long to rip the document. Ambiguity and theologians are identical twins when it comes to words. Given church politics I wonder if the ROC was really that upset at Estonian being there or was it a pretext to allow the MP to opt out of the discussion and provide an opportunity to override anything he didn’t like at a latter day and save face.
The document was not signed by the representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate as they abandoned one of the first Commission’s sessions in Ravenna in October this year. They disagreed about a participation of the so-called “Estonian Apostolic Church” established by the Constantinople Patriarchate on the Russian Church’s canonical territory in 1996.
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Bishop Kevin W. Vann
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This is why all such ventures are ultimately moot.
The Pope can say he’s got the authority and should be the proper nexus for reunion all he wants, but the unity is already broken. Just as one cannot unring a bell, in the same way, when the very atmosphere is pervaded with a spirit of ecclesial autonomy, one cannot really expect a whole communion to turn its swords into plowshares just because a few churchmen are feeling particularly ecumenical and irenic.
There is no way, short of our Lord’s return, for men to forge any lasting reunion. We’re sinners, sinners don’t join together, we fracture and fragment; it’s what we do.
Until then, the best we can hope for, I am afraid, is a little more gentle dealing with one another and some commonality of cause on the big moral issues of our day.
Mike,
I can but echo Pope Joh Paul II from Ut unum sint
I do not believe that we are called to division, I do not believe Jesus prayer on the His last day on earth will go unfilled.
Those who started the Great schism are dust, just as those who started the reformation and counter reformation are dust.
But is this not movement in the right direction?
Could a Lutheran and Catholic even consider working together for a common cause in the 16th,17th,18th or 19th centuries?