Ecumenism, Orthodoxy and

TAMARA GRDZELIDZE

The general view among Orthodox partici­pants in the ecumenical movement is that their contribution has been highly signi­ficant. At present, twenty-one Orthodox Churches are full members of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and officially take part in the international ecumenical movement. The Churches of Georgia and Bulgaria are exceptions. Of this number, fifteen are Eastern Orthodox and six belong to the family of Non-Chalcedonian Ortho­dox Churches. From the early 20th century the Eastern Orthodox have been aware of the issue of the unity of the church to which the encyclical of Ecumenical Patriarch Joachim III in 1902 alerted them (Patelos 1978). His letter was written as a response to the international congratulations he received on the occasion of his enthrone­ment as ecumenical patriarch. It speaks of his desire for union with all who share faith in Christ and talks of it as the subject of his constant prayer and supplication. The letter also sets out frankly how the differing doctrinal positions of the western churches create a problem on the way towards any hope of restored unity. Thus, from the very beginning of the Orthodox participation in the ecumenical movement, the prevailing theme has been a desire for unity in spite of the challenges that obvious and well- known ecclesiological differences between the churches bring to the fore. In facing up to this challenge of “difference” it soon becomes obvious how the Orthodox ecumenist needs discernment to tell apart legitimate differences of church practice (Diaphora) from differences which are “divisive” (Diairesis).

Even more significant and overtly ecumenical in tone was the encyclical of Ecumenical Patriarch Germanos, issued in 1920, which was addressed “To the Churches of Christ Everywhere” and which announced its theme in the epigraph taken from the First Letter of Peter: “Love one another earnestly from the heart” (1Pet. 1.22) (Limouris 1994). This encycli­cal is considered foundational to the ecumenical movement in general, setting forth the very notion of creating a “league” or fellowship of churches. It speaks about the “blessed union” of the churches that awaits the faithful and urges all the different traditions to engage in joint study of the central issues surrounding the concept of reunion. The letter suggests that, as a first step towards union, the fostering of con­tacts between the churches is a most impor­tant thing. When the first such contacts were initiated, two prerequisites were asked to be kept in mind: first, “the removal and abolition of all the mutual mistrust and bitterness”; and secondly, that “love should be rekindled and strengthened among the churches.” Germanos then went on to list some eleven fundamental points as a working proposal and agenda for future collaboration among the churches: a list which indeed became the basis of the pro­grammatic work of the WCC at the time of its creation in 1948. Then, only three Orthodox churches participated: the ecu­menical patriarchate itself, the Church of Cyprus, and the Church of Greece; though the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate in the USA sent representatives. The spirit of Germanos’ influential agenda was the mutual enrichment of divided Christians through the sharing of experience, the com­mon study of existing problems, and the charitable recognition of one another at various levels. In its final paragraph the encyclical referred to the fellowship it envis­aged growing between the churches by using the Greek word Koinonia, which has since become a landmark, a focal idea, in the history of the worldwide ecumenical movement. It was on this encyclical that W. A. Visser’t Hooft, the first general secre­tary of the WCC, commented: “With its 1920 encyclical, Constantinople rang the bell of our assembling.”

One of the important messages reiterated throughout the history of the Orthodox participation in the ecumenical movement has been the Orthodox statement delivered at the First World Conference of Faith and Order in Lausanne in 1927. The Faith and Order Commission started as a movement of churches within the WCC to combat church division and seek unity according to the expressed will of Christ: “That all maybe one” (Jn. 17.21). It grew into being a commission of nominees from different churches, currently totalling 120 represen­tatives, who assemble regularly to reflect on divisive and non-divisive issues which keep the churches away from full communion. At the 1927 meeting in Lausanne, the Orthodox laid down the principle that reunion could take place “only on the basis of the common faith and confession of the undivided church,” acknowledged as the reality of the first eight centuries of the Christian era. Real union, therefore, was seen only as communio in sacris, a sharing in the sacred mysteries, and this could happen only on the basis of full agreement in faith. The Orthodox delegates, having made this significant policy statement, then expressed their readiness to continue the search for unity by acknowledging “a partial reunion” currently happening among other churches in anticipation of the “general union” to which they looked forward in hope. By this means, establishing limits and terms to the notion of the ecu­menical quest, the Orthodox were able more comfortably to situate themselves in the syntax of their own traditional ecclesi- ology, and were enabled to address the others as one rather than many. Although fully conscious of the challenge of being divided from the others by dogmatic differences, the Orthodox declared their readiness to continue devotedly to seek the rapprochement of the churches, with those who shared and confessed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. As Fr. Georges Florovsky (the noted Orthodox theologian who was involved with the ecumenical movement from its earliest days) expressed it in 1949, the Orthodox understood their mandate to participate in ecumenical movement “as a direct obligation which stems from the very essence of Orthodox consciousness” (Florovsky 1989).

