The Orthodox Eastern Church/Chapter 14

by Adrian Henry Timothy Knottesford Fortescue

 

CHAPTER XIV

 

THE QUESTION OF REUNION

 

At the end of all our account the question that will finally interest Catholics is that of reunion between this great Eastern Church and the Holy See. What hope is there that the schism, now a thousand years old, may be undone? That such a reunion would be an untold blessing both to them and to us is obvious. For the Orthodox of course the essential point of all is that they would then once more be joined to the communion of the Church of Christ. And even from their point of view one would imagine that they must feel uncomfortable, separated from the great Western See which, even now, they acknowledge as the first of the thrones. What has become of the Pentarchy, the union of the five Patriarchs, of which they have always made so much? Were it only one of the smaller ones, but it is the first of the great five who stands on one side with his vast army of followers, and the other four, who together can muster only about a third of the millions who stand by Old Rome, are cut away from their natural leader. And we can imagine what their own Fathers would say to the Orthodox if they came back. We have seen what Athanasius, Basil, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and Theodore of Studium have to say about the primacy of Old Rome. We have heard what the Fathers of Chalcedon cried out, and we have seen the Roman legates preside over other councils. If the great Fathers whom they honour could come back and see the troubles that beset their children now, what could they suggest except that a council should be summoned and that the successor of St. Peter should send his legates to make peace among them? And what would they say when they heard that for ten centuries their Churches had rejected the communion of the See of Peter? "Now is the acceptable time," St. Theodore might well again say, "that we should unite ourselves with Rome, the summit of the Churches of God."^[1] And indeed it is an acceptable time. Never yet have the Eastern bishops stood so much in need of their natural arbitrator as now. We have seen how their independence of their chief has ended in the most servile dependence on secular governments; even the unbaptized tyrant who has robbed the Christian East of her lands and degrades the lawful heirs of those countries beneath the rabble he brought with him from Asia, even he has to step in to arrange their quarrels. Do they really think that Abdulhamid is the right man to decide what language shall be used for the Holy Liturgy, and what bishop shall reign in the old sees of Macedonia? Do they still, after having felt its weight for over three centuries, prefer his turban to the Pope's tiara? At any rate the Pope never filched their children, desecrated their churches, nor murdered their bishops. Who is ever going to make peace between Greek and Bulgar, Serb and Vlach? It will not be the Œcumenical Patriarch; he is the chief offender and the avowed leader of one side. Do the Slavs want a chief who will not try to rob them of their national feeling, forbid their language, and persecute their priests? Such a chief is waiting for them across the Albanian mountains and Adriatic Sea. Let them look at the Uniates and see how scrupulously their rites and languages are kept. Does the Patriarch himself feel the degradation of being continually deposed by his own metropolitans and by the Turkish Minister of Religions? There is a greater Patriarch, whom no bishop can feel it degrading to obey, who stands for the rights of old Canon Law, and whose honour is still in the firm strength of his brothers.^[2] And for us Catholics, too, reunion would be the greatest of blessings. We want back the great sees that have stood aloof from us so long. We want the communion of the Christians to whom St. Paul brought the faith at Ephesus and Corinth, the children of the men of Antioch who first were called by the name in which we all glory. And we need, too, the righter balance that would be restored by reunion with the Orthodox. In spite of our loyalty to our own rite, and in spite of our natural pride in being not only Catholics but Latins and members of the greatest Patriarchate, we have to realize that the Latin Church is not, has never been, the whole Body of Christ. We may forget the Uniates (it is a shameful injustice to them if we do), but we could not forget one hundred millions of Catholics of other rites. And we need their ideas, their traditions and spirit in the Church as well as our own. Their conservatism now means only fossilization; joined to our life it would be a sane and useful balance. Their love of the liturgy and dislike of innovations has something to teach our people. If we regret the too sudden way in which new devotions spread amongst us, the gradual divorce of the people from the real rites of the Church, the slight regard paid to her seasons, the exaggeration of pious fancies above the old and essential things, the abuses in such matters as indulgences, privileges, and special favours against which the Council of Trent spoke,^[3] we should find the remedy of all these things in the solid piety and the unchanging loyalty towards the customs of their fathers among Eastern Christians.

