http://www.newsweek.com/id/132591

PAPAL VISIT
The Orthodox View

In this church, the pope's visit is just a reminder of an ancient schism.

This past Sunday was my 4-year-old son's first
communion at our local Russian Orthodox Cathedral
of St. John the Baptist in Washington, D.C. I
spent so many Sundays in my childhood doing the
same: surrounded by burning candles, icons and
incense, my arms crossed against my chest as I
sipped the bread and wine of the communion
chalice. But here in D.C., like the Orthodox
church my family attended in California decades
ago, it is in the cafeteria after the service
where the real truths come out. In that room this
past Sunday two such truths were readily
apparent: Easter hadn't yet happened by the
Orthodox calendar (painted eggs had just gone on
sale; I bought the one my son accidentally broke)
and the last thing on anyone's mind was that the
pope, who in the centuries leading up to 1054 was
considered a fellow leader of this flock, was
about to touch down in Washington.

"I'm glad a Christian leader is getting the
paparazzi treatment, but it's not spiritually
significant for us," says churchgoer Maria Sund.
"We're obviously not Catholic—you know about the
Schism of 1054. The papacy is a well-established
machine at this point, I don't think it's going
to reunite with us, like some people believe."
For her the Catholic Church is too liberal and
too historically divided from the Orthodox.
"There are just too many issues, and I don't
think Pope Benedict can solve them. He'd have to
reduce the power of Rome, among other things, and
that's not going to happen." A fellow church
member, Nicholas Troyan, says that while the
Orthodox could never consider a fellow man—pope
or not—to be infallible, that he practically
viewed Pope John Paul II as holy. He came from
Eastern Europe and fought repression. "He did so
much to bring down communism, and the Russian
Orthodox Church was one of the great
beneficiaries of that. When he died I suggested
to our deacon that we mention it in the service,
and I got a such a diatribe for that!"

That animosity is hardly new; in fact, it's had
almost 10 centuries to fester. The Eastern
Orthodox Church refers to the second largest
Christian congregation in the world (after the
Roman Catholic Church), and includes churches
originating in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the