Other landmarks of the Orthodox contribution to world ecumenism occurred at the New Delhi (1961) and Nairobi (1975) Assemblies of the WCC. If the meet­ing at Toronto had claimed that “the WCC is composed of churches which acknowl­edge Jesus Christ as God the Savior,” the New Delhi meeting went further, on the urging of the Orthodox members present, to define the “Christian” basis of the WCC as rather being rooted in the matrix of the trinitarian confession of God, a fundamen­tal approach of all Orthodox theology, and the core of its distinctive ecclesiology. The first address given by an Orthodox theo­logian at a plenary WCC Assembly was by Nikos Nissiotis at the New Delhi Assembly. He spoke about the highest level of author­ity given by “the unbroken continuity of the life of the historical church” (Patelos 1978: 278). Unity was there presented by Nissiotis not as an option but rather as the source of life, the origin and the goal of the creation in Christ, as manifested by the church. “Unity among men in the church,” he said, “Is the result, the reflection, of the event of the Father’s union with Christ by his Spirit realized in the historical church on the day of Pentecost” (Patelos 1978: 232). This introduction, by the Orthodox, of the centrality of pneumatology and the idea of conciliarity into ecumenical conversations changed the worldwide ecumenical scene forever. A good example of this was seen at the WCC Assembly in Uppsala (1968), which focused on the catholicity of the church. Continuing discussions on conci- liarity and catholicity happened at the Nairobi Assembly (1975) and resulted in the stressing of the notion of the unity of the church as “a conciliar fellowship of local churches which are themselves truly united” (Paton 1976).

The recognition of Orthodox participa­tion was reflected in the direction the Faith and Order Commission chose to give to its study program, focusing it on the ecumen­ical councils of the early church (Faith and Order Paper 59, on Chalcedon’s signifi­cance) and on the patristic heritage (Faith and Order Paper No. 50, focused on the work of St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit). A common approach to the writings of the church fathers was again addressed by the Faith and Order Commission in 2009, following a consultation in Cambridge (2008) after a hiatus of forty years. At the First World Conference of Faith and Order the Orthodox expressed their regret in not being able to accept the basic principles of the two published WCC reports on the nature of the church and the faith of the church because both these documents set off from the consideration that the Scriptures were the only source of revela­tion, and did not recognize the Nicene- Constantinopolitan Creed as the common symbol of Christian faith; nor did they refer to the threefold priestly ministry instituted by Christ. In the following years, some­times because of Orthodox initiatives and sometimes not, the Faith and Order Commission dealt with both issues, conducting a study on the apostolic faith (Faith and Order Paper 153, on the Nicene- Constantinopolitan Creed; after which point the WCC members agreed to use in common the text without the filioque addi­tion) and a convergence document on the church (“Baptism, Eucharist, Ministry”: Faith and Order Paper 111). Having criti­cized the “secular categories used in the shaping of ecumenical thinking,” Fr. John Meyendorff (then a chairman of the Faith and Order Commission) proposed in his book Unity of the Church – Unity of Man­kind that the WCC should henceforth approach the issue of ecclesial unity with­out excluding the unity of humankind, by means of the church’s Eucharistic theology, as understood in eschatological perspective.

The Orthodox wisdom on the mission of the church was unfolded in the consulta­tion in Etchmiadzin (1975) before the Nairobi Assembly in a document entitled “Confessing Christ through the Liturgical Life of the Church Today.” The liturgical life of the church continues on when the liturgical celebration is over; its mission is based on the transforming power of the liturgy. Later, these formulations were fur­ther developed into the now famous con­cept of the “Liturgy after the Liturgy” (Bria 1996). In the same spirit of the liturgical understanding of the world and history, the Orthodox offered the ecumenical move­ment its theological reflection on Diakonia in the church in a study entitled Orthodox Visions of Ecumenism, composed after the consultation meeting in Crete in 1978. Moreover, the presence of the Orthodox in the WCC has also been marked by the way that its traditions of spirituality have clearly penetrated non-Orthodox circles, whether through reflection on the meaning of icons (Limouris 1990) or the cult of the saints (Grdzelidze and Dotti 2009).

