In anticipation of the regular meeting of the Joint Orthodox-Catholic Theological Commission to take place in Italy, Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Vienna and Austria, the representative of the Moscow Patriarchate to the European international organisations, in an interview with Interfax-Religion, warned in advance that at the forthcoming meeting the MP intends to assert its own view of the problem of primacy and conciliarity in church authority.
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Interfax
When and where will the next round of the Orthodox-Catholic theological dialogue take place? What questions are you going to consider at it?
Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev
Our meeting will take place in October 2007 in Ravenna, Italy. The meeting will complete the discussion on a document on the episcopate and conciliarity in the Church. The commission originally drafted this document at its meeting in 1990 in Moscow. Then, the commission put it aside, and engaged itself with the topic of the Unia for ten years. Then a six-year interruption followed, and, finally, in September 2006 in Belgrade, the commission revisited this text. The Belgrade meeting revealed essential differences in the participants’ opinion on one of the document’s paragraphs. Notwithstanding the differences, the commission’s drafting committee met in March. The committee consists of three Orthodox representatives, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of Diokletia of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Deacon Ioann Ika of the Rumanian Church, and me, and three Catholics. We managed to change that paragraph to satisfy both sides. If our amended version suits the plenary commission, we can consider the Belgrade incident settled. However, I don’t doubt that we should expect many new difficulties ahead.
Interfax
What is it that the MP is going to put forward at these talks? What will be the principal idea or basic text it intends to assert during this dialogue?
Bishop Hilarion
We consider the above-mentioned text to be preparatory for a discussion on primacy in the Universal Church. The closing paragraphs of the document deal with this subject directly, and the commission’s meetings to take place after Ravenna are to consider a separate document on the subject. Our principal affirmation is this. Primacy in the Church is necessary, even on a universal level, but on the level of the Universal Church, it can’t be a primacy of jurisdiction, but only a primacy of honour.
Interfax
How far is the MP ready to discuss the primacy of the Pope of Rome? What will it insist upon in this discussion, and what theological compromises it is ready to accept? Does this problem have any prospects at all to be approved by the Orthodox side?
Bishop Hilarion
There can be no compromises whatsoever in this matter. The aim of the theological dialogue is not at all to reach a compromise. Its aim for us is rather to identify the Church’s original view of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. It’s a starting point from which to proceed, namely, what place the Bishop of Rome occupied in the early undivided Church. Historically, the primacy of the Bishop of Rome in the Christian Church, from our point of view, was that of honour, not jurisdiction. That is to say, the jurisdiction of the Pope of Rome never applied to all the Churches. In the second millennium, the Pope of Rome became de facto “the Patriarch of the West”, with this title reserved for him also de jure until recent times, whereas in the East, the Church was headed by the four patriarchs of the [then-existing] Local Orthodox Churches, those of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. After the break-up with Rome, primacy in the family of Orthodox Churches shifted automatically, as it were, to Constantinople, although all the early canons ascribed to the Bishop of Constantinople the second place after the Bishop of Rome. No canon speaks of the primacy of Constantinople. Nevertheless, this primacy became an accomplished fact, only we consider it exclusively as a primacy of honour, while the EP itself tends occasionally to give a broader interpretation to this primacy. I believe these are the questions around which the principal problems will emerge.
Interfax
Does the MP intend to develop a particular finalised theological document for this meeting to express its position on the subject and to be available afterwards?
Bishop Hilarion
His Holiness the Patriarch and the Holy Synod charged the theological commission with drafting a document to set forth the official viewpoint of the MP on primacy in the Universal Church in general, and the primacy of the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople in particular. This document shall be an important landmark in the interpretation of this serious ecclesiological problem, and will help me as the representative of our Church in the Joint Commission to assert our official point of view.
Interfax
Do you already know the formula of the consolidated position on the final document by the Orthodox Church? Will you adopt it by vote or by consensus? As far as we can remember, there were arguments at the previous meeting, and you came out with a public protest.
Bishop Hilarion
Yes, I protested, and I’ll continue to protest if we put questions of such an important theological and ecclesiological nature to a vote. What is at stake here is not to identify an opinion of a majority or a minority, but to find the truth. At the previous meeting, when Cardinal Walter Kasper (co-chairman of the Joint Commission and president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity), prompted by Metropolitan John Zizioulas (co-chairman of the Joint Commission, EP) put that disputed paragraph to a vote, the MP representatives proved to be the only ones who voted against it. The commission stated that “just one Church” had voted against the formulation. However, in the first place, that “just one Church” is much larger than the rest in the number of its faithful, and, secondly, whatever its size, if at least one Orthodox Church is against a particular formulation, this formulation cannot be adopted. There must be consensus, and any voting is inappropriate here. This is how we in the drafting committee worked. Admittedly, it is much easier for six people to work on a document than for 60 people to discuss it. Perhaps, it would be more proper methodologically to divide the bulky plenary commission into several working groups, which meet occasionally for considering final documents. Incidentally, in Baltimore, where we discussed the future of the Joint Commission, I said that a 60-member commission is not operable and proposed that we [should] halve it.
