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Published by the
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America,
July 2005
Catholic-Orthodox Talks Back on Track |
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By PEGGY POLK
c. 2005 Religion News Service
VATICAN CITY --
Eastern Orthodox leaders told Pope Benedict XVI on
Thursday (June 30) they are ready to resume talks
with the Vatican, the latest indication that both
sides appear eager to mend a 950-year rift between
the two churches.
Five years after dialogue degenerated into
acrimony at a summit outside Baltimore, Orthodox
leaders said they are willing to engage the new
pope's call to restore unity, even tackling the
thorny issue of the primacy of the pope.
Combined with warming relations with Orthodox
leaders in Moscow, a series of recent events
signals that renewed ties between the Eastern and
Western branches of Christianity may be a hallmark
of Benedict's young papacy, even though observers
caution a "big breakthrough" is unlikely.
Indeed, in receiving the Orthodox delegation,
Benedict said the renewed talks are not likely to
end in "absorbtion (or) fusion" on either side.
Metropolitan Ioannis Zizioulas of Pergamon, who
represented the spiritual leader of world
Orthodoxy, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of
Istanbul, told the pope that each of the 14
independent Orthodox Churches has "responded
positively" to naming new members to a stalled
Catholic-Orthodox panel.
The Joint International Commission for Theological
Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and Catholic
Church, established in 1980, has been on hiatus
since talks broke down in 2000 at a meeting in
Emmitsburg, Md.
"This will allow us to resume our theological
dialogue in the near future, concentrating now on
crucial ecclesiological issues concerning, in
particular, on the subject of primacy, the Petrine
ministry in the Church," Ioannis said.
Bartholomew and the late Pope John Paul II agreed
last year to reactivate the talks, but Bartholomew
had to gauge interest from the separate Orthodox
churches.
The primacy of the Roman Catholic pope is a major
issue in dialogue between the Catholic and
Orthodox churches, which have been split since the
so-called Great Schism of 1054.
More recently, relations have been strained by
Catholic attempts to regain confiscated property
and reestablish a Catholic presence in
predominantly Orthodox Russia and Ukraine in the
15 years since the fall of Soviet communism.
Benedict recently dispatched Cardinal Walter
Kasper, the Vatican's chief ecumenical officer,
for three days of talks in Moscow. The visit may
lay the groundwork for an eventual papal trip to
the heart of Orthodoxy, a dream never realized by
the late John Paul II.
Despite the frosty relations, both churches,
however, have maintained a tradition of exchanging
delegations on the feasts of their patron saints.
Ioannis led an Orthodox delegation to Thursday's
celebration of Sts. Peter and Paul at the Vatican;
a Catholic delegation visited Istanbul last
November for the Feast of St. Andrew.
Ioannis praised Benedict for his "profound
knowledge" of and "deep respect" for the Orthodox
tradition. He said the Orthodox Churches share the
new pope's "irreversible" commitment to the search
for Christian unity.
But both Ioannis and Benedict acknowledged that
the path to unity would be long and difficult.
"The unity that we seek is neither absorption nor
fusion but respect for the multi-form fullness of
the Church," the pope said. "We want to continue
together on the road to communion and to carry out
together new steps and gestures that lead to
overcoming remaining incomprehensions and
divisions."
Adapted from Religion News Service Article.
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