Metropolitan Kirill and the problem of the union of the churches
Posted on 11/13/06 in Europe - West,News,Orthodox Christianity
Reference Address: http://www.ellopos.com/blog/?p=131
All the churches want to give Europe a soul and a face, yet this task does not and should not be preceded by doctrinal union. Even if this is not clear, since the prospect of doctrinal union divides the Orthodox peoples, it can not be maintained. However, denial of doctrinal union is not without reason, on the contrary: after the formation of countless differences in the Christian traditions, a superficial agreement on some doctrines will render relative all the other differences, everything that so many centuries struggled to preserve and give to us. This way the very intention of the ‘unionists’ to help the european peoples will lose its meaning, as Orthodoxy will lose its meaning.
The Churches need one, two or maybe more centuries of contact, co-opeeration and common life if they are to form naturally, without bias, internally and essentially, the preconditions of a real union. During this period their differences, beyond negotiations, without even thinking of a doctrinal union, will contribute to their common life, they won’t undermine it – if there is indeed a real will for common life. If doctrinal union is a necessary precondition of contact and co-operation, how then are we going to have good relationships and co-operation with non-Christian traditions?
Doctrines are the peak of the mountain, you can not change them in order to move the mountain, they come from it and they are based on it: if you change them at will in gatherings of today, instead of moving the mountain you will have a cloud instead of a faith, a faith without body, an artificial faith that no one shares. Tradition is not something you can choose: it chooses and creates you. First we will live together and prove in our common life what we feel for each other, and then, in the course of time, we will, hopefully, reach also doctrinal union.
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They insult our culture and education.
Here is what metropolitan Nicholas of Fthiotis in Greece says: “our age, with multiculturalism, communication and co-operation of peoples, brings the world very close geographically. We are not excused anymore to remain fanatics provincials, enclosed to the boundaries of the past and indifferent to the cosmogony of communication that is happening around us” (Encyclical of Christmas 2006).
Nicholas says then, that the Orthodox Church was until now fanatic and provincial, and that this same church, despite her fanatical fathers and provincial tradition, will be transformed into an open and ecumenical organism, thanks to multiculturalism and global communication!
They despise what they say they protect, all our tradition. They fail to interpret history, they fail to recognise the testimony of our fathers, they fail to understand the feelings of Orthodox peoples… God save us from such bishops!