The Cross in our lives

Sunday was Cross-Veneration Sunday. I just came across this touching, profound, perspective-giving brief article.

The Chinese Orthodox Church

(i.e., in the PRC.)

A fascinating and informative interview with a potential Chinese Orthodox priest.

I also commend the rest of that website, containing much information in English as well as Chinese and Russian. It belongs to a young Russian priest based in Hong Kong, seeking to serve the Church in China.

"Patriarch of the West" II, with clarification

The Vatican now says it abolished the papal title "Patriarch of the West" because the Western Patriarchate has been superceded by the system of national and multinational bishops' conferences, as the means of organization of the Latin Church. An example of a national bishops' conference is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (formerly NCCB). A prominent multinational bishops conference is CELAM, the one for Latin America, bringing together the various national bishops' conferences there.

This represents a reversal by Pope Benedict, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in charge of the Vatican's doctrinal office, in the 1990s I think, denied theological significance to the national bishops' conferences. Now they're replacing the ancient Roman Patriarchate!

Ironically, this action seems to remove the canonical basis for the Pope of Rome's rule over the Latin Church, unless, again, they prefer to emphasize his "universal jurisdiction."

In any case, the move has nothing really to do with relations with Orthodoxy, as was originally surmised by some commentators in the media.

"The Orthodox Hour in North America" (and Britain!)

Article by Fr. Peter Gillquist.

St. Patrick, his Icon, and a boy in Oregon

A nice newspaper feature.

"Patriarch of the West"

The Pope of Old Rome seems to have dropped the title "Patriarch of the West." It's been done without official comment, leaving Vaticanologists - and the rest of us - reading tea-leaves to figure out what, if anything, this action means. Here is the best treatment I've seen so far.

The reference there to "Western ecclesiology" would be to emphasize the Universal Church (and the Pope of Old Rome's control over it) at the expense of the Local Church. This is why when the Orthodox Moscow Patriarchate opposes Latin expansion in the Eastern world, they're talking past each other. Moscow talks about its canonical territory, but the Papacy considers the whole universe its canonical territory. Again, to Orthodox ears, surrendering "Patriarch of the West" sounds like giving up the leadership of the Latin Church; but the Latin Church doesn't consider itself territorially limited like we do, because Old Rome never canonically accepted the old Pentarchy, asserting instead its universal "primacy," yes, all the way back to the middle of the first millenium (the humble St. Gregory the Great, whose memory we keep today, and who rejected the title "Universal Bishop," notwithstanding).

"Oriental ecclesiology" - we consider it "orthodox" and not particularly eastern - recognizes that the Universal Church subsists in every Local Church - primarily the local diocese or bishopric, and in practical terms the "ecclesiastical province" - today the nation or patriarchate. In upholding the Local Church we resist the imposition of a universal primacy of jurisdiction, because all Churches are theologically equal - each Church is fully "the Church" - and all Bishops are equal, though they function within their Local Synod or Council among their brother-Bishops of the same nation or patriarchate...or within a Regional or Ecumenical Council. In fact, the human embodiment of the Universal Church is not in a universal monarch of the Church like Old Rome claims, but in the fellowship of Bishops celebrating the Liturgy at an Ecumenical Council, led ('chaired,' if you will) by their First Among Equals.

This may seem potentially divisive; in fact, there's no shortage of "politics" among Orthodox Churches. But in reality it places the burden of being The Church as far down 'the food chain' as possible, right onto the local Church. In Latin theology the bishop is the guardian of the faith, especially the Pope of Old Rome; in o/Orthodox theology we, the whole people, is. Arguably the Orthodox people 'owns' the Faith in a way the Catholic people doesn't...as maybe we are now seeing in Eastern, versus Western, Europe, both today and in the whole last 500 years.