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Thursday, April 06, 2006

Ut Unum Sint?
Don't get your hopes up: Russian Orthodox says Pope should shed more titles.

Here are the titles His Excellency Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev would have the Holy Father shed and those he would have him keep:
    Hilarion objected to three of Benedict's eight remaining titles -- Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles and Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church -- because the Orthodox do not believe any cleric can claim such authority.

    The rest -- Bishop of Rome, Primate of Italy, Metropolitan Archbishop of the Roman Province, Sovereign of Vatican City and Servant of the Servants of God -- refer to more limited powers of the pope and do not clash with Orthodox views.
Back in my Anglo-Catholic days, I remember being struck by Kallistos Ware's assertion in The Orthodox Church that his co-churchmen viewed Catholics and Protestants as basically the same thing. I also think it was in this book that I read that during World War II, Orthodox Christian American servicemen had "Protestant" stamped on their dog-tags. If you want to insult a Catholic or Orthodox, it seems, call him a Protestant.

I hate to be less than œcumenical when it comes to the Orthodox, but, with all due respect, when I read His Excellency saying that "[o]nly renouncing titles stressing the universal jurisdiction of the pope, and the ecclesiological doctrine hidden behind that, would be a real step on the path toward reconciliation between the Orthodox and Catholic churches," the first thought that comes to mind was Protestantism. This could well be an over-reaction on my part, but when it comes to the Papacy, I am unabashed in my Ultramontanism.

If I were Pope or Patriarch, my œcumenical strategy would be to set these doctrinal differences aside for the time being and focus on re-evangelizing the world and fighting common enemies like militant secularism, which I think is being done.