pondered for more than a few minutes, I will continue in Part Four.
