Recently, the secular press has been filled with glowing accounts of meetings between Roman Catholic popes and various 'Orthodox leaders' – often giving the impression that a 'reunion' between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Chruch is just around the corner. The secular press, most western Christians, and perhaps not a few Orthodox fail to realize that NO ONE person or office speaks for Orthodoxy in anything remotely resembling the sense in which the pope speaks for the Roman Catholic Church.
The proclamations and actions of even the Patriarch of Constantinople remain solely his own, unless they truly reflect the 'conscience of the Church' – something determined not by numbers ('majority rule' is alien to Orthodox Christianity as is the absolute rule of a 'Vicar of Christ', as the pope is styled) but by FAITHFULNESS to the tradition and teaching of the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church – to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. If any Orthodox Christian betrays this trust – be he bishop or patriarch – he thereby sets himself outside Orthodoxy and outside the Church.
The temptation to 'make peace' with heresy and schism is nothing new to Orthodoxy. For centuries, there have been powerful political advantages to be found in alliances with various 'Christian nations' and powers of the West, and the present state of world affairs is no new one from that perspective. A survey of earlier incidents of this sort would be out of place here; suffice it to say that they have occurred – but that true Orthodox Faith, the Church, has endured in spite of them. At times, such 'ecumenical' ventures have involved even one or more of the great patriarchal sees (such as that of Constantinople). In these cases, the faithful have simply turned their backs upon the betrayers of the Faith – as indeed, the canons of the Church require them to do.
Who, then, DOES speak for Orthodoxy? There can be no satifying answer to this question for the legalist western mind – to which the Christian Faith is fundamentally alien. The Patriarch of Constantinople (recognized in principle by all Orthodox as the 'first among equals' of bishops, the spiritual and sacramental descendants of the Apostles) does not. All the patriarchs taken together, even if they be in complete agreement, do not. Not even a 'pan-Orthodox Council', such as some propose to assemble, can be said in advance to do so. Only after the fact can it be determined whether such a council (or, for that matter any council) actually has proclaimed and upheld the True Faith. (More than one instance of a 'legally and properly constituted' council which betrayed the Faith – and subsequently was rejected by the Church – can be found.)
There can be no institutional guarantee of a particular voice as the authentic voice of the Church – precisely because the Church is not an institution (even though it functions in and through institutional modes); it is the living Body of Christ. Only the test of faithfulness to the living Tradition of the Faith can ascertain whether the voice and actions of any person or body purporting to speak for the Church is in fact doing so.
The recent actions of the Patriarch of Constantinople would not seem to pass this test; by implication they endorse the departures from the true Faith of the Roman Catholic Church (and, by significant numbers of some other western 'Christian' bodies). Already, significant numbers of Orthodox Christians have disassociated themselves from this voice. If and when implication becomes assertion, no doubt far larger numbers will follow suit.
This is not, however, to introduce a 'numbers game' answer to the original question. There have been numerous times in the Church's history when the vast majority of those who claimed the title 'Christian' or even 'Orthodox' were in fact heretics (the present perhaps being no exception). In the end, Orthodoxy has always triumphed – though it has sometimes taken generations. It is entirely possible that the decades to come may see a situation in which true Faith is upheld only by scattered handfuls of the faithful, with all the 'big names', all those able to command the attention of a numbers-and-titles conscious society, apostatizing – standing part – from the Faith and the true Church. Some say it is already happening or has happened.
Living Orthodoxy March/April 1980
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It may not be immediately obvious what this article has to do with the Royal Path. It addresses the question: "where is the Church?" The Church has very certain boundaries which can not be defined by or built on rules and regulations. The holy Church canons are an attempt to capture the essence of the heavenly Church in a concrete form, so that Her wisdom can be applied to situations that arise in the earthly Church in this fallen world. The super-correct rely too much on the canons, and the world Orthodox ignore them. The "spirit of the law" existed prior to the laws. The "spirit of the law" will always exist, even when lawlessness reigns on earth. This "spirit of the law" is the Royal Path. -jh
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