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Expressions of the Church's Synodality in the Life and Mission Of Louvain Studies 43 (2020): 260-277 doi: 10.2143/LS.43.3.3288707 © 2020 by Louvain Studies, all rights reserved Expressions of the Church’s Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Romanian Orthodox Church Sorin Șelaru Abstract. — This paper outlines the way in which synodality is currently organized and lived within the Romanian Orthodox Church. To this end, the theological and spiritual foundations of the principle of synodality are highlighted first, as well as the embodiment of this principle, as an ecclesial reality at once permanent and dynamic, in different synodal structures of the Orthodox Church. The Romanian expressions of the synodality of the Orthodox Church are then presented with a view on the Statutes for the Organization and Functioning of the Romanian Ortho- dox Church, republished in 2020. The topic of the present paper is clearly circumscribed: it addresses the Orthodox-Christian and Romanian understanding and experience of synodality in the Church. This is why my research taps primarily into Romanian sources, although it is not exclusively confined to them.1 1. For further elaboration on synodality in Orthodox ecclesiology, see: Nicolae Dura, Le régime de la synodalité selon la législation canonique conciliaire œcuménique du Ier millénaire (Bucarest: Ametist 92, 1999); Amphilochios Miltos, Collégialité et synodalité: Vers une compréhension commune entre catholiques et orthodoxes (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2019); Maksim Vasiljević and Andrej Jeftic, eds., Synodality: A Forgotten and Mis- apprehended Vision: Reflections on the Holy and Great Council 2016 (Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press, 2017); John Chryssavgis, ed., Primacy in the Church: The Office of Primate and the Authority of Councils, 2 vols. (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2016); Sorin Șelaru and Patriciu Vlaicu, eds., La primauté et les primats: Enjeux ecclésiologiques (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2015); Jean-Claude Larchet, L’Église corps du Christ I: Nature et structure (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2012); Metropolitan John of Pergamon, L’Église et ses institutions (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2011); Georges Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View, The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky 1 (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Co., 1972); Kallistos Ware, “Synodality and Primacy in the Orthodox Church,” International Journal of Orthodox Theology 10, no. 1 (2019): 19-40; Michel Stavrou, “Théologie et manifesta- tions de la synodalité: Un défi permanent pour l’Église,” Recherches de Science Religieuse 106, no. 3 (2018): 403-422; Amphilochios Miltos, “Vers une théologie de la synodalité de l’Église: Une relecture orthodoxe,” Recherches de Science Religieuse 107, no. 2 (2019): THE CHURCH’S SYNODALITY IN THE ROMANIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 261 The Romanian Orthodox Church is the largest Orthodox Church in the European Union and also the Orthodox Church with the greatest number of adherents residing in Europe, outside the national borders. The Romanian Orthodox Church, titled “the Romanian Patriarchate,” is one of the nine Orthodox Patriarchates in existence today, as the majority Church in Romania where over 86% of the Romanians are self-declared Orthodox Christians. For the benefit of the millions of Orthodox Romanians living abroad, in European Union countries, it has outside Romania two metropolitan sees and one diocese, with 10 bishops and nearly 700 parishes. The first part of the present paper outlines the theological principles underlying synodal life in the Church, as well as their expression in the various synodal ecclesiastic structures, while the second part offers a brief description of the manner in which synodality is organized and experi- enced within the Romanian Orthodox Church today. 1. The Principle of Synodality in the Orthodox Church 1. Theological-spiritual Grounds and Contents A few years after the Second Vatican Council, theologian André de Hal- leux wrote in a study dedicated to the Eastern model of collegiality that, at the time, the generally shared opinion of Catholic theologians was the following: the Western Church could find a model for the reforms it envisaged in the old ecclesiological practice preserved unaltered by the Orthodox Church.2 Without further elaborating on potentially divisive historical considerations, the general feeling mentioned by the Louvain scholar actually points to a deep reality of Orthodox ecclesial life: com- munion through synodality. The Orthodox Church is a synodal Church. But what does this statement mean? In general, in their reflections on the principle of synodality in the Church, Orthodox theologians distinguish (without opposing or sepa- rating them) between the general synodality of the Church, tantamount to its catholicity (sobornost), and the constant practice of joint, shared responsibility for church life, exercised at all levels: local, regional and 327-335; John H. Erickson, “Common Comprehension of Christians concerning Auton- omy and Central Power in the Church in View of Orthodox Theology,” Kanon 4 (1979): 100-112. 