Orthodoxy and Ecumenism 2
There are two polar opposite views of ecumenism. One view wants to come
to universal unity with a maximum of the claimed Truth, holding on to a
greatest quantity of definitions of their faith as much as possible. So thus is
how Catholicism understands ecumenism. On another plane and in an
opposite direction communism understands ecumenism in this way. This view
of our concept finds its driving force in the pathos for the right-belief. The
task is to claim all over the world the type of the right-belief, to unite the
truly devoted and to set them apart against the rest of humankind. This is
unity connected with separation. The other view wants to come to universal
unity with a mimimum of the claimed Truth, adapting oneself to a lowest
number of its articles of faith. Many Protestant tendencies understand
ecumenism in this way; theosophy has the same principle also, seeing in all
religions and doctrines one and the same Truth. This view of ecumenism lacks
the pathos of strong belief and it distinguishes itself by tolerance, wants no
separation for achieving unity. This kind of ecumenism does not push to be a "force",
wanting to create an army for battle with the whole rest of the world.
Both views of ecumenism have advantages and disadvantages. – As regards
the second type of Christian ecumenism, its wish for the unity of all
Christians and its tolerance are very attractive. But it is [p. 11] totally
clear that on this basis only the aim of unifying as an abstract Christianity
is possible, i.e. an Inter-Confessionalism, which is content with a
treaty about a minimum of Truths of the faith, e.g. considering the divinity of
Jesus Christ. But in Inter-Confessionalism is the selfsame lie as
internationalism. "Inter" does not mean anything; "inter"
has no real being behind it. Inter-Confessionalism is an abstraction and cannot
make enthusiastic. In religious life, however, must be the striving to
have concrete fullness. Every decimation of the truths of faith means their
weakening and reduction. Possible and right is the striving towards a Supra-Confessionalism,
like towards Supra-Nationalism. Supra-Confessionalism in contrast with
Inter-Confessionalism is not an abstract minimum, but on the contrary a moving
in the direction towards a greater fullness and a fuller concrete state.
Inter-Confessionalism is moving sidewards, in the direction to a so to say
empty room between the realities of the Confessions. But Supra-Confessionalism
is a movement on high and in depth. In height and depth there is a more
important and concrete fullness than in the narrow minded middle, in which the
so self-satisfied single Confessions stay. Confessionalism in itself and for
itself is not yet an ecumenical faith, but rather always an individualisation
which sets off apart. The ecumenical Truth of right-belief is higher and deeper
than a strictly believing confessionalism. That fullness of Truth which can be
won with the acquisition of Supra-Confessionalism is no abstract minimum of
Christianity, but is in effect and on the contrary, a more concrete degree of
definitions, a greater harmonic whole than in the historic Confessions. The
concrete fullness of Supra-Confessionalism cannot be reached through
Inter-Confessionalism, not by an unmooring from one's own Church, but instead
by a turning to the innerness of the Church. I can strive at the
supra-confessional unity of the Church of Christ, while remaining Orthodox and
not separating from the basis of the right-believing Church. I can grow into
ecumenism, deepening and raising myself. [p. 12] Ecumenism cannot be realized
by Unias and treaties, by negotiation between governances of Churches. That is
a wrong and obsolete way. Vladimir Soloviev had in his idea of ecumenism a
great inner truth, but his inclination to an external Unia, to
"treaties" was wrong. In religious life there are phenomena analogous
to the political, politic blocs, quite out of place. Agreements should only be
carried out on the basis of Truth, and nothing of it can be denied or taken
away. Ecumenism calls for a striving towards the maximum, not the minimum,
because the goal is the fullness and the concrete. In religious life it is not
proper to want a minimum of Truth. I want more and more to grow into the
endless Truth, and I do not want be hindered by reaching for a meaningless
minimum. I cannot dissemble in the name of a unification with other Confessions
as if I would only believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, and would think all
the rest to be irrelevant. I can only want that all should come to fullness and
harmonic unity. I must desire that all Protestants come to feel at home
venerating the Mother of God, or that the Mystery of the Trinity becomes the
basis of the religious life of the whole Christian world. But Catholic
maximalism is on the wrong path, if it leads to intolerance and exclusiveness,
because of a compulsory (5) external organized unity, the Roman universalism.