And then what a vast body we should make together. Our millions joined to theirs would form indeed a mighty and compact world-Church, before which the new sects would count as almost nothing. One conceives the union of the five Patriarchs stretching across Europe as the most glorious realization of the City of God on earth; and if one remembers all the sheep that are not of this fold regretfully, if one prays that all some day may be brought back to the one fold and the one Shepherd, one thinks then of none with so much sympathy as our brothers across the Adriatic. For with them practically nothing is wrong but the schism. In the case of others, one sees so much that would have to be changed—false doctrine, reckless mutilation of the old faith, and rival conventicles. But the Eastern schism has still left us on both sides with the same faith in almost everything. Of course they would have to accept the whole of the Catholic faith. In that, no desire for reunion, no spirit of conciliation, can ever make the Holy See waive anything. There can be no compromise in matters of faith. But the Orthodox already have, and jealously keep, practically all that faith. As for the points they would have to concede, one cannot believe that they really think the question of the Filioque so vital, nor can they really be so unwilling to admit the special privilege of the all-holy Mother of God, to whom they are so devoted. Infallibility seems a big thing; but in this point, too, it should not be so difficult to make them see things. If God so carefully guides his Church, how can he allow the chief Patriarch to teach heresy, since he is the leader and judge of all the others? Other bishops can be put right by appeals to Rome: to whom could one appeal from the Pope? There must be a final court somewhere; no one could suggest any other than Rome, and the decision of the final court must be final. That means infallibility. Moreover, what did their fathers think when they continually appealed to Rome in questions of faith? Let the Orthodox think the same. But no one would think of asking them to accept all our ideas, our technical terms and philosophy. It would be a question of some such formulas as those of Florence again. And in all other matters there would be nothing to change. No one would dream of touching their venerable liturgies, their splendid ritual, their ancient Canon Law, or any of the customs that, maybe, would not suit us, but which evidently suit them. Not a metropolitan would be changed, not a prayer altered.^[4] Still their strange chant would echo backwards and forwards through the gleaming Ikonostasis, while the deacon waves his ripidion over the Holy Gifts, and the clouds of incense are borne through the royal doors. Still the people would crowd up for the Antidoron and the Kolybas, dive for the cross at the Holy Lights, kiss each other on Easter Day, and dance for the Forerunner's birth, while the psalms from the Holy Mountain would still sound across the Ægean Sea. Communion under one kind, celibacy, and azyme bread—these are Latin customs, which they would only be asked not to call silly names when we follow them,^[5] And we do not rebaptize nor reordain just for spite. But the union would be restored with that distant mighty lord whom, in spite of all, the common people still think of as a great prince in the house of God, and they would no longer suffer the shock it must now be to them when they have to sing of the primacy of the Roman See in their office.^[6] The obstacle to reunion is chiefly their fear of being Latinized, of having to give up the rites to which they are so much attached, and then also of forsaking the faith of their fathers. And the first step towards it would be to persuade them that reunion means only going back to the state of things before the 9th century. There was then no idea of Latinizing the Eastern Churches, nor would there be now. And the faith of their fathers involves the communion of St. Peter's See.

Is there any hope? Unhappily, one cannot see any immediate prospect. A schism always becomes stronger by sheer inertia as the centuries pass; things get settled down in that state, prejudices and jealousies fossilize into principles that seem too obvious to allow discussion, immediate antiquity—the past that people know best because it is just behind them—is against reunion. The schismatical party, once reckless innovators, gradually seem to be the conservatives. It is true that, throughout the Orthodox Church, there always has been, there still is, a party friendly to Catholics, and really distressed at the schism. These people, the Latin-favourers (λατεινόφρονες), are a recognized feature among them. Sometimes the party has become very strong, as, for instance, during the reaction against Protestantism after poor Lukaris's catastrophe; and in quite modern times it has again come to the fore, especially in Russia. Professor Harnack says: "People who understand Russia know that there is a patriotic Russian party (or, rather, tendency) in the heart of the country, in Moscow, and among the most educated people, that hopes for an awakening of their Church in the direction of the Western Church—that is, of the Roman, not the Evangelical Communion—who work for this, and who see in it the only hope for Russia. This party manifests its ideas in writing, as far as circumstances in Russia allow, and it has already shown that it possesses men of unusual talent, warm love of their country, and undoubted devotion to the Greek Church."^[7] It is from this direction, on the one hand, and from the Uniates on the other, that one hopes for the beginning of an understanding. They stretch out from either side and leave no very wide chasm between them. In feeling, sympathy, and attitude of mind there is no great difference between the Latin-favouring Orthodox and the Uniate.

