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Orthodoxy and Christian Unity Some of you here may not know much about the Orthodoxy other than that it is the Church that you encountered maybe when travelling in the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Europe or Russia. Perhaps you may know a Greek Orthodox person but not much about his or her faith. You might be surprised to know then that there is a growing Orthodox presence in the West including people such as myself who have absolutely no Greek, Russian or Eastern European ancestry. We are English Orthodox. How could we be anything else? Anyway, the recent growth of the Orthodox Church in the West has brought her into ecumenical relations with other Christian churches. We may be "Johnny-come-lately" to the ecumenical scene here but I believe that we have something important to contribute. In short, our tradition gives quite us quite a distinctive approach to the search for Christian unity. It’s only distinctive though in that, from our point of view, the west also once shared the Orthodox approach, albeit less so in the Second Millennium and not at all amongst some groups. Let me say from the outset that the Orthodox Church considers the search for Christian unity from the standpoint of truth and in the context of love. St. Paul himself urged his churches to "speak the truth in love." [Ephesians 4:15] Ah! you say, but do not all Christians aim to do this? Of course! … but I am sure that we have all noticed how in an ecumenical setting we don’t talk about certain things because they tend to expose certain issues that still keep us apart. Orthodox people sometimes make themselves unpopular or unwelcome by resolutely refusing to do this. We observe that many Christians tend to settle for a less than satisfactory invisible unity in order not to upset people. Now, I am not going to get into the differences today. I haven’t the time, although I do have the inclination! What I am concerned to do today is to help you understand the unity of the Church from an Orthodox point of view. Unity is not necessarily a word that springs to mind when the Orthodox Church is considered. The popular image of us is of a dog-fighting rabble of nationalistic Christians squabbling over territory and far too concerned with ethnicity and culture to bother about mission. The problem here is that the west never has had a clear understanding of what binds Orthodox Christians and churches together when, so often, we do fall out with each other. Ours, however, is not a monolithic or institutional view of unity, nor a matter of inward disposition only. We are a family and families sometimes squabble. What binds us together though and what compels most of us to deny the adjectives Greek, Russian, Arab etc., and prefer simply, "Orthodox" is our faith and life. Orthodox faith and life is absolutely uncompromised and one. Martyrs have died for it. Pastors have consistently taught it. The People of God have lived it with a passion unmatched outside soccer grounds. It is this faith and life that enables us to say, from one church to another, we are in communion with you or we are not in communion with you. The supervision of validly ordained ministers or membership of a national network of churches, does not, of itself constitute Orthodoxy. Only Orthodox faith and life shared with an Orthodox bishop does that. The Orthodox model of unity is, therefore, based on an Orthodox bishop surrounded by his presbyters, deacons and People all sharing and living Orthodox faith and life. The major divergences between eastern and western models of unity appear when we consider discernment and authority. How in mutual charity is truth to be discerned? Does the Bible tell us, the Pope and the magisterium or our own individual conscience? None of these, we believe. Orthodox discern in that living stream of the Holy Spirit that we call Tradition. Tradition, for us, is not an archaic collection of man-made rules and customs; but that which in God’s hands saves us. It is our healing and our life. But what is Tradition, actually? Tradition, firstly, includes for us the Bible - Holy Scripture as the normative and primary but not exhaustive account of the Christian life. "Normative" and "Primary" is in the sense that our belief is shaped by Scripture and nothing we believe violates that Scripture. Not "exhaustive" is in the sense that the Bible doesn’t have a word about everything and since the Church’s oral tradition inspired and guided by God constituted the Faith long before the New Testament was written, the Bible is the Church’s book. The ongoing life of the Holy Spirit revealing the Truth to us in ways always consistent with previous testimony is the ongoing stream from which the Bible first emerged both as to the Old and New Testaments. This stream flows in and through our worship, our art, and our common life. "Lex orandi, lex credendi" …. the rule of prayer is the rule of faith. The theologian is simply the man or woman of prayer. Tradition then, for us, also includes people, Godly people, through whom the Holy Spirit has spoken and still speaks. Their words are heard and received because they have drunk deeply from that stream which is the Life of Christ. These are our Fathers and Mothers in the Faith. Nothing they say violates Scripture. Nothing they say takes Tradition of into wild places or down unaccustomed and dangerous paths. The confidence that we have in God speaking to His people is ground upon our conviction that we hear His voice more clearly when we meet and pray together in the presence of God-bearing persons whose counsel we value. This was the pattern for the New Testament Church in Jerusalem, recorded in Acts 15, when the early Christian communities met in the presence of their apostolic leaders to consider whether or not Gentiles who had accepted Christ should be required to keep the Jewish Law. A key recurring phrase in St. Luke’s account in Acts is:- "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us," [Acts 15:28a]. This then is how the Orthodox Church maintains her unity and proclaims her faith. She meets in Council to determine important new issues. In matters already resolved she maintains the "unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." [Ephesians 4:3]. She embraces the faithful in one equal fellowship with the bishop. She does nothing important without the consent of the rest. "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us." For this reason there is no higher authority in the Orthodox Church under God and as an instrument of Tradition according to the Scriptures than an Ecumenical Council. By our reckoning there have been seven of them. Moreover there is nothing more necessary from time to time than such a Council and nothing else in substitution for it that will do. We believe that this was the way for the Undivided Catholic Church in the First Millennium when the west was, for us, as fully Orthodox as the east. Of course such councils are relatively rare in the life of the Church. Ordinarily, Council principles are applied in the less contentious and more practical concerns and issues of daily diocesan and parish life. For a more personal approach to matters of discernment, a more pastoral way, we look to the saints, living and reposed, who have lived and are living for us the Word of God. They are God’s living icons. They show us what it is to be fully human, fully alive, what it is to be the Church, what it is to be saved. All these factors, therefore, inform an Orthodox understanding of the unity of the Church. I submit that being the common use of the Church in the first Millennium, they ought to become again the common use of the churches in the third Millennium. Orthodox participation in ecumenism will always have this goal in mind. It is, if you like, "our bottom line." Do you think it could become yours? Perhaps the place to start with Orthodox in mind in ecumenical encounters is that first crucial thousand years. Here we will discover again what St. Paul meant by "one Lord, one faith, one baptism." [Ephesians 4:5] Fr. Gregory |
