Can there be unity between Holy Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism?
Let this question stand for a minute, think about it. Think of the earth moving far beneath the surface, giant plates scraping one another; for this is the current relationship between the two oldest of the Christian Confessions. It is this fault line which has petrified into hardness and a millennia of separate development- the second wounding of the Body of Our Lord, after the wounding of His own people who rejected and crucified Him. He prayed, “Let them, Father, be one as We are One…” But yet, since the later centuries of the first Christian millennium, we have been separated.
Then, think- imagine these two coming together again. A great council, perhaps the Council of Kiev. The Pope and the Patriarchs come together and embrace: and it means something, it is an embrace of Oneness. It is real. What a movement of the earth! The plates fuse, the great fault line melds together and cannot be discerned. It is a reversal of nature, you say. It cannot be done; it goes against what we know as reasonable, it flies in the face of history, which declares that "the center cannot hold"- that there is a centrifugal force that dismantles any hope of re-unfiying, once the unity has been lost.
The answer: for the fault line to be melded, it requires melted stone. It requires the fire from the center of the earth to billow forth, melting the deep rock in its path, a fountain of fire. It is beyond the hope of humans: it is beyond our weak capacity for love.
The Lord came up the last crest of the hill leading to the gate of the small city. The sandy road was worn down in rivulets from the rains and the wheels of the working men. Wiping His brow in the sun, He stopped and heard the moaning of the East, the mourners following a plain coffin. A small figure moved slowly just behind, her head below her shoulders and her miniature white hands clutched at her heart. He saw inside her heart, and His heart was moved. Putting a hand on the coffin passing by, He quietly asked the bearers to stop. There was a heavy silence and people stared at this break in custom. Asking the men to open the coffin, He prayed and waited. The young man in the open box on the ground fluttered his eyelids and the rush of people came around the edges. The widow looked with love at the figure disappearing through the empty city gate.
The Lord whose throne is the cosmos, moved nature, remolded a soul and body, because of what He saw in the heart of a widow. He did not thwart nature, He supernaturalized it. What was in her heart? Perhaps inconsolable sadness at the suffering of her son, and the separation from him. She was a humble figure, and this outward appearance must have been true to the inside of her heart, for a proud person would have repelled Him, as it happened many other times. It seems it was her love, her grieving love. Not her worthiness or eruditeness; she was not of words; not by her compromises or dialogue; she was too full of grief to theologize or rationalize.
Is it this that will meld the fault line in the Body of Christ? True grief and helplessness which awakens the love and help from the Heart of Christ?
In reading about Pope Benedict’s actions and statements since he was elected Holy Roman Pontiff, it seems that he has two deeply-felt goals: to reawaken the Christian roots of Europe, and to unify the Body of Christ. It seems also that the Holy Orthodox Patriarchs are more interested in dealing with Benedict than with John Paul II. There is a very interesting correspondence in the compendium of letters and talks, Called to Communion, by the Pope, between then Cardinal Ratzinger and a high-level Orthodox prelate. It elucidates the beginnings of this Pope’s attempts to heal the fault line. Why would this be important? It may seem a facile question to some, but to others, used to the reality, it may seem pertinent. Look at it, think about it. It would mean the sealing of a great wound, and a great strengthening of the Body, greatest since Pentecost: it is a Great Sign precisely because it goes against all expectation. And it can only be done by the Lord.
To gain a historical and realistic understanding of the enormity of this unity, one must at the history, the structure(which reflects the theology) and the spirituality of Holy Orthodoxy and thus it becomes apparent that the healing of the Body of Christ will come from the Lord, it seems, in a spectacular way, like the fire from the earth, like the raising of the son of the Widow of Nain.
In the next installment will be covered the history of the two Churches, and we will look at Orthodoxy more closely in order to hopefully gain more understanding of the gravity of the problem, and why it requires true grief: and prayer from the members of the Body of Christ.
