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ADDRESS
OF HIS EMINENCE, METROPOLITAN AMBROSIOS
OF KALAVRYTA AND AIGIALEIA
PRESIDENT OF THE
SYNODAL COMMITTEE ON INTER-ORTHODOX AND INTER-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS
TO HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL WALTER KASPER
(11.02.2003)

Your Eminence,

It is with due respect, great joy and love in Christ that we receive You and Your honoured Entourage here today during this highly significant and many-faceted reciprocal visit of yours. Its aim is for us to come to know and better understand one another. We wholeheartedly hope that your stay with us in our country, which is the cradle of Orthodoxy, will not only be pleasant but fruitful as well. Be assured that on our part every effort will be made, that your hospitality will not only be worthy of your esteemed personage but also reciprocal of that shown to our Church’s delegation when it visited the Vatican during March of last year.

The members of the Synodal Committee on Inter-Orthodox and Inter-Christian Relations, the members of the Synodal Committee on European Affairs, and other staff-members of the Church of Greece welcome you to this present meeting where, in a spirit of truth and love, we shall engage in discussion and an exchange of views, with a purpose to build up and structure, as much as is possible for us within our competency and responsibility, a better future for the Church.

Please allow me to begin by presenting some thoughts. But before beginning, I should like to note that His Beatitude, Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece in addressing you this morning, referred to social, environmental and ethical matters of immediate priority, on which we could, here and now, begin to collaborate. We, however, on the occasion of this historic meeting would like to guide the thoughts of all here present to an overview of certain things from a different perspective, in order to help us begin touching upon these matters, with the hope that this will lead to an essential overcoming of them in the future, something which I am sure is mutually desirable.

1. As we entered the 21st century, the Church of Christ both in the east and the west found itself facing many moral, administrative, canonical and other problems of an internal nature.

Moreover, certain local churches in the east, in countries that formally belonged to the soviet bloc are now being tried by an aggressive policy on the part of the Church of Rome.

2. At the same time our society today has embarked on the path of secularization. More and more, God is being ostracized from our lives. Contemporary man is being pushed towards a materialistic outlook on life; very often he is hemmed in by matter, and by a one-sided enjoyment of material goods. Our contemporary consumer Society appears to be content with enjoying worldly pleasures and displays an ever-growing indifference for the coming of “ God’s Kingdom”. The relaxing of man’s traditional ties with his Church has resulted in poor Church attendance, in the estrangement of our youth from the Church’s fold, in the cooling of missionary zeal et al. These are phenomena common to both east and west.

3. Moreover, our uncertainty about the future, the weakening of the institution of the family, the influx of migrants, the grave issues arising from bioethics, xenophobia, fear of a new war of globle dimensions, et al. pose intense problems and are a source of melancholy for present-day man.

4. In the face of such a situation the Church of Christ is called to play a most necessary role. The task of Evangelizing present-day man and leading him to Christ falls on the shoulders of those who serve the Church both in the east and the west, and indeed on those who participate in the European Union.

5. Communication between Church representatives of the east and the west, if and when it is carried on in a spirit of truth and genuine christian love, becomes a “sine qua non” presupposition for giving witness to our faith before the contemporary world.

In this sense, we must strengthen our exchange of visits, our conferences and consultations, our theological dialogue, the sharing of experiences and all those things that contribute to uniting our hearts on both sides, until such time as we arrive at the much-desired unio in sacris. In this light, Your Eminence, your visit and that of your honoured entourage constitutes a further positive step towards overcoming existing suspicions and strengthening the spirit of love between us. Moreover, the representatives of our Church, under the leadership of the Most Rev. Metropolitan Panteleimon of Attica, having visited Rome and having been well received by you, returned, bringing with them the most excellent of impressions. The only event that cast a dark shadow on these otherwise finest of memories was the sudden passing away of Metropolitan Timotheos of Kerkyra, one of the members of our Church’s Delegation, immediately upon his return from Rome.

7. We have just said that we must strengthen our exchange of visits and our channels of communication. We must, however, confess that the path leading to communication between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholics is strewn with obstacles. The west is basically collective ad extremum, and for this reason tolerant. On the contrary, the east, stands at the other extreme; it is exceptionally conservative and most austere. There thus exists a very different spirit amongst us! Despite this, and having love as our guide, we needs must walk together! Our times demand it! Such a prospect may seem unattainable. But let us ask ourselves: how was such a common course maintained between east and west during the life of the one undivided Church of the first ten centuries and why does it appear unattainable today? How were the Christians of the first ten centuries united, and why is it impossible for us to unite today? In the end, “wherever God so wills, the order of nature is overcome”.

8. An easy answer to this question appears to be: “by returning to the tradition”. Basically speaking of course, this principle is correct. Only by returning to our roots can we achieve the much-desired union of the Church. But the difficult and agonizing question that presents itself before us is: how can we turn history back a thousand years? How can we bridge the chasm, put aside the passions and the hatred and heal the wounds? Possibly the principle of “agreement in the essentials and tolerance in the unimportant”, could ensure a way forward.

Despite this however, the obstacles remain because of the wounds in our Body. Christian Byzantium, e.g. with the help of Rome, was lost forever! Along with it was lost the east’s prestige. The crescent now stands where the Life-giving Cross once stood! The Royal City has fallen! Constantinople has fallen into aphasia! orthodox lands in Europe were led into captivity under ottoman domination! Turkey set foot in Europe! Finally, at this moment the islamization of Europe appears to be a visible, real and dangerous threat of our times!