And yet the men who rule the Orthodox Church have no favour for Latins. The latest events show them to be still as hard, arrogant, and bitter as their predecessors who made the schism. In 1894 Pope Leo XIII, in the evening of his long life, looked out across the world from the throne that for so many centuries has stood above all the nations. In his last testament^[8] he spoke to us, his own Catholics, and he remembered also the great masses of Christians who have broken away from the old Church. And so he spoke to the Orthodox and Protestants as well. One would think it impossible for any one to read what were almost the last words of so great a Pope without emotion. And nothing could be kinder, more generous, more gracious than what he said to the Orthodox. There is not one harsh word, not the shadow of any blame. The Pope leaves argument about the Filioque to the theologians who are never tired of discussing it. His last message is only of peace and kindness. And so he finds every courteous thing that can be said to them. He begins by remembering that "from the East salvation came and spread over the world," he remembers the antiquity and splendid history of their sees, he mentions the Greeks who sat on St. Peter's throne, and who brought honour to it by their virtue. "And no great gulf separates us; except for a few smaller points we agree so entirely with you that it is from your teaching, your customs and rites that we often take proofs for Catholic dogma." He assures them that no Roman Pope ever wishes to lessen the rights and dignity of the other great Patriarchs; and for all their customs "we will provide without any narrowness." He rejoices "that in our days the Easterns have become much more friendly to Catholics, and that they show kind and generous feeling towards us." And so he makes only the gentlest and warmest appeal to them to come back to union with us. One cannot understand how any one could answer such words except respectfully and courteously. Did the Orthodox bishops think it necessary to refuse the Pope's invitation, at least they might have done so without offensive words, with the respect they owe to St. Peter's successor, and in something of a like spirit of conciliation. At that time Lord Anthimos VII reigned at Constantinople, and he, together with twelve of his metropolitans, signed an answer to the Pope's encyclical.^[9] Nothing can be more striking than the different tones of the two letters, nor more offensive than Anthimos's answer. The Pope had studiously avoided making any accusation against the Orthodox. Anthimos in return has nothing to say but the old list of accusations against us—the Filioque, our baptism, Azyme bread, the Epiklesis question, communion under one kind. Purgatory, the Immaculate Conception, &c. On each of these points the Patriarch repeats the arguments that their theologians have made and ours have refuted for centuries. He has nothing new to say on the subjects; it is simply one more compendium of anti-Latin controversy, not even well composed.^[10] And it is the only way he thinks fit to answer the Pope. Nor do false accusations ever fail in such compendia; in this one there is a monstrous travesty of the Papal claims, ending in the assertion that the Pope requires not only spiritual but also temporal supremacy over the whole Church, that he pretends to be the only representative of Christ on earth, and the only source of all grace. The tone of the letter is perhaps even more striking than the fact that Anthimos thinks such controversy a suitable answer to what Leo had said. In the first place he gives the Pope the title that is the correct one for just any bishop or metropolitan.^[11] According to his own Orthodox Church the Roman Bishop is the successor of St. Peter and the first Patriarch, but he thinks it decent to address him just as he would address the lowest of his suffragans. He even affects to doubt that St. Peter was the first Bishop of Rome—a fact that the Orthodox liturgy continually asserts,^[12] and that none of the old Churches have ever doubted. This is a little piece of rationalism from Tübingen, of the kind that Orthodox bishops generally strongly resent in their clergy; but anything will do here if only it is anti-papal.^[13] Lord Anthimos then draws up his accusations in a kind of litany, of which each clause is in this pleasant form: "The Church of the seven General Councils, one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, believes and confesses … the Papic Church (ἡ ἐκκλησία παπική) on the other hand, &c." One would not expect him in an official document to call us Catholics, but it would have been easy to find a word that is not discourteous. The Pope had spoken of the Eastern Churches; why not, in answering, call us the Western Church? The Latin or Roman Church would have been an inoffensive name too. "Papic" is, of course, just silly rudeness. His All-holiness of Constantinople even pretends that he despises the Pope too much to think it worth while to answer him: "We have been silent till now; we did not deign to cast our eyes upon this Papic Encyclical, thinking it useless to speak to the deaf." Is it necessary to give more examples of the rudeness of which the Orthodox themselves have since seemed ashamed? Pope Leo began by speaking of the dignity of those ancient Eastern Churches, from which the faith came to us. The Patriarch Anthimos begins: "The devil has prompted the Bishops of Rome to feelings of unbearable pride, through which they have introduced a number of impious novelties contrary to the Gospel."^[14] A comparison of the two letters, then, makes one point clear; the Pope wrote with the most generous courtesy, the Patriarch could not even write like a gentleman. In this last official communication between the Churches one sees once more the old story. It is not, it has never been, Rome that is haughty or unconciliatory. Constantinople since Photius has always assumed a tone of arrogant defiance and insolent complacency that argues complete satisfaction with the horrible state of things produced by her schism. "Evidently," says Mgr. Duchesne, "they are still sore and hurt, will have nothing to do with us, and are not at all embarrassed in saying so quite plainly." One does not, then, see in the leaders of the Orthodox Church any great desire to heal this lamentable breach. And yet, one asks oneself at the end of the whole story, what real reason can there be for the schism now? One can understand the original causes. Photius was so anxious to remain Patriarch. It was so hard for him to be deposed when the Emperor and all the court were on his side. Cerularius wanted to be a sort of Pope-Emperor himself, and the Crusaders behaved so badly to the Byzantine people. But now, after all these years, who cares any longer for those quarrels? The dusts of ten centuries have gathered over Photius's unknown grave; it is nine hundred years since Cerularius, who had been so rude and insubordinate to his over-lord, went to give his account to the over-Lord of all patriarchs. Cannot one even yet let the dead bury their dead? The schism came about through the jealousies and ambitions of the old Roman court on the Bosphorus. And that court and all the Byzantine world has been dead so long. Who cares now for the Cæsar in his gorgeous palace, or for the political rivalries of Old Rome and New Rome? The Turk swept New Rome away; and only here and there a student, peering through the mists of centuries, will call up again the pale ghosts of the men who intrigued and fought, plotted and murdered around the gorgeous halls, the stately basilicas, and the crowded streets of the city whose marble quays rose above the Golden Horn. Her watchwords are silent and her causes are forgotten, as the world moves through the changing ages. But for all of us, for the children of dead New Rome as well as for us who stand around the fisherman's throne in the eternal Old Rome, there is a cause that does not die, there is a great city of God on earth whose foundations are laid too deep, whose towers are built too high for any change to destroy her; and there are words that do not pass away: The branch that is cut away from the vine shall wither, and: On this rock I will build my Church.