One must understand ecumenism in the maximum inwardly, spiritually, bound up
with freedom. Growing into the ecumenical fullness of the Truth of Christ is an
inner, hidden, organic process. And this inner spiritual growing into the
ecumenical fullness of Truth cannot be conceived without the freedom of the
Spirit. Here compulsion is out of place. Peoples must enter freely into the
elevated spiritual life, the life in the Truth, in the Holy Spirit. The working
of the Holy Spirit is always a working from out of freedom, never compulsion
and violence. Complicated and manifold are human paths to the [p. 13] fullness
of Truth, to a higher life of the spirit. And the reason for our tolerance
toward other Confessions cannot be that we are indifferent to the fullness of
Truth and its exclusivity (Truth excludes lie), but that we conduct ourselves
diligently and compassionately to the inner life of the human soul, to its way,
difficulties, to its special fate, and that we have also the consciousness of
our own limits. The idea of ecumenism must have connection to the idea of
freedom. Only in this case will it be true and open the way to unification of
the Christian world. Freedom of spirit, freedom of conscience is a great
treasure and a sanctuary on the pathway of man to God and to the spiritual
life. This cannot exist without freedom, without it God cannot reveal Himself
to man and be accepted by him. Therefore a compulsory universalism is
impossible.
The striving for unity and ecumenicity, which has to begin and is
already taking root in all parts of the Christian world, must necessarily not
have the forms of an aiming at unity of Churches, based on ecclesiastical
treaties and Unias. This is most fruitless a method of unification, which in
practice normally leads to becoming yet more deeply splintered. Here the intent
for unification is not sincere. Secretly each faction understands union as
entry to its own Church. There is only one Church, not several Churches.
And de facto the schism was not in the Church of Christ, but in
sinful humankind, in the kingdom of this world, in the kingdom of Caesar. And
the restoration of Christian unity does not consist in unifying the Churches,
but rather in reunion of the splintered parts of Christian humankind. All
parties are guilty of the schism between Christians. Even when I am convinced
that the dogmatic Truth is with Orthodoxy, I must still however feel the guilt
which is on us, Christians of the Orthodox East. Also with us there was a lack
of love, self-assertion, aloofness, an aversion to engage a spiritual world
which seems to be something strange, also with us there was the ecclesiastical
nationalism and particularism, there was the recoursing to the typical
confessionalism. Reunion and [p. 14] union of the Christian world must begin
with community and unification of Christians of all Confessions, with mutual
respect and love, with an inner universal spiritual attitude. All must begin
with spiritual life, with spiritual unity, and it must work from inside
outwards. Unification of the Churches can only be a work of the Holy Spirit.
But we can prepare this work spiritually in our human part, we can create a
favorable spiritual soil. Christian unity must not begin with negotiation of
Church governances, but with a spiritual unification of Christians, with
forming a Christian friendly association, which is possible while also
remaining true to one's own creed. And such an association is even therein that
case the more interesting and fruitful, when Christians remain true to their
personal confessional spiritual type, without becoming abstract
inter-confessionalists. Only on this way is a growing into an ecumenical
Supra-Confessionality possible.
I believe that Orthodoxy is the best spiritual field for an ecumenical
Christian unity. It may be that the historical differences between Catholicism
and Protestantism have become weaker in our day, but in spite of this both
represent opposite principles, and both are divided by important historical
memories. But Orthodoxy has, in having overcome the slippery slide into
particularism and old-believing [old-ritualism], the potential for ecumenism
and fullness, which can serve to the reunion of the Christian world. In
Orthodoxy there is a degree of spiritual freedom, lacking in Catholicism, in it
there is the unity of Church, ecumenicism in its qualitative meaning. The
Christian world has facing it truly the very task to reunite freedom and
ecumenism. Protestantism is in a crisis, and inwardly in its community there is
to be seen a striving for the fullness of the Church, for the sacraments. Papal
authority hinders Protestantism from returning to Catholicism, because the
Protestant world does not want to give up that religious freedom in
whose name it protested formerly. But the Orthodox Church acknowledges in
principle religious free- [p. 15] dom, and this religious freedom in Orthodoxy
does not lead to the corrosion of ecclesiastical dogmas and sacraments. Tyrrell
(6), the most distinct "modernist", in his book "Am I Catholic?",
which is in reply to Cardinal Mercier, considers the Church from a point of
view, which is in no way Catholic, but is also not Protestant, in contrast with
the declarations of the official Catholicism. The approach of Tyrrell is
Orthodox in spite of the fact that he himself does not know this (though at
times he refers to the Orthodox Church). He does not set Protestant
individualism against the Catholic authoritative doctrine of the Church, but
sets forth rather a peculiar spiritual collectivism, what we Orthodox call
"Catholicity", "Sobornost'" (7). Also the position of
Doellinger was Orthodox. There is a dilemma for the official and genuine
Catholic consciousness: a matter either of the authority of the pope or the
authority of each single Christian, i.e. papism or individualism. But there is
also a third point of view: the authority (the inner, but not the external) of
the whole Church as an organic whole, a spiritually collective concept, i.e. a
Catholicity which has not at all an adequate juristic expression. Catholicity
is chiefly even the ecclesiastical consciousness. From the Orthodox point of
view, papism also is a form of individualism, and it detracts from the organic
ecclesiastical consciousness. Orthodoxy presents most clearly the
spiritual-organic view of the Church as the Body of Christ, Who is the source
of Truth.
