This is a summary of my master degree dissertation. I hope you like it
Abstract
We believe that our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, is God the Son Incarnate, perfect in His divinity and perfect in His humanity. His divinity was not separated from His humanity for a single moment, not for the twinkling of an eye. His humanity is one with His divinity without commixtion, without confusion, without division, without separation. We in our common faith in the one Lord Jesus Christ regard His mystery inexhaustible and ineffable and for the human mind never fully comprehensible or expressible .
Pro Oriente (1993)
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are: the Armenian Apostolic Church; the Coptic Orthodox Church; the Ethiopian Orthodox Church; the Syrian Orthodox Church; the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church; and the Eritrean Orthodox Church. The common element among these churches is their rejection of the Christological definition of the Council of Chalcedon (451) presented by the Roman Catholic Church.
A wrong translation/interpretation of sensitive texts could lead even to wars. This article indicates to what extent translation/interpretation had a role in the Church schism, which would not have happened if there had been specialists in this field. How had the Church Fathers translated/interpreted those pagan Greek terms and texts from the Holy Bible in order to bring forth new dogmas?
For centuries, Greek language and culture had become a burden on the Church which took a lot from their philosophy. The terms used in Greek philosophy, regarding God/gods, eternity, infinity and creation, were dominating the teaching of the Church. De-Hellenization reached its peak in the fourth century when Gregory, bishop of Nyssa († 385) “proved the infinity of God contrary to the Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy and introduced this idea into the history of theology” . Moreover, the Council of Nicea (325 B.C.) brought the disengagement from the Middle Platonistic thought which had been adopted by Christian theologians in their disputes with paganism. The Church Fathers used Old Greek expressions to express their understanding of God the Father, the Incarnated Son and the Spirit of the Father and the Son.
The Church was confronted with new enemies from inside. The Church Fathers were suddenly before confessing their faith with the Greek terms they are accustomed to, such as ousia, hypostasis, physis and prosopon, of which “the Church was not so well versed”, Grillmeier says. Unfortunately, those terms were not suitable to define the Christ. An example of those threats which faced the Church was Arius, a presbyter in Alexandria, against whom the Council of Nicene (325) was called. Arius and his followers used Middle-Platonistic expressions, such as: The Monas (the “one”), referring to God the Father, the Logos/Nous/Pneuma (intermediate region between the uncreated and the created) to refer to the Son and the Hyle to refer to the World of Creation. Moreover, the Council of Ephesus (431) was called in order to discuss the heresy of Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople then, who also came with new teachings. This Council was the last Ecumenical one, for the Church split twenty years later.
There was no need for the Church to put down its faith on paper. However, suddenly it was forced to do that, using terms and concepts that had been used by pagans. That situation was totally new for the Church Fathers/theologians of that time. Some of them tried to translate/interpret those terms, but later on it seemed that they failed. They gave unintentionally a different meaning. An example to this, when Cyril began to oppose Nestorius in 429, he came across certain texts which were understood as follows: in Christ there is “one incarnate nature of the God-Logos” (miaphysitism). This caused many misunderstandings. However, he had previously professed to Christ’s complete humanity with body and soul. This means that the Church Fathers began, since the fourth century, to study those terms/concepts academically. Even so, most of them failed to give close expressions to what they intended to interpret. Those new theological terms were interpreted differently. That led to the rise of new definitions and expressions separately, i.e. each part did that without conferring the other. And each side thought that he was right. As a result, having read the definitions of the Western part of the Church, the Eastern Church boycotted the Council of Chalcedon (451), considering that the interpretation of the Western Church regarding the Christ had the sense of Nestorianism.
Since the schism in 451, each denomination has gone its own way in putting its own laws and/or setting new dogmas without consulting the other parts. This led to the appearance of new teachings which have not been accepted by the other. Therefore, the cleft between the Christians has become wider and wider. Hatred prevailed, which even led to real wars. Now, the differences between the two sister churches can be summarized as follows:
- The nature of the Lord Jesus;
- The primacy of the Bishop of Rome over the Universal Church;
- The infallibility of the pope;
- The procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son;
- The Immaculate Conception of St. Mary;
- Purgatory;
- The primacy of Peter the Apostle;
- Church punishments;
- Indulgences;
- Pouring or sprinkling water instead of immersing the whole body during baptism;
- Postponing the rite of confirmation to the 10th grade age;;
- Using unleavened instead of leavened bread in the Eucharist;
- Depriving children of their right in receiving the Holy Communion;
- Souls entrance into heaven before the Last Day;
- fasting: eating meat, dairy and eggs on Wednesdays and Fridays during the forty-days fasting and round the whole year and fasting on Saturdays;
- Eating the strangled and blood;
- Forbidding divorce in case of adultery;
- Forbidding the priests from marriage;
- Forbidding seculars from obtaining and/or reading the Holy Bible;
- Giving the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick only before death;
- Putting statues in church instead of icons;
- Restricting the administration and consecration of the Sacrament of Confirmation only to the bishops;
- Worshipping saints;
- Intinction: the administration of the Eucharist by dipping the host into the wine.
Now, after more than fifteen centuries, the two sister churches have come together to the table of negotiation. The year 1971 was the spark for an unofficial dialogue requested by the Roman Catholic bishop of Vienna, Austria, Cardinal F. König who founded the Pro Oriente Foundation in 1964. These unofficial consultations lasted from 1971 to 1988 and produced several agreements. The most important one was a new Christological definition regarding the person of the Christ (see the abstract above). The participants found out that both sides have had the same faith in the nature of the Christ. They discovered that what had separated them was that each one defined his faith in his own words, but the essence was one. They agreed that the Church could have avoided the schism if the Old Church Fathers had met together in order to comprehend each other’s point of view.
The official dialogue between the two Churches began in the year 2004. There are still so many points to be negotiated on. The first one to start with was the primacy of the Bishop of Rome over the Universal Church. The first round of this official dialogue reached a dead way.
In 1993, Bishop Krikorian , Armenian Orthodox, emphasized that “in the first millennium the popes claimed as their right to confirm the decisions of the Councils. In the second millennium the situation changed completely and the pope became the powerful Lord and monarchical Head of the Council which rightly are called Papal Councils” (p. 42-46). The Catholic viewpoint considers Primacy as “not to be seen in terms of power, but in terms of service”, according to father Jean Tillard Op .
The Orthodox side has formulated a solution to the problem of Primacy. Amba Gregorios , Copt Orthodox, suggests “a consultant universal body in which all primates sit together as equals and as brothers…..The head of this body universal could be the Bishop of Rome once, could be the Bishop of Alexandria for another time, or could be the Bishop of Antioch or the Catholicos of all Armenians or another” (p. 230). Amba Bishoy says that “St. Peter founded the church of Antioch, too. Why it is not Antioch the throne of Primacy?”
Moreover, the Oriental Orthodox Family believes that the primacy, or authority, over all the churches should not be in the hands of one See. Equality should prevail for a full communion with each others. They also “venerate the tombs of Peter and Paul at Rome, as they venerate tombs of other Apostles and Martyrs. This makes Rome a high centre of pilgrimage. But according to them, the primatial Sees did not develop in relation to the tomb of any particular Apostle. If tombs and places of martyrdom are to be graded at all, the first honour would go certainly to the empty tomb in Jerusalem.”
