Uniatism and Its Origins V. Peri*
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
UNIATISM AND ITS ORIGINS V. P ERI* In June 1993, after six plenary sessions, the fourteen-year old International Commission for Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the fifteen Byzantine Orthodox Churches issued a joint document in Balamand (Lebanon), entitled: ‘Uniatism, method of union of the past, and the pres- ent search for full communion’. This document developed the statement issued by the same Commission at the previous session in Freising (June 1990), declaring that “this form of missionary apostolate ... can no longer be accepted neither as a method to be followed nor as a model of the unity our Churches are seeking” (no. 12). What is meant by “form of missionary apostolate” is the “missionary activity [which] tended to include among its priorities the effort to convert other Christians, individually or in groups, so as to bring them back to one’s Church” (no. 10). Both Churches now condemn a practice which has for long been deemed suitable, as long as it was useful for bringing back the believers that each considered to be of their own sacramental communion and canonical affili- ation. The ecclesiological teaching and canonical praxis of both Catholic and Orthodox Churches expressed this conviction, until they realised that their relation of communion was better described by the theology of Sister Churches rather than by the theology of ‘returning’ to one Mother Church, which each identified exclusively with themselves. Because of the 1000-year long separation, the two Churches behaved somewhat like the quarreling mothers in front of King Solomon: they both claimed the same son, i.e. jurisdiction over clergy and believers of oriental liturgical and canonical tradition. The Declaration of Balamand describes these efforts to convert single believers from one Church to the other as “a source of proselytism” (no. 10), an attitude which had been rejected by Pope John Paul II and the ecumenical * Vittorio Peri, scriptor Graecus of the Vatican Library, is a lay Catholic member of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Byzantine Orthodox Churches. 24 V. P ERI Patriarch of Constantinople, Dimitrios I, in their common declaration of 7th December 1987: “We reject every form of proselytism, every attitude which would or could be perceived to be a lack of respect.” In this per- spective, the Statement of Freising had already affirmed: “We reject [the] method which has been called uniatism as [a] method for the search for unity because it is opposed to the common tradition of our Churches.” This statement was further articulated in Balamand as follows: Because of the way in which Catholics and the Orthodox once again consider each other in their relationship to the mystery of the Church and rediscover each other as Sister Churches, the form of missionary apostolate described above, which has been called uniatism, can no longer be accepted neither as a method to be followed nor as a model of the unity our Churches are seeking (no. 12). 1. Eastern Churches in communion with Rome or ‘rites’ of the Catholic Church? The way towards a common approach to the problem was understandably long and hard for the two Churches, separated for more than 1000 years. To restore a full – and visible – communion, such as the one which existed in the first millennium so long as the one and only Catholic and Apostolic Church saw itself as undivided, it was necessary to deal with the hardest point of the polemic. That is the question of the theological and canonical legitimacy of the existence of eastern ecclesial communities, bound to the bishop of Rome by a new canonical statute. The statute was clearly mod- ified, as compared to the one which was previously used to show the visible communion between all local Churches and the Church of Rome. It is necessary to note that other important aspects of the internal life of the two Churches, both institutional and ecclesial, had meanwhile changed. In Rhodes in 1980, two full days passed before it was possible to start the work planned for the Commission. This could begin only when the deleg- ates of the Orthodox Churches, in a separate session, agreed to consider the existence of the eastern Catholic Churches and the presence of their representatives as an issue to be discussed, rather than an anomalous situ- ation which the Catholic Church should eliminate by disciplinary action before the beginning of the theological dialogue. Obviously this request implied that eastern bishops and Catholics should not be considered Churches, not even in the sense of ecclesial communities in a condition of UNIATISM AND ITS ORIGINS 25 irregular separation – whether dogmatic or canonical – from the national Orthodox Churches, whose liturgical tradition they maintain. Important historical changes in many eastern countries gave public and legal existence to the eastern Catholic Churches which had been abolished by the communist regimes, such as those in the Ukraine and Romania. Offi- cially, the members of these Churches were deemed to have merged freely into the local Orthodox Churches. Underground survival of an episcopal hierarchy and community life for such eastern Catholic Churches never did correspond to the above mentioned facile official position of the socialist states and the Orthodox Churches. Although practically and ideologically persecuted in these regimes, the latter maintained a – heavily conditioned – right to public organisation. Whereas the Latin Catholic Churches benefitted from the same treatment, the Byzantine Catholic Churches were suppressed. According to this formal and diplomatic fiction, the most numerous eastern Catholic Churches, united to the Roman Church, ceased to exist after 1946- 48, while others, more recent, survived in small communities, as in Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. For them, it was not unrealistic to foresee a gradual exhaustion and an easy administrative absorption into the local Latin Catholic Churches. This was the solution the Orthodox Churches envisaged for the Byzantine Catholic communities in the last Orthodox empire since the time of the Czars. This solution was easily conceivable even by the Catholics because pre- Counciliar ecclesiology did not classify such particular ecclesial communities as Churches. Instead, it considered them simply as ‘rites’, permitted and tolerated next to the Latin rite, the only universal one. In other words, their existence was traced back to a pontifical juridical act, rather than to a tra- ditional and ecclesial historical continuity, which included the apostolic succession of bishops. The regulation of the passage from one rite to the other within the Roman Catholic Church – as well as the authorisation for a small (missionary) part of the Latin rite clergy to practice dual ritualism – reinforced such an ecclesiological view. A trace of such a view still persists in the Conciliar Decree on eastern Catholic Churches, in which, at no. 2, the expression “Ecclesiae particulares seu ritus” is used twice. Such a synonym must be considered incorrect from the theological point of view. In the decades following the Second Vatican Council, ecumenistic circles, including those of the World Council of Churches, favoured a policy of 26 V. P ERI tacitly and indirectly relegating uniatism to the historical realm, considering it to be an incongruous pastoral attitude. This was possible because the many eastern Catholic communities, capable of keeping this attitude alive, were virtually exhausted. Many had confidence in such a solution which was ‘natural’ and spontaneous, or could be simply implemented by canonic and administrative means. It is perfectly understandable that the united Catholic communities – both where they survived underground in spite of persecu- tion and in western countries, where after World War II immigration had re-formed and diffused them, were reluctant to accept it. This reluctance degenerated into an overall attitude of diffidence towards the ecumenical movement. After the ecclesiological recognition of the eastern Catholic Churches at the Second Vatican Council, the dissolution of entire ecclesial communities, legitimately gathered around bishops of their own nation to celebrate the Eucharist according to the traditional liturgy, became unthinkable for the Catholic Church. Especially after 1989, it became impossible not to consider the eastern Churches of non-Byzantine or Slavic tradition (Maronites, Syriacs, Ethiopians, Copts etc.), which were united to Rome, and the eastern Euro- pean Churches on the same scale. The canon law for eastern United Churches needed to be made uniform: the new Code of Canons for the eastern Churches tried to do that. After the sudden and unexpected collapse of the socialist regimes, the idea of awaiting the spontaneous solution of the ecclesial problem regarding uniatism proved to be unrealistic. From one moment to the next the Orthodox Churches found themselves incapable of sustaining the official thesis, according to which the main united Catholic Churches in eastern Europe no longer existed: they were forced to denounce violent occupation of churches and aggression against their clergy and believers on the part of the ‘Uniates’, led by their bishops. It became hard to accept for the Orthodox Churches the adjournment of the ecclesiological problem created by the existence of the united Catholic Churches, such as the one the Catholics had obtained in Rhodes, according to the previous pragmatic justification.