Theological Dialogue and Practical Co-operation among Churches
Speech of His Beatitude DANIEL, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, delivered within the framework of the forum on the theme “Christian Unity and Love for the Poor”, Munich, Germany, Monday, 12 September 2011:
Unity or visible communion among Christians is a wish and a demand of Jesus Christ, our Saviour, who prayed for this unity before His Passions and Resurrection, saying: “that all of them may be one…so that the world may believe” (John 17:21).
After centuries of separation, polemics and mutual alienation among Christians, the Ecumenical Movement for the re-establishment of the visible unity among Christians has become a specific characteristic of the 20th century, especially after the setting up of the World Council of Churches in 1948 and after II Vatican Council (1962–1965). Beyond its successes and failures, this movement is essentially a change of attitude or a new state of mind, because in the relations among various Churches, older or newer, they passed from polemics to dialogue, from confrontation to co-operation and from isolation to solidarity. Although the initial enthusiasm for the theological dialogue and common ecumenical prayer diminished during the last 20 years, the ecumenical attitude has become a norm of behaviour among Churches. For certain Christians, the enthusiast Ecumenical Movement from the middle of the 20th century was too fast endangering the theological spiritual identity of various Christian Churches or confessions. Other reticent cautious Christians suspected that it could promote doctrinal, sacramental or even ethic relativism. For some others, the ecumenical movement was too slow, because the unity between the Churches that had been separated for centuries was not yet achieved. Therefore, the enthusiasm for the Ecumenical Movement in the 1960s was gradually replaced with certain prudence or even reticence.
In this context, one can notice, in general, with few exceptions, that the results of the bilateral theological dialogues between Churches at international level were not received completely by the official Churches represented by their theologians in dialogue and had no major impact in the religious communities.
Therefore, an evaluation of these theological dialogues by every Church, as well as a new approach is needed. The inter-confessional theological dialogues at international level have tried for several decades to clarify the disagreements in doctrine and ecclesiastic organisation inherited from the past. Although some of the results of the Commissions of Dialogue have been encouraging, yet, the Christian communities have not perceived them as very relevant for the daily life and neither the official Churches used them as basis for new steps for achieving Christian unity, but remained rather visible signs of a benevolent attitude in the relations among the Churches engaged in dialogue.
The Orthodox Church, especially the Ecumenical Patriarchate, has participated as far back as 1920, with responsibility and hope, in this Ecumenical Movement for the restoration of Christian unity, because it was convinced that it could present the Uninterrupted Apostolic Tradition as basis or pivot of the ecumenical dialogue, namely the living witness of the uninterrupted historical continuity of the Church of the Holy Fathers and of the Ecumenical Councils in the first millennium of the Christian era, when the majority of the Christians from East and West constituted the only one Church. However, when the interest for the restoration of Christian unity on the basis of the common Apostolic Tradition diminished in the Ecumenical Movement and some innovations appeared in the Anglican Church and in the Protestant Churches concerning the pastoral ministry, the attitude of many Orthodox towards the Ecumenical Movement had become reticent and even critical. In this context of the diminishing of the efficiency or relevance of the bilateral theological dialogues, new priorities for the life of many Orthodox Churches appeared. The fall of the communist regime in Eastern Europe, the secularisation and the migration phenomena and the present economic crisis make the Churches be less interested in an academic theological dialogue and more inclined to a practical co-operation from pastoral and social point of view, as manifestation of the ecumenical dialogue of charity or of the brotherly love in Christ. This practical co-operation concerning concrete pastoral social situations can be easier perceived and appreciated by the local Christian communities, than the academic theological dialogue of the last two or three decades.
For example, new issues like the phenomenon of migration, the crisis of the Christian traditional family, unemployment, poverty, disease and sufferance are not included on the agenda of the official theological dialogues among Churches held during the last decades. Certainly, such themes have often been the subject of some short ecumenical meetings, conferences or seminars; yet, they were perceived as being organised more in order to give a common Christian answer to some current problems in society, rather than for representing a major contribution to the effort to the restoration of Christian unity on the basis of a common faith. Unlike the academic ecumenism of the official theological dialogues, the existential ecumenism of charity in the pastoral and social areas is manifested through common actions, which establish a living relationship between the text of the Gospel and the social context in which Christians of different confessions or ethnic groups live together. In this sense, the experience of the fraternal and friendly co-operation between the Romanian Orthodox communities of Italy, which numbers over one million faithful, and the Roman Catholic communities in the same country is very beneficial and relevant. This ecumenical co-operation in the pastoral and social fields concerning the organisation of liturgical spaces and help given to sick poor immigrants can be one more motivation for intensifying the fraternal communion between our Churches. Through the ecumenical co-operation, one can see that the Holy Spirit blows wherever He pleases (cf. John 3:8), but He never stops His work, so that what may seem to signal sometimes a diminishing of the enthusiasm for Christian unity, may be only a period of “germination” for a new common missionary work in a fast changing world! Very often God speaks to us through new surprising situations, although sometimes difficult and hard to understand for us, with the aim that we may give, together, a positive meaning to these unforeseen situations on the basis of the common Christian faith. Thus, even a crisis situation can be transformed into an appeal to practical creativity and into a common witness expressed through acts of charity in the concrete world we live in today.
For the poor, sick, lonely and confused people, the practical dialogue of charity or of Christian fraternal love is the most direct way to perceive that the Churches are in ecumenical movement and co-operation, i.e. in common fraternal action.
We express our thanks to Sant’Egidio Community for its contribution to the promotion of the deep relation between spiritual life and social action, between ecclesial family and the family of the peoples, between the theological dialogue of the truth of faith and the dialogue of Christian love or of charity. We also thank the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church in Germany, especially those from Bavaria, where we are now, for their practical ecumenical attitude in the support granted to the Orthodox communities in Germany, that need help in organising themselves and in meeting the pastoral needs of the Orthodox faithful, wishing to keep their religious identity and, at the same time, to integrate in the life of the German society.
Finally, we must mention that we do not lose our identity through practical ecumenical co-operation, but we enrich it, because we affirm it not in isolation from other Christians, but in dialogue with them, not against them, but together with them. Thus, mutual knowledge and aid in the spiritual and social field are already stages of the work for Christian unity!
† DANIEL
Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church