Participation in the ecumenical move­ment has undoubtedly opened up a new set of perspectives for the Orthodox churches interacting with one another in this international and studious environ­ment, and there have been pan-Orthodox meetings and inter-Orthodox consultations held on several occasions within the frame­work of the WCC. At these meetings the Orthodox churches have discussed various ecclesiastical issues, together giving a united witness to the world. It was in this context that the first attempts were made to clarify the christological ambiguity existing bet­ween the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches (Chaillot and Belopopsky 1998). Also, the issue of the role of women in the Eastern church first was addressed by the Orthodox under the aegis of WCC sponsor­ship. To this end there were several impor­tant Orthodox meetings: Agapia (1976), Rhodes (1988), Crete (1990), Damascus (1996), Istanbul (1997), and Volos (2008) (see Soumakis 2009). The ecumenical movement has thus allowed for an enri­ching exchange for the Orthodox with the Protestant churches. While the Orthodox offered to the West their unique tradition and spirituality, they in turn were stimu­lated to get to know better both western theology and the churches of the Reforma­tion tradition.

A great deal of Orthodox theology in the 20th century has thus been written in the context of lively encounter with the non­Orthodox, which is especially true of the Orthodox theologians of the diaspora and also beyond (Lossky, Krivocheine, Florovsky, Schmemann, Meyendorff, Nissiotis, and others). There was a question of some urgency at first in terms of the self-defense and self-explanation of the Orthodox to the wider world (Western Europe and North America) which knew very little or nothing about the Orthodox Church. Ecumenical Orthodox theologians of our time, whether from traditional Orthodox countries or not (Zizioulas, Clapsis, Limouris, Vassiliadis, Alfeyev, and Bouteneff, for example), address theological issues in their ecumenical setting, proclaiming the teaching of the Orthodox Church but also sharing the riches of their tradition with the rest of Christendom. Where else but in the ecumenical movement could Orthodox address such issues as world violence? From one such dialogue emerged this Orthodox reflection: “Orthodoxy pro­vides a non-violent alternative to Western Christianity’s atonement theology (based on Christ as sacrificial scapegoat) with an incar- national soteriology in which Christ shares our mortal human nature, restoring it through His death on the Cross and His resurrection.... There is no just war theology in the Orthodox Tradition” (Clapsis 2007). In such a context Orthodox emphasize their eschatological vision of reality (the church as a foretaste of the kingdom) and offer critique of the present condition from the viewpoint of God’s intent for the whole of creation.

Orthodox hierarchs, clergy, or lay theo­logians known to the world through their ecumenical endeavor, use their authority for the benefit of the Orthodox Church, and one of the best examples of this can be seen in the revival of the Church of Albania under the spiritual leadership of Arch­bishop Anastasios Giannoulatos (Forest 2002). Orthodox actors in the ecumenical movement bring back to their own chur­ches the deep experience gained through encountering Christians from all over the world. There are numerous examples of Orthodox churches having learned faster and acquired strength through ecumenical commitment so that they have become impressively articulate in bilateral and multilateral conversations.

Ecclesiological challenges remain, of course. The main source of the division between the churches, ecclesiology, has been treated at different points in the ecu­menical movement, but it has not been solved to any great extent – at least, as much as would be of significance to allow all the Orthodox to pray with the others, not to mention the level of unity required for the sharing of communion. The first “concession” of the WCC to Orthodox ecclesiology was the so-called “Toronto Statement” (1950) on “The Church, the Churches, and the World Council of Churches.” Here, the Orthodox concern was to avoid identifying the WCC as a church in itself, a super-church, member­ship of which implied any specific doctrine concerning the nature of global church unity. Some commentators called the series ofnegations in this statement a “provisional neutrality” which should be a starting point meant to be dissolved with the passing of the years (Newbigin 1951). The Toronto Statement, in fact, allowed the Orthodox to carry on participating in the ecumenical movement without feeling compromised. Some consider the very fact of the Ortho­dox continuing participation, in spite of the huge ecclesiological challenges involved, as a contribution in itself. The most recent ecumenical claim (2002) on two basic eccle- siological self-understandings is that some churches (such as the Orthodox) “identify themselves with the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church” and others “see them­selves as parts of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church” (WCC 2003). Such positions define whether churches are able, in the first instance, to recognize one another as churches.

