Here is a letter I received from Daniel Francis Bonner:<\/p>\n
“I am very unhappy that your writer rules out the possibility of a Christianity should there be a “union” of Orthodoxy and Catholicism<\/a>. I am a Catholic with deep love for Orthodoxy and for Greek culture. I haltingly learned classical Greek (starting with Homer) on my own. Since I try to live an ascetic life inspired by Jesus and drawing from the Carmelites and from many excellent Orthodox theologians, I can only pray that division will dissolve one day in the way that the Blessed Trinity wants. You have a beautiful web site, full of wisdom. Thank you, thank you.”<\/p>\n Dear Daniel,<\/p>\n I too am unhappy that we have come to this point. However, here we are, and good sentiments are not enough for us to have a real union. We can and should study each other and co-operate, but a union needs some time, if it is going to be real. In the current multicultural environment all differences tend to be underestimated. Differences between Christians seem even less important from this point of view, which permitted our political union. Now that we have a united Europe, now is the time to be even more careful as regards the union of the Churches. We must explore the causes of our division and the consequences. We may be unhappy that we are divided, but we must also know the reasons and the extent of the division.<\/p>\n Some people think that it is just papal primacy that divides us. This is not true. The whole Church life and tradition divides us, and if we don\u2019t understand this, we will relativize our traditions to the degree that they will seem unimportant, leaving us united under a foggy concept, that all of us are just \u201cChristians\u201d. Church differences are not the same as secular differences (although they may be to some degree causes and\/or effects of the latter). We may have a thousand ways of secular painting \u2013 can we also have\u00a0a thousand\u00a0ways of Church painting? Can a cubist\u2019s (or Michelangelo’s) portrait of Christ, however great,\u00a0be considered Church painting? Why not?<\/strong> We must think on\u00a0these.<\/p>\n Even if the Pope decided to become absolutely Orthodox<\/a>, as I say in another post, this would not be enough for our traditions to be united. We must live together, work together, terminate the official \u2018theological\u2019 dialogues concerning our union, and let the union emerge, if it does, in the course of (much) time, naturally<\/em>, out of our common life.<\/p>\n The concept now prevailing among those who favour the union is roughly: first we are united in doctrine, and then we start living together. This is wrong. First we live together for a long time<\/strong>, and out of our common life and love our doctrinal union may some time be achieved, when our traditions will have recognized clearly what they should keep and what to abandon in many issues, not only in doctrines.<\/p>\n I won’t say that the Catholic tradition is inferior.\u00a0A tradition that gave Meister Eckhart<\/a> can not be inferior in any way whatever. Yet, it can forget its very self and become inferior, as the condemnation of Meister Eckhart<\/a> shows.\u00a0If ever\u00a0Meister Eckhart becomes the centre of your tradition, not at all by a papal decision, but in the whole life of the Catholic peoples,\u00a0as\u00a0in\u00a0the Orthodox peoples\u00a0the centre is in\u00a0St. Symeon the New Theologian<\/a> and in many other Fathers who enjoy direct and powerful experience of God, then our Churches will know that they can be united.<\/p>\n Imagine an Orthodox temple and\u00a0a Catholic, an Orthodox icon and\u00a0a Catholic, etc. We want them united<\/strong>, not side by side. If\u00a0we put them side by side it will be\u00a0an ugliness greater\u00a0than putting a pyramid in Acropolis, precisely\u00a0because their similarity is greater.<\/p>\n Cf. Catholic-Orthodox dialogue : Let us surpass each other in folly<\/a>\u00a0, The union with papacy \u2013 A Discussion<\/a>\u00a0, The union of the Churches is the best way to eliminate Christianity<\/a>\u00a0,\u00a0Protestant and Orthodox iconography<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here is a letter I received from Daniel Francis Bonner: “I am very unhappy that your writer rules out the possibility of a Christianity should there be a “union” of Orthodoxy and Catholicism. I am a Catholic with deep love for Orthodoxy and for Greek culture. I haltingly learned classical Greek (starting with Homer) on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_disable_autopaging":false},"categories":[9,10],"tags":[164,705,706,53,39,704,294,707],"class_list":["post-342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-orthodox-christianity","tag-catholicism","tag-church-painting","tag-multicultural-environment","tag-orthodoxy","tag-papacy","tag-papal-primacy","tag-union-of-the-churches","tag-united-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}