Interfax
Will the representatives of [all the] Local Orthodox Churches have an equal right to take part in the discussion? Do you think that the delegation of the EP will insist on its primacy in [stating] the position of the Orthodox Churches?
Bishop Hilarion
The representation system in the Commission fails to reflect the actual distribution of powers and views in the Orthodox world. The MP, with its millions of faithful, is represented in the Commission by only two delegates, while any other Orthodox Church, even if smaller numerically, is also represented by two delegates. A co-chairman of the Commission is a representative of the EP, so is the secretary. All this represents a certain imbalance. Sometimes, the Orthodox co-chairman insists on his own point of view, which the representatives of the MP don’t share. This was the case in Belgrade, where we considered a disputed paragraph of the document. Firstly, we believe that the task of a co-chairman of the Commission is that of a moderator, [who should] not impose his own point of view or the attitude of his own Church on the other participants, but to provide [everyone] an equal opportunity for speaking, and to lead the Commission to a consensus. We’ll continue to adhere to this point of view.
Interfax
Clearly, the thaw that developed in the relations between the Vatican and Moscow under Benedict XVI is primarily of a political-diplomatic nature. Can this thaw affect the theological sphere as well, [and shall it] encourage the participants in the theological discussion to a greater openness and mutual understanding?
Bishop Hilarion
Relationships between the Vatican and Moscow belong to the sphere of bilateral relations, while the Joint Commission includes all the local Orthodox Churches. Therefore, I would not link these two different levels. As is known, Patriarch Bartholomaios expressed a wish to attend the meeting in Ravenna, and proposed that Pope Benedict XVI come as well. As far as I know, the Vatican has not yet given an official response to this proposal. However, the Joint Commission members I have talked with have a reserved attitude to this initiative. The point is that when the Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople meet, the secular media, which have a poor knowledge of the refinements of Orthodox ecclesiology, tend to present it as a meeting of the heads of the two Churches, the Catholic Church, and the Orthodox Church. If the Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople attended the meeting of the Joint Commission in Ravenna, [the media] would understand it as if the pope led the Catholic half of the Commission, while the Patriarch of Constantinople led the Orthodox half.
However, the Orthodox Church has a structure different from that of the Catholic Church, as we have no single universal primate, since each local Church is headed by its own primate. In other words, in universal Orthodoxy, there is no hierarch whose role would be similar to that of the Pope of Rome in the Western Church. There must be no illusion that there is such a hierarch. We respect the Patriarch of Constantinople as the first in honour among the primates of local Orthodox Churches, but we are against regarding him as the “Pope of the East”. In the Catholic Church, the pope is the highest doctrinal authority, and in a certain sense, every Catholic who participates in the Joint Commission is a representative of the pope, although he can also represent his own local church or a particular educational institution at the same time. The Vatican appoints all the Catholic members of the Commission. However, we have a different system, as each local Church appoints its own representatives. For instance, if I come to Ravenna, I will represent not the Patriarch of Constantinople, but the Patriarch of Moscow, and I will do the will of the latter, not the former.
Interfax
Will Uniate representatives participate in the meeting in Italy? Will you consider the subject of the Unia as a form of church unity in your discussions? Does the MP intend to express its stand on the Uniates, especially regarding the policy of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholics?
Bishop Hilarion
In the Commission, there are representatives of the so-called “Eastern Rite”, who can voice the Greek-Catholic point of view, if there is a discussion on the Unia. We have put off the discussion on this acute problem, as it were, for the time being, since this subject rendered impossible the work of the Commission in Baltimore. However, we haven’t removed it from the agenda, and we’ll have to revisit it eventually. We, that is, the MP representatives, insist that we should continue the discussion on this subject. Since the Joint Commission has been set up for theological dialogue, not for considering particular situations in particular regions, we’ll hardly be able to deal with the policy pursued by the Greek-Catholics in the Ukraine. However, I repeat, the subject of the Unia will have to be discussed, however much some members of the Commission may wish to avoid it.
28 May 2007
Interfax-Religion