2. André de Halleux, “Le modèle oriental de la collégialité,” Revue Théologique de Louvain 2 (1971): 76-88, 77. 262 SORIN ŞELARU universal.3 Both aspects are the living expression of the communional life of the Church. If the Church is, in the words of a great Romanian theologian, the “community of those who, by the power of Christ’s Spirit, advance towards resurrection and towards the ultimate fullness of perfect communion with Christ and with all those who believe in Him,”4 synodality is simply the way in which we walk along with God and our fellow people on the path to salvation. Its foundation as well as theological model is the Holy Trinity; more precisely, synodality is modelled on the manner in which the Three Divine Persons experience the communion of divine life, without separa- tion and without confusion.5 The term “synod” derives from the noun “ὁδός,” meaning way, path. “I am the Way (ἡ ὁδός), the Truth and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me,” declares the Saviour in the Gospel according to John (14:6).6 He Himself – the Way, the Door, the Truth, the Life, came among us so that we may become, by grace, what He is by nature. This is why, at a time in church history when all Christians titled each other saints, Ignatius of Antioch assured the Christians of Ephesus that they were σύνοδοι / companions on the journey as they all were God-bearers (theophoroi), temple-bearers (naophoroi), Christ-bearers (christophoroi), and bearers of holiness (hagiophoroi).7 Church life partakes of the life of God, One and Trinitarian, and of the Mystery of unity and diversity. And it is in the Church that the divine life is communicated to human beings (1 John 1:3-4). The mis- sion of the Church lies in the perpetual actualization of the communion between God and the human person, manifest once and for all in the Person of the Incarnate Word.8 It brings people together in the love of 3. Patriarch Daniel of the Romanian Orthodox Church, “La participation des baptisés au processus préconciliaire,” in La Joie de la Fidelité (Paris: Cerf/Istina, 2009), 299-317. The present paper elaborates on this distinction emphasized by Patriarch Daniel. 4. Dumitru Stăniloae, Prière de Jésus et expérience du Saint-Esprit (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1981), 118. 5. The synodal dimension of church life “reflects the Trinitarian mystery and finds therein its ultimate foundation.” Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, “Ecclesio- logical and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church. Ecclesial Communion, Conciliarity and Authority, Ravenna 2007, 5,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 52, nos. 1-4 (2007): 215-232, 217. 6. This and other biblical quotations are given in the translation of the KJV. 7. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians 9.2, in Ignace d’Antioche, Polycarpe de Smyrne, Lettres. Martyre du Polycarpe, ed. Pierre Thomas Camelot, Sources Chrétiennes 10 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1958), 78-79. 8. The holy fathers of the Church have employed the term ‘synod’ to designate the union of the divine and the human nature in the hypostasis of the Saviour. THE CHURCH’S SYNODALITY IN THE ROMANIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 263 the Trinitarian God, as it creates among the faithful the same unity as the intra-trinitarian one.9 Its identity is truly unique, unparalleled by anything else in this world: it is unity gained by partaking of Christ, God and Man, One and the Same, by common participation in the “unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”10 The Church is the Body of Christ and Temple of the Holy Spirit, wherein communion with Christ in the Holy Spirit transforms people into receptacles of the Kingdom of God, even in this world. And the Church’s work is to set man on the path of communion with God – a merciful, loving-kind God. Ecclesial communion, manifest in synodality, is thus rooted in the Trinitarian perichoresis, in God’s self-offering to the world, and in the personal human life, created in the image of the Uni-Trinitarian God. The synodality is the felicitous expression of the ecclesial virtues of faith confession, service, ministry, solidarity, responsibility, self-giving and self- sacrifice for the sake of the community. It is in itself a special kind of ministry, as it serves ecclesial unity and communion. In light of commun- ion ecclesiology, church synodality is perceived as unity in freedom and responsibility, as it is not mere social cohesion, but unity in God which has its primary source in the Christian baptism. Synodality is in agreement with the Christian manner of living in the Church, which is communional, not individual existence. According to this communional view of the Church, synodality is the specific modus vivendi and operandi11 of the Church – the People of God, as a state of permanent communion of the distinct human persons, united without confusion with each other and in relation with the distinct Persons of the Holy Trinity.
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