 

1. Quoted p. 67.
2. P. 39, note 4.
3. P. 390.
4. Very likely Rome would allow the Patriarch of Constantinople to keep even his title of Œcumenical Patriarch. It has become quite harmless, and only a little absurd, now that he has lost nearly all even of his lawful Patriarchate. His brother at Alexandria is Judge of the World. And if these things please them, what do they matter?
5. Nor would they have to submit to our special centralization. All our cases now go straight to Rome, and this, too, is a Patriarchal matter, not one that is involved in the Pope's universal primacy. The Eastern Churches would undoubtedly still have their own patriarchal courts to settle their own affairs, as before the schism (p. 87), and only the causæ maiores, the causæ omnium maximæ, would have to come before the Pontiff, who, as Pope, holds, not the first, but the last, court of appeal.
6. Pp. 56 seq.
7. Reden und Aufsätze, ii. p. 279 (Das Testament Leos XIII).
8. The encyclical Præclara of June 20, 1894.
9. The text was published in the Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ Ἀλήθεια for September 29, 1895. It was composed by Germanos Karavangelis, then Chorepiscopus of Pera. This person since got into trouble with his own authorities (p. 427), was made Metropolitan of Kastoria, and is now one of the leaders of the Bulgarian atrocities (p. 344).
10. See Mgr. Duchesne: Églises séparées, pp. 59–112: L'encylique du Patriarche Anthime, p. 75, for a misquotation of Anthimos, &c. The Patriarch drags in once more a list of our customs that are different from his, and again seems to think that the one standard for the whole world is his own patriarchate. This has been their attitude ever since Cerularius, "the state of mind of an inexperienced traveller in foreign countries who thinks everything bad that is not the same as in his own home" (ibid. pp. 83–89). If it were worth while to retaliate their everlasting accusation of Papic novelties, one could make a catalogue of their innovations too. By what right, for instance, do they change the form of baptism left by our Lord and interlace it with superfluous Amens? Why are practically all their bishops metropolitans? Why does the Patriarch of Constantinople arrogate to himself the sole right of consecrating chrism? They put hot water into the chalice, anoint people who are not sick, forbid fourth marriages, never make a secular priest a bishop, hide their altars, change their Patriarch every year or two, &c., &c. Above all, what about the crowning innovation of holy directing synods instead of a graduated hierarchy? One could find many more such novelties. But no one wishes seriously to retaliate in this way. Catholic theologians in their controversy insist on the real issue, the Primacy, and leave such mean quibbles to the Orthodox.
11. Μακαριώτατος. The manners of the Œcumenical Patriarch inevitably remind one of the insolence of the parvenu. For all his pompous title he knows that he is the successor of the little Byzantine bishop who obeyed the Metropolitan of Heraclea, and that had it not been for a pure accident, and then for the interference of emperors in ecclesiastical affairs, that is presumably all he would be now.
12. Nilles: Kal. i. pp. 107, 138, 193, &c.; Duchesne, o.c. p. 124.
13. One need hardly say that St. Peter's Roman episcopate is as certain as anything in the 1st century of Church history, and is now admitted by serious scholars of every religion. It should be noted that the Orthodox (Kyriakos, for instance) still print St. Andrew's name as that of the first Bishop of Constantinople. The attitude of mind that can believe that absurd legend (p. 29) and yet doubt St. Peter's Roman See is indeed astonishing.
14. Poor Anthimos, even before his Encyclical was published, was deposed by his own metropolitans. The Pope would at any rate not have tolerated that particular kind of impious novelty that really is opposed to all old Canon Law, and that is the most flagrant abuse of the Orthodox Church.