Orthodoxy, first of all the Russian, has also another chacteristic which
is favorable for Christian unification. Orthodoxy is that form of Christianity
which most has an eschatological, apocalyptic character, which is most ardently
oriented to the Second Coming of Christ and the Kingdom of God. The
manifestation of the ecumenical unity of the Christian Churches and of the
Christian world is in the end only possible in an eschatological atmosphere,
only in concentrated meditation about the Second Coming, about the Coming
Christ. Only in a metahistoric apocalypsis will the historic discords be
removed. The unification of Churches is a supra-historical fact, a fact of an
eschatological order. Escha- [p. 16] tologism, of course, has a place also in
other Christian Confessions (I refer to Leon Bloy in Catholicism and Karl Barth
in Protestantism), but in Orthodoxy it is firmer and more intense. The
consciousness that Orthodoxy has the advantage to Christian unification, to
actualisation of ecumenism, should not hide for ourselves our sins, our
negative aspects. The Truth of the Orthodoxy was hidden under a basket [cf Mt
5:15], not developed and realized in life, it was closed off and we remained
complacent. The Western Christians were more active, and their Christianity was
more productive. But in spite of this, we are entering an epoch of a new
actualization of Christianity, an epoch of transformation of Christian Truth in
life. And Christian unification in itself, the embodiment of ecumenism per se,
is a transferring of Christian Truth into life. The Russian Orthodox Church has
at this time the advantage, to be a Church of martyrs and sufferers. The veils
of mundane and human lies are dropping from it. The spiritual forces to
unification of the Christian world are engaged in a fight against the formation
and amassing of anti-Christian powers. It is the rationalistic and juristic
aspect of the Church that divides us. Genuine spiritual life unites
us.
Notes
(1) The Eastern Church ("Die Ostkirche"), Una Sancta,
Stuttgart, 1927, Frommanns, 3-16. The Russian original (Klepinine #328) was not
published. Translated from Russian into German by W.A.Unkrig.
(2) This cannot be said about Roman Catholicism in general.
That was proved impressively in "Una Sancta" II (1926), p. 317-318
note. (The editors [Nicolas von Arseniev and Alfred von Martin]).
(3) And in our times by Otto Karrer. (The editors)
(4) Cf in this booklet, p. 89 ff. (The editors)
(5) Also here (cf. note 2) it cannot be generalized in an inadmissible
way. This is shown by the "Patres Unionis" of the Belgian abbey Amay
sur Meuse (and their journal "Irénikon"). (The editors)
(6) George Tyrrell (1861-1909), originally Anglican, after his
conversion a Jesuit, finally excommunicated. He was fighting against an
externalism of religion and against intellectualism. According to him, the
mystery is revealed to persons which meet Christ personally. Only the authority
of the whole spirit of a Church, which as it appears in its belief, not in its
dogmas, can be guiding principle of the faith. – Cardinal D.Mercier sees in
Tyrrell one of the leading exponents of "modernism". (Heinrich
Michael Knechten)
(7) In Russian useage is the distinction: "kafolicheskaia (=
vselenskaia, sobornaia) cerkov'", the Church as "catholic", in
contrast to "katolicheskaia (= rimskaia, papskaia) cerkov'", the
"Roman Catholic" Church. The difference consists in the letter
"f" ("the extinct "th" from Church Slavonic), instead
of "t". (Heinrich Michael Knechten)