Although the Orthodox have constantly referred to the necessity for all to return to the bosom of the mother church of the first centuries, an acceptable formulation of such a demand must be a joint rediscovery of our common roots. “Return” to the ancient church will not be easy for many non-Orthodox churches that are liv­ing bodies and have been exposed to history throughout numerous vicissitudes. Nor does much contemporary western biblical scholarship accept the idea that there was “an ideal, homogenous church” in ancient times. Therefore, all churches are at various stages on a journey of rediscovery of their common heritage, which may bring the churches closer than has been possible at present.

The reception of the WCC statement on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry was a step forward in the process of growing together, but did not imply “ecclesiological or practical recognition of the ministry and sacraments of non-Orthodox churches” (Limouris and Vaporis 1985). On the way to creating a common statement on the nature and mission of the church, the eccle­siological challenges raised by the Orthodox became even more apparent. Although, once again, it was because of their partici­pation in the dialogue that the sacramental dimension of the church became a central topic of multilateral discussions and found its way in the convergence document on the nature of the church (Faith and Order Paper 198). The basic standpoint for the Orthodox in all ecclesiological discussions is the primacy of Eucharistic ecclesiology: Koinonia does not know division. Church unity exists only in Christ and is actualized in the Eucharist. How far can Orthodox Eucharistic ecclesiology embrace other ecclesiologies? Can Orthodox pneumatol- ogy allow full sharing of gifts with other churches? Or, as the Final Report of the WCC Special Commission has recently asked the question: “Is there space for other churches in Orthodox ecclesiology? How would this space and its limits be described?”

The ecclesiological challenge has proved to be the major obstacle for some Orthodox envisaging legitimate participation of the church in the global ecumenical movement. This comes to a crisis often over the issue of common prayer. All actors in the ecumeni­cal movement are aware of the difficulties related to common worship. There are theological, canonical, traditional, histori­cal, and ethical reasons behind the question, but in general two sets of problems can be identified. Firstly, there is a canonical pro­blem for the Orthodox who have an author­itative canonical statement to the effect “Do not pray with heretics” (Apostolic Constitu­tions 45; Laodicea 33–4) which some have interpreted as meaning that Orthodox today ought not to worship or even pray with Christians of other communions. Secondly, there is the ethical problem related to the nature of ecumenical prayer. The Orthodox do not have a single approach to the matter of praying ecumen­ically (with the exception of “intercommu­nion” or “Eucharistic hospitality,” which in the ecumenical context is excluded by the Orthodox entirely). Regarding common prayer, those Orthodox who are willing to participate actively in the ecumenical movement accept the practice of offering prayers along with fellow Christians as an important one. However, this is not a standard behavior, as many Orthodox simply refuse to allow this as viable. At the level of the churches, at present, there are some Orthodox churches which find it immensely difficult to hold a common prayer service with non-Orthodox, and others which are more open to common prayer; though even among the latter there are voices among the clergy, monastics, and laity who refuse to participate in the com­mon prayer their church organizes. In other words, there is no one established rule or attitude shared by all the Orthodox at pre­sent. The key to such a resistance on the part of some Orthodox lies in their ecclesiology and the role of the Eucharist in Orthodox theology which claims that true spiritual unity can be expressed only through the shared body and blood of Christ.

The very character of ecumenical prayer, its eclectic nature, often raises many questions. There is also a sensitivity issue, especially when using symbols and symbolic actions in prayer. Cultural misunderstanding is liable to cause problems as much as genu­ine theological differences. The stark differ­ence of ethos involved in a typical ecumenical worship service is apparent to any Orthodox who attend. Sometimes the Orthodox envis­age various “threats” implied by ecumenical prayer, such as proselytism or westernization or an imposed uniformity in worship. The report of subcommittee III of the Special Commission on Orthodox Participation in the WCC (Crete, August 2000, printed for internal use only) says: “Orthodox partici­pants have found certain elements within the worship life of the WCC to be incompat­ible with apostolic tradition. These include (a) the use of inclusive language in referring to God, (b) the leadership of services by ordained women, (c) the introduction of syncretistic elements.” The WCC has tried to tackle the issue, by means of this Special Commission, which consists of a party of sixty high-church officials and theologians. Although it started as a committee to meet precise Orthodox concerns, it finally played a remarkable role in renewing some policies of the WCC and thus met the concerns of a wider constituency and embraced a broader realm of issues than initially had been envis­aged, such as ecclesiology, common prayer, social-ethical issues, decision-making pro­cesses, and membership. The accumulating dissatisfaction of the Orthodox participants in relation to the content and style of the WCC was strengthened by widespread polit­ical changes in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. This era saw the formal sepa­ration of Orthodox churches from state con­trol, and a renewed protest against some of the Orthodox churches’ earlier involvement in the ecumenical movement under the aegis of the communist regimes. This latest crisis began in the late 1990s. In 1998 representa­tives of the Eastern Orthodox churches gathered in Thessaloniki and proposed to set up a “mixed commission” which was paralleled by the creation, in the same year, of the WCC’s own Special Commission. The Orthodox expressed concern about their unequal footing with the Protestant commu­nities, for the number of the Orthodox churches remained the same over the years while the Protestant churches proliferated, a demography which affected decision­making in governing bodies. Another Orthodox concern was voiced also as to the way in which the whole ethos of the WCC was so predominantly Protestant. It was suggested that the voice of minorities should be better reflected in decision-making. The Special Commission recommended changing the decision-making procedures in the governing bodies of the WCC from majority vote to one of consensus.

