A Service of Love

Introduction

1 Introduction The 2007 Ravenna document (hereafter, RD) of the international Catholic-Orthodox theological dialogue was entitled Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church: Ecclesial Communion, Conciliarity and Authority.1 It considered the church’s life at three levels, local, regional, and universal, and it significantly affirmed on behalf of both churches that “[p]rimacy at all levels is a practice firmly grounded in the canonical tradition of the Church” (RD 43.1). Just as significantly, however, it also stated: Primacy and conciliarity are mutually interdependent. That is why primacy at the different levels of the life of the Church, local, regional and universal, must always be considered in the context of conciliarity, and conciliarity likewise in the context of primacy (RD 43). Throughout this study, all italics in quotations are in the original unless otherwise indicated, and the dates given for popes are the dates of their pontificates. 1. This document, together with the other agreed statements of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, can be found at http:// www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/sub-index/ index_orthodox-ch.htm 2 introduction Let us clarify both terms immediately. With regard to “conciliarity” (or “synodality”), Ormond Rush helpfully comments: “In maintaining the unity of faith, the church learned early in its history that the Spirit was best discerned when individuals were together, in community , in council, in synod, just as the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost was experienced when they were ‘all together ’ [Acts 2:1].”2 Most broadly, conciliarity refers to the togetherness that is essential to the Christian life. Jesus died so as “to gather into one the dispersed children of God” (John 11:52), and the members of the church, gathered and united in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, participate in the life of God, which is one of perfect communion —communio, in Latin, or koinonia, in Greek—between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.3 Accordingly, as the Ravenna document states: “Conciliarity reflects the Trinitarian mystery and finds therein its ultimate foundation” (RD 5). The “Trinitarian koinonia ” is “actualized in the faithful as an organic unity of several members each of whom has a charism, a service or a proper ministry, necessary in their variety and diversity for the edification of all in the one ecclesial body of Christ (cf. 1Cor. 12:4–30)” (RD 6). While this koinonia is manifested in the celebration of the Eucharist, it is based on Christian baptism: “each member of the Body of Christ, 2. Ormond Rush, The Eyes of Faith: The Sense of the Faithful and the Church’s Reception of Revelation (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), 49. 3. Hence, St Paul’s final blessing to the people of Corinth: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion [koinonia] of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” (2 Cor. 13:13) introduction 3 by virtue of baptism, has his or her place and proper responsibility in eucharistic koinonia” (RD 5). Moreover, “all the faithful (and not just the bishops) are responsible for the faith professed at their Baptism” (RD 7). Now, Trinitarian koinonia is centered on the person of the Father. The Son is begotten of the Father and the Spirit proceeds from the Father.4 Communion thus has a structure: in the midst of the many there is a unfying one; and, since the church participates in the trinitarian life of God, it too has this structure at all levels of its life. The “one” can variously be described as the “head” or as the “first”—protos, in Greek, primus in Latin —hence we can speak of primacy. At all levels of the church’s life, then, there is conciliarity and there is primacy , and the two go together. The Ravenna document considers the primacy, respectively, of the bishop among his people at the local level (cf. RD 20), of the metropolitan or patriarch among the bishops at the regional level (cf. RD 24–25), and of the bishop of Rome among the patriarchs or “bishops of the major sees” at the universal level.5 It may be noted, though the Ravenna document 4. The Western idea that the Spirit proceeds from the Father “and from the Son (filioque)” in no way alters the...