9. These and other similar events constitute the obstacles rising out of Greek Orthodoxy’s martyric past. There are also contemporary obstacles as well. Let us enumerate a few:


ON THE PART OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS:

a) the preservation and sustaining of the Unia in the Orthodox East. The Unia should be abolished, however difficult this may seem. As a first step, all proselytism should cease.

b) The preserving and sustaining of the Unia in Greece, in particular. Allow me to say, the abrogation of the Unia in our country in particular would constitute a very good basis for bridging our very many antitheses and differences and would inaugurate a new period of communication. The cost for Rome would be negligible while the benefits derived would greatly enhance her prestige among the Orthodox and on the course leading to Union.

c) The seizure of Orthodox churches in countries formally belonging to the soviet bloc.

d) The projection of Papal Primacy and Papal infallibility, to which “in season and out of season” it continually returns. At Balamand the representatives of the Roman Pontiff promised that the projection of this illogical and unhistorical claim would cease, yet nevertheless the provocation continues.

e) That which is stated concerning the Petrine Ministry in the Papal Encyclical: Ut Unum Sint, and concerning the One Church in the Papal Encyclical: Dominus Jesus.


ON THE PART OF THE ORTHODOX:

a) The negative stand and attitude taken by Monasteries of Mt. Athos and the monks in general, a portion of the Sacred Clergy, of University Professors and of the faithful of the Church of Greece, to which we must add the adherents to the old calendar, constitutes a factor inhibiting our communication. Opening our arms to the Roman Catholic Church, we face the danger of a new internal schism. Immediately after the prilgrimage-visit of His Holiness, the Pope of Rome, to Athens, we faced a storm of attacks on the part of clerical and lay theologians, among whom were certain Professors from the two Theological Schools in our Country.

b) As a consequence of the above, the negative stand of a portion of the so-called daily and periodical religious press also constitutes an obstacle.

c) The position taken by certain ecclesiastical representatives, sometimes by supreme leaders of Orthodoxy, who at times act either hastily or incorrectly, without taking into consideration the possible reaction on the part of a portion of the Church’s pleroma (e.g. The gathering of religious leaders at Assisi, the presence-participation? of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomaios in the panegyric Liturgy at St. Peter’s in Rome).

d) The volatile Mediterranean disposition of us Orthodox.

10. A. Despite these and other factors in our communication and the rapprochement between east and west, there are, at the same time, a sufficient number of positive factors on the part of the Roman Church, such as:

a) The handing over of Churches that lie within the geographical area of Europe and belong to the Roman Catholic Church to the Orthodox, either for use or for possession, in order to facilitate the spiritual and sacramental life of our migrants and our Brother Orthodox Bishops in Europe.

b) The warm reception accorded to Orthodox visitors, clergy and lay, to the Monasteries and Sacred Shrines within the canonical jurisdiction of Rome, originally initiated in the decade, 1960-1970, and which today constitutes a self-evident and well-established fact.

c) The progressively increasing return of sacred relics and heirlooms to our Land, from which at one time they were removed.

d) The manifest intention of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II to reinterpret his Primacy and the growing theological literature about this issue.


B. At the same time the Church of Greece has taken positive steps towards the rapprochement of the Church of Christ in east and west.

a) First of all, the elevation of His Beatitude, Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece, to the Archiepiscopal Throne marked a new opening of the Church of Greece towards Europe. A long period of introversion has already come to an end! The Church gazes as the world both within and beyond the borders of our country, converses with all and participates in the events of contemporary society on an all-European level.

b) This good disposition of Archbishop Christodoulos has been confirmed by a decision taken by the Holy Synod of the Hierarchy of the Church of Greece.

c) The establishment in Brussels of a permanent Office and Representation of our Church under His Grace, the Rt. Rev. Bishop Athanasios of Achaia, has in practice confirmed our intention to come out of the introversion of former times.

d) The warm reception accorded to His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, during his visit to Athens during May of 2001 and pilgrimage to the Areopagus, where St. Paul preached to the athenians.

e) The hosting and warm reception in Athens (Jan. 2000) of His Excellency, Mgr. Josef Homeyer, Bishop of Hildersheim, President of the Synod of Bishops’ Conferences in Europe (C.O.M.E.C.E) et al.


MEASURES OF IMMEDIATE PRIORITY:

a) The resumption of the theological dialogue with the addition of new persons, in order to provide it with a new dynamic.

b) Parallel to the theological dialogue, the exchange of visits between east and west on the level of clerical and lay executive staff of the Church.

c) The organizing of conferences to examine social issues.

The collaboration of the Church of Greece with the C.O.M.E.C.E. chiefly on European matters, on a regular and fixed basis. This collaboration already exists with our office in Brussels and our representative there: Rt. Rev. Bishop Athanasios of Achaia. We recommend and propose that this collaboration be extended to include direct contact with the competent Synodal Committees in Athens, such as our Committee on Inter-Christian Relations, the Committee on European Issues, the Committee on Bioethics, etc.

e) The strengthening of our Church’s position upon matters of special interest that are of concern to its broader constituency, as for example, that of the optional listing of one’s religious affiliation on his police identity card.

f) The further development of independent, bilateral relations between the Primates of the Church of Rome and the Church of Greece, the history of which goes back to Apostolic times.

Your Eminence,

We considered it our duty before history, in receiving you here today, to state all of the above in the spirit of truth and love, as an expression of the spiritual pain that stems from the torn seamless Garment of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The desire of our Lord Jesus Christ “that all may be one” is for all of us who bear His Name, whether residing in the East or the West, a sacred legacy.

We have inherited division! Let us strive for Unity! This is what history demands of us! Let us daily pray and humbly labour “for the peace of the entire world, for the stability of the Holy Churches of God and for the union of all”. Our egoism has separated us! May our humility unite us daily until we have achieved “the union of all”! Amen.

 


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