Orthodox concern over common prayer was taken up seriously at this time and a recommendation was put forward that “a clear distinction is proposed between ‘confessional’ and ‘interconfessional’ com­mon prayer at WCC gatherings. Confes­sional common prayer is the prayer of a confession, a communion, or a denomina­tion within a confession. ‘Interconfessional common prayer’ is usually prepared for specific ecumenical events.” This distinc­tion was meant to free the traditions to express themselves either in their own integrity or in combination, all the while being true to the fact that Christians do not yet experience full unity together, and that the ecumenical bodies in which they participate are not themselves churches.

All in all, Orthodox concerns related to their participation in the ecumenical move­ment, and in its headquarters at the WCC, predominantly stem from their unique ecclesiology, which in turn defines their attitude towards matters of worship and ethics. However, considering the past giants of the ecumenical movement such as Fr. Georges Florovsky or Prof. Nikos Nissiotis, the qualified eagerness of the Orthodox to stay in the movement and make their witness to the world together with other fellow Christians seems a continuing imperative to the Orthodox worldwide (Nissiotis 1978). The work of the Special Commission has given ground to the Orthodox for developing their par­ticipation in fresh and constructive ways.

SEE ALSO: Church (Orthodox Ecclesiology); Contemporary Orthodox Theology

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Bria, I. (1996) The Liturgy after the Liturgy: Mission and Witness from an Orthodox Perspective. Geneva: World Council of Churches.

Chaillot, C. and Belopopsky, A. (1998) Towards Unity: The Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. Geneva: World Council of Churches.

Clapsis, E. (ed.) (2007) Violence and Christian Spirituality: An Ecumenical Conversation.

Geneva: World Council of Churches.

Florovsky, G. (1989) The Orthodox Contribution to the Ecumenical Movement, in Collected Works, Vol. 13. Vaduz: Biichervertriebsanstalt, p. 160.

Forest, J. (2002) The Resurrection of the Church in Albania: Voices of Orthodox Christians. Geneva: World Council of Churches.

Grdzelidze, T. and Dotti, G. (2009) A Cloud of Witnesses: Opportunities for Ecumenical Commemoration. Geneva: World Council of Churches.

Limouris, G. (1990) Icons: Windows on Eternity: Theology and Spirituality in Colour. Geneva: World Council of Churches.

Limouris, G. (1994) Orthodox Visions of Ecumenism: Statements, Messages and Reports on the Ecumenical Movement, 1902–1992. Geneva: World Council of Churches.

Limouris, G. and Vaporis, N. M. (1985) Orthodox Perspectives on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry. Faith and Order Paper 128. Boston: Holy Cross Press.

Newbigin, L. (1951) “Comments on ‘The Church, the Churches, and the World Council of Churches’,” Ecumenical Review 3, 3: 153–4.

Nissiotis, N. (1978) Called to Unity: The Significance of the Invocation of the Spirit for Church Unity. Faith and Order Paper 82. Geneva: World Council of Churches.

Patelos, C. G. (ed.) (1978) The Orthodox Church in the Ecumenical Movement: Documents and Statements. Geneva: World Council of Churches. Paton, D. M. (ed.) (1976) What Unity Requires: Breaking Barriers, Nairobi 1975. Geneva: World Council of Churches; London: SPCK; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Soumakis, F. (2009) “World Council of Churches: The Long Road from Agapia to Volos,” in J. Lasser (ed.) Sophia: Studies in Orthodox Theology Vol. 1. New York: Sophia Institute, pp. 30–43.

World Council of Churches (2003) “Final Report of the Special Commission on Orthodox Parti­cipation in the WCC,” Ecumenical Review 55.