SOBORNOST:"". enor incorporating EASTERN CHURCHES REVIEW volume! number! 1979 EDITORIAL BOARD SERGE! HACKEL editor NORMAN RUSSELL reviews editor, SEBASTIAN BROCK, ROBERT MURRAY, KALLISTOS WARE and HUGH \/YBREW with the Fellowship’s Secretary St Basil's House, 52 Ladbroke Grove, London W/II 2PB uaOrthodoxy and the World Council of Churches KALLISTOS WARE Essential Documentation Members of the Fellowship will find muchto interest them in a recent publication from Geneva: The Orthodox Church in the Ecumenical Movement, Documents and Statements 1902-1975, edited by Constantin G. Patelos (Geneva: WCC 1979, pp.360, £8.25). Here, collected for the first time into one volume, is all the basic source-material concerning the role of Orthodoxy within the Faith and Order Movement and the World Council of Churches. The book is especially timely, coming as it does at a moment of self-questioning, when many Orthodox are seriously asking whether their Church can or should continue as a full member of the WCC. The documentation in this carefully edited work, prepared by a Greek who is a WCC staff member, shows what kind of witness Orthodox Christians have in fact borne at the major ‘ecumenical’ conferences since the first world war. Some of the material here has never previously been published, or else had appeared only in Greek; the rest is scattered in different periodicals or in books now mostly out of print. Dr Patelos wisely restricts himself to a minimum of editorial comment, leaving the sources to speak for themselves, The book has four sections. Part 1 (42 pages) contains official Patriarchal letters on inter-Church relations, starting with the encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarch Joachim II (1902). Dr Patelos should perhaps have included the reply to this, sent by the Holy Synod of the Russian Church in 1903, of which there exists an English translation made by W.J. Birkbeck: see Athelstan Riley (ed.), Birkbeck and the Russian Church (London 1917), pp.247-57. It is significant that in this reply the Russian Synod speaks of the need for ‘special assemblies of Orthodox Bishops, and especially of the chief representatives of the Churches’. Thus it is evident that, at the very start of the century, the Orthodox were already thinking in terms of ‘Pan- Orthodox Conferences’ and of a ‘Great and Holy Council’, although this precise terminology is not as yet employed. Admittedly the Russian bishops conclude that for the time being such ‘special assemblies’ are impracticable for political reasons; but at least the idea is there. Among subsequent Patriarchal letters are the famous 1920 Encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, proposing a ‘League of Churches’ parallel to the League of Nations; the 1952 Encyclical of Patriarch Athenagoras, advising Orthodox clergy at ecumenical gatherings to ‘be as careful as possible about services of worship in which they join with the heterodox, as these are contrary to the sacred canons and 74Russian Orthodox representatives at the WCC Protopresbyter Vitalii Borovoi (right) and Archbishop Kirill of Vyborg (Photo: WCC Geneva) 75KALLISTOS WARE make less acute the confessional sensitiveness of the Orthodox’ (p.46); and, more recently, the Message of Patriarch Pimen of Moscow to the Central Committee of the WCC, and the Declaration of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the WCC, both dating from 1973. These last two statements criticize the WCC for excessive ‘horizontalism’, for neglecting the dimension of ‘eternal life in God’, and for becoming involved in political movements which are in no sense ‘Churches’. Spokesmen for the WCC argue in their replies (also included here): ‘It is pointless to oppose vertical and horizontal. Jesus Christ Himself has kept both together when He gave to His disciples the double commandment to love God and neighbour’ (p.67). Part II (only 4 pages) gives the text of resolutions made at the First and Fourth Pan-Orthodox Conferences (Rhodes, 1961 ;Chambésy, 1968). Part III (48 pages) consists of statements submitted by the Orthodox delegations at, or in preparation for, the major international conferences. This is in many ways the most interesting section of the book. Particularly important is the double memorandum submitted at Evanston (1954), in which one may surely detect the hand of Fr George Florovsky. I regretted the omission of the valuable Orthodox statement at Oberlin (1957): for the text of this, see R.G. Stephanopoulos, Guide- lines for Orthodox Christians in Ecumenical Relations (no place or date:?New York 1974), pp.48-9. Some of the statements in Part III display a curiously defensive attitude. This is evident above all in the declaration made at Lund (1952). The Orthodox delegates say that they are under instructions ‘not to be involved in dogmatical disputes’; they will ‘be ready to give information on questions relative to the teaching of our Church but not to express their opinions or even the opinion of our Church on the teaching of your Churches’ (pp.88-9). This is in effect a refusal to engage in theo- logical dialogue. Fortunately the Orthodox have never in practice adhered strictly to this line, as most of the documents in this book clearly indicate. The last occasion on which the Orthodox submitted a separate statement at a major WCC assembly was at New Delhi in 1961. Dr Patelos comments that the New Delhi Orthodox statement ‘was prepared and distributed among the participants in the section dealing with the questions of the unity of the Church, but was not included in the official report’ (p.77). One wonders why it was not included. Was it because the Orthodox did not ask for this to be done, or because the authorities of the WCC declined to publish it?Dr Patelos also states: ‘After New Delhi, the Orthodox delegates no longer felt the need for submitting separate statements’ (ibid.). Again one wonders why. Was it because they fully agreed with the resolutions taken at the later assemblies, or because they knew in advance that any separate Orthodox statement would be denied publicity and excluded from the official report? Part IV (by far the longest: 225 pages) contains personal statements by individual Orthodox theologians. Whereas Parts L-II] aim to be so far as possible complete, 16ORTHODOXY AND THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES Part IV is of course only a selection. Most of the ‘pioneers’ are here, such as Metropolitan Germanos of Thyateira, Prof. Zankow (sic), Fr Bulgakow (sic), Fr Florovsky, Prof. H. Alivisatos (but not Prof. L. Zander); also, among more recent figures, Metropolitan Meliton of Chalcedon, Archbishop Iakovos of America, Metropolitan Ignatios Hazim, Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, Prof. Nikos Nissiotis and Fr John Meyendorff. Dr Patelos has made on the whole a fair and balanced choice. It is a pity, however, that no statement has been included explaining the Orthodox standpoint on intercommunion; the matter is briefly mentioned in passing, but nowhere is there a clear presentation of the doctrinal grounds on which Orthodoxy rejects intercommunion. Surely more space should have been given to this basic ecumenical issue, where the Orthodox view conflicts sharply with that of the majority in the WCC. It would not have been difficult to find a suitable state- ment, such as the essay by Fr Florovsky, ‘Terms of Communion in the Undivided Church’, in the WCC collective volume Jntercommunion (London 1952). Readers of The Orthodox Church in the Ecumenical Movement will notice how, in documents drafted by the central administration of the WCC, there can be detected a kind of ‘ecumenical orthography and punctuation’ with definite doctrinal undertones. Thus the word ‘Church’, meaning the ‘invisible Church’ or the reunited ‘great Church’ of the future, is spelt with an initial capital, whereas the ecclesial communities at present making up the divided Christian world appear in lower case as ‘churches’. Lurking behind this usage is an implicit ecclesiology which we Orthodox, at any rate, can scarcely accept in good conscience. Orthodoxy, like Rome, claims to be not ‘a church’ but ‘the Church’. Has it all been worthwhile? Laying down this volume, we ask ourselves: Has it all been worthwhile? First, what positive effect has Orthodox participation in the Faith and Order Movement and the WCC had upon the other members? Secvudly, how far have the Orthodox Churches in their turn benefitted theologically and spiritually from their links with the WCC? (There is no doubt that many of them have benefitted financially!) And, thirdly, have recent changes in the spirit and methods of the WCC rendered it no longer possible for Orthodoxy to play the kind of role that it once fulfilled? What effect, then, has Orthodox participation had upon the WCC? First and most obviously, the presence of Orthodox — and to a lesser degree of Old Catholics and High Church Anglicans — has prevented. the WCC from being simply a pan- Protestant federation. The Orthodox have obliged the Protestant majority to keep constantly in view an understanding of church unity and tradition very different from that prevailing in modern liberal Protestantism. As the General Secretary of the WCC, Dr Philip Potter, observes in his foreword to the present book: ‘The Orthodox have enabled us to take seriously the ecclesiological nature of the World Council and of our being together in the ecumenical movement’ (p.9). Not that this is quite the way in which most Orthodox would express the matter, for the ‘eccle- 77KALLISTOS WARE siological nature’ of the WCC is precisely what they call in question. Dr Potter also mentions other consequences of the Orthodox presence for the WCC as a whole: in particular, greater emphasis upon the doctrine of the Trinity, upon the ‘tradition of the Fathers’, and upon the ‘inner meaning of theosis’, The Orthodox, he says, have likewise contributed their ‘liturgical richness’ and their ‘spirituality’ (p.10). Secondly, what effect has participation in the WCC had upon the Orthodox? Above all it has helped to bring them out from their religious and cultural isolation, obliging them to take account of the genuine ecclesial reality of non-Orthodox communions. (Of course other factors have also contributed to this, in particular large-scale emigration from the traditional Orthodox countries.) Orthodox delegates at the WCC, as can be seen from the statements in Part III of the present book, have consistently upheld the view that Orthodoxy is the one true Church of Christ on earth; but their experience in the WCC has meant that they can no longer affirm this in stark and unqualified terms, putting non-Orthodox on a level with unbaptized pagans. But membership in the WCC, as well as enabling the Orthodox to meet other Christians, has also helped them to rediscover one another. At the assemblies of Faith and Order and the WCC, the Orthodox delegates found all too often that they arrived as strangers to each other, mutually suspicious, ill-prepared to speak with a single voice. They perceived that one of the chief obstacles to a more dynamic Orthodox witness in the Western world was their lack of contact among themselves. The idea of a pan-Orthodox ‘Great and Holy Council’ dates back, as we have noted, to the early years of this century, before the start of the Faith and Order conferences. But participation in the ‘Ecumenical Movement’ has given to these Orthodox plans an impetus and urgency that otherwise they would have lacked. Probably a greater stimulus has been provided here by WCC membership than by the example of Vatican II, although that also has played its part. Coming now to our third question, we ask: What of the future? During the 1970s Orthodox have shown a growing dissatisfaction with present tendencies in the WCC, Matters have recently come to a head in relations between the WCC and the Church of Greece. During May 1978, after visiting the Ecumenical Patriarch, Dr Potter and Archbishop Scott, the Chairman of the Central Committee of the WCC, went to Athens for discussions there with the Synodical Commission on Inter-Orthodox and Inter-Christian Relations. It seems that the explanations offered from the side of the WCC totally failed to meet the Greek Orthodox objec- tions. In an interview with the New York Times, Archbishop Seraphim of Athens stated that the Church of Greece was now considering withdrawal from member- ship in the WCC (see Jrénikon li; 2 [1978] , p.240). Orthodox elsewhere are thinking along the same tines as Archbishop Seraphim. Speaking to the Clergy Conference of the Greek Archdiocese on 7 November 1978, Archbishop Athenagoras of Thyateira and Great Britain likewise argued that Ortho- doxy should withdraw from full membership of the WCC. In his view the Orthodox 78SANK, J Patriarch German of Serbia (a president of the WCC 1968-75) v he is welcomed by the Institute’s (Orthodox) Director, Dr N. Nissiotis (right) (Photo: WCC Geneva)KALLISTOS WARE Church ought to have the same relation with the WCC as the Roman Catholic Church has: the Orthodox, that is to say, should send observers to WCC meetings and participate in discussions, but without voting and without being organic members of the World Council. There is much to be said for the Archbishop’s proposal. Ecclesiologically Orthodoxy and Rome adopt a similar stance, for each alike claims to be the one true Catholic Church. If, on the basis of this conviction, Rome declines to accept organic membership in the WCC but seeks to have a ‘special relation’, should not the Orthodox do the same? Orthodoxy prays con- tinually for the ‘unity of all’, but like Rome it cannot accept to be simply a minority voice within an overwhelmingly Protestant majority. Church Unity or secular Politics? Let us look more carefully at the reasons for the present Orthodox disquiet. There is, first, the problem of the financial support given by the WCC to African liberation movements, Large numbers of Orthodox are profoundly shocked by the ‘theology of violence’ which is used to justify this. The WCC, so it seems to them, has been deflected from its primary purpose, which is to be a fellowship of Christian communities seeking doctrinal, spiritual and sacramental unity, and it has become more and more absorbed in social and political aims. While the WCC is rightly con- cerned with the whole man, and while there should therefore be no opposition between the ‘vertical’ and the ‘horizontal’, yet at the same time the WCC is speci- fically a Council of Churches, and as such should not involve itself directly in secular politics. Anxiety on this point was expressed in the 1973 Declaration of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the WCC (see The Orthodox Church in the Ecumenical Movement, p.63). Events in the WCC during the five years since then have very greatly increased Orthodox misgivings and dis- illusionment. The WCC seems to grow more and more secularized. It appears to have fundamentally altered its character over the past two decades, and Orthodox wonder if it is any longer the kind of organization that as Christians they can or should support. But Orthodox discontent is not limited to the question of political involvement. More broadly there is a feeling that the position of the Orthodox Church within the WCC is being systematically eroded. Although participants from the start in the Faith and Order Movement, the Orthodox now find themselves pushed out to the periphery and ‘marginalized’. Before the war, and even in the 1950s, they had a far greater influence than they now possess. (The same could be said of Anglican influence within the WCC.) With the constant increase in the number of Protestant member Churches — some of them very small in size, and of recent foundation — the proportion of Orthodox delegates grows less and less. Reports expressing an Orthodox viewpoint, so it is claimed, are largely ignored. At the major assemblies the agenda and resolutions are drafted in a Protestant perspective and terminology, which the Orthodox find alien and tendentious, even when it does not openly 80ORTHODOXY AND THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES conflict with Orthodox teaching. The policy of the WCC is determined by a small élite, and in this ‘ruling oligarchy’ the Orthodox have no effective voice. In short, so the critics maintain, Orthodoxy has been reduced to a situation of frustration and impotence within the WCC. Particular resentment has been felt when Orthodox Churches have nominated representatives for WCC commissions, and have then been informed by the nomi- nating committee that the persons in question are not acceptable. Such rejection, although allowed by the constitution of the WCC, impairs the autonomy of the member Churches. Since the WCC is not a ‘super-Church’ but a league or fellowship of Churches, it is surely the right of each member Church to decide for itself who is best qualified to represent it. It would be unthinkable for the central executive of the United Nations to dictate to member states who their representatives should be. Why, then, does this happen in the WCC? By no means all Orthodox, however, accept these criticisms in their entirety. Several Orthodox delegates at Nairobi (1975) have assured me personally that, in their experience, the Orthodox contributions at the conference were heard with close interest and attention. When, as at New Valamo in September 1977 (see ECR x [1978], pp.141-4), the Orthodox have prepared a carefully argued statement, it has been widely noted. Again and again the Protestant leaders in the World Council have insisted that they would welcome a fuller Orthodox presence at every level in the WCC. If questions are being posed in a predominantly Protestant way, then it is up to the Orthodox to suggest in positive terms some alternative approach. It is true that there are only a few Orthodox working permanently on the central staff of the WCC; but the responsibility here lies primarily with the Orthodox themselves, who fail to provide a sufficient number of qualified persons willing to take part full- time in WCC work. The right course, so the Orthodox in favour of continued membership would conclude, is not withdrawal from the WCC but strengthened participation. An Orthodox absence achieves nothing: what is needed is a more effective Orthodox presence. Perhaps the difference between Orthodox critics and Orthodox supporters of the WCC is not as wide as it seems. Most of the critics do not propose total withdrawal from all WCC projects, but merely revised terms of membership, a more detached status, such as would enable them to express their Orthodox stance, but at the same time to dissociate themselves — much more decisively than is at present possible — from majority decisions unacceptable to the Orthodox conscience. Bypassing the WCC The ‘Ecumenical Movement’ is of course by no means restricted to the World Council of Churches, Whether or not the Orthodox continue as full members of the WCC, their ‘ecumenical’ relations are today far less dependent upon Geneva than was once the case. Because of decisions taken at the first Pan-Orthodox Conference (Rhodes 1961) and subsequently, the Orthodox have now started direct discussions 81KALLISTOS WARE, on an official, world-wide level with other Churches — with the non-Chalcedonian Orthodox, the Old Catholics, the Anglicans, the Lutherans, and most recently with Rome. Certainly, the experience gained over the past half-century through parti- cipation in the Faith and Order Movement and the WCC has greatly helped the Orthodox to prepare themselves for these direct dialogues; indeed, in the case of the dialogue with the non-Chalcedonians, the WCC assisted actively in arrangements for the initial meetings. But, while conscious of their past debt to the WCC, most Orthodox today feel that more positive results are likely to be attained through these direct, bilateral conversations than through the assemblies and commissions of the WCC. Of these bilateral dialogues, much the most promising is that with the non- Chalcedonians. Partly because of political conditions in the Near East and in Ethiopia, little has happened here since 1972; but the basic Christological difficulties seem already to have been overcome. The remaining obstacles are ecclesiological rather than strictly dogmatic: agreement over the number of councils, revocation of anathemas, mutual recognition of saints and church fathers. The Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Discussions, as all readers of Sobornost will be aware, are in danger of shipwreck because of the ordination of women priests in certain Anglican Churches; yet most of the Orthodox Churches are firmly committed to continuing the dialogue, in one form or another. Most important of all for the Orthodox is the dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church, so often postponed, but now at last on the point of beginning. No one imagines that progress here will be easy, but the conditions are probably more favourable than they have been for more than nine centuries, In the years to come the Orthodox Churches will probably concentrate their best energies upon these direct dialogues, and not upon the inter-Christian meetings organized from Geneva. And this will surely be a wise choice. Yet in the end it is not a matter of alternatives. We should say, not ‘either/or’, but ‘both/and’, 82ORTHODOXY AND THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES Supplementary Note: A book which might be read in conjunction with The Orthodox Church in the Ecumenical Movement is The Russians and the World Council of Churches by J.A. Hebly (Belfast/Dublin/Ottowa: Christian Journals Limited 1978), pp.181. n.p. Dr Hebly is concemed more with questions of diplomacy than theology. He takes into account the criticism addressed to both bodies under discussion (the Russian Orthodox Church and the WCC) in respect of their mutual relations, but steadfastly refuses to come to any facile conclusions. He provides a thoughtful and charitable commentary, written at one remove from the negotiations which he descscribes, but with the help of some access to WCC archives. The materials of the New Valamo consultaton (mentioned above) were recently published by the WCC: The New Valamo consultation: The ecumenical nature of Orthodoxy (Geneva 1978), pp.60, $2.50. SH A Note on the Illustrations Facing page 74: Protopresbyter Vitalii Borovoi (Moscow Theological Academy) makes a point in characteristic fashion during a WCC discussion. Archbishop Kirill of Vyborg (Leningrad Theological Academy) clearly appreciates his approach. Both are members of the WCC Central Committee (Archbishop Kirill also of the Executive Committee), and both have represented the Russian Orthodox Church at Geneva. Fr Vitalii was Assistant General Secretary of the WCC for some years. Professor Todor Sabey (Bulgarian Orthodox Church) was recently appointed to this same post (January 1979), Facing page 78: Patriarch German (Serbian Orthodox Church) was one of the presidents of the WCC 1968-75. At Nairobi (1975) Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad and Novgorod was elected to ‘succeed’ him. The Metropolitan’s untimely death in 1978 led to the recent election of Patriarch-Catholicos Ilia II (Georgian Orthodox Church) as a president. The photograph shows Patriarch German on a visit to the WCC’s Ecumenical Institute at Bossey in July 1969. His host is the then Director of the Institute, Dr Nikos Nissiotis, now Professor of Theology in the University of Athens. The photographs are reproduced by courtesy of the WCC Geneva, 83REVIEWS 0% Rosoi Onomatolatrai tou Agiou Orous [The Russian Name-Worshippers of the Holy Mountain] by Konstantinos K. Papoulidis (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies 1977, pp.222 with 8 plates, no price). The ‘Name-worshippers’ — or ‘Glorifiers of the Name’ (Jmiaslavtsy), as they preferred to call themselves — were a group of Russian monks on Mount Athos at the start of this century, who believed that the power of God is present in the Holy Name of Jesus, when it is invoked in the Jesus Prayer or in other ways, Attacked in 1912-13, condemned by the Ecumenical Patriarchate and by the Holy Synod in Moscow, the ‘Name-worshippers’ were forcibly deported from the Holy Mountain: in July 1913 no less than 833 Russian monks were removed in two warships sent by the Tsarist government. In the 20th century there have been few more shocking examples of an attempt to settle spiritual questions by appealing to the secular arm. The troubles of 1912-13 form the most recent of the major spiritual or theological controversies that have disturbed the Mountain since the 14th century. They also mark the start of the rapid decline of Russian monasticism on Athos. Writing as an historian rather than a theologian, Dr Papoulidis provides a detached, balanced and scholarly account of the whole incident, with supporting documentation and full bibliography. His study is written in Greek, with a 2-page summary in English at the end. He is thoroughly familiar with the Russian as well as the Greek sources, and has written an interesting account, although fuller discussion of the basic principles at issue would have been welcome. Dr Papoulidis agrees with Fr George Florovsky that the theological problem raised by the ‘Name-worshippers’ remains still an open question. Following the Bible and many of the Fathers, they took a ‘realist’ and sacramental view of the Holy Name. Their opponents, less mystical in their approach and more rationalist, preferred a ‘nominalist’ standpoint. There is no doubt that the chief spokesmen for the ‘Name-worshippers’, lacking any systematic training in theology, expressed their teaching in an extreme and misleading way. But it is also clear that they were summarily condemned without any attempt to give them a fair hearing. Many leaders of the Russian religious intelligentsia, such as Fr Pavel Florenskii, Evgeni Trubetskoi, Fr Sergius Bulgakov and Nicolas Berdiaev, spoke out at the time in their defence; subsequently Bulgakov restated their position, in much more subtle and qualified terms, in his book The Philosophy of the Name (in Russian, published posthumously in 1953). The Moscow Sobor of 1917-18 included the question of the ‘Name-worshippers’ on its agenda; and, had the council not been cut short, they might well have been rehabilitated, in part if not altogether. Today, after the numerous studies on the Jesus Prayer, Hesychasm and Palamism written in the last forty years, it is much clearer than it was at the start of the century that the /miaslavtsy could claim in their favour weighty support in the patristic spiritual tradition. KALLISTOS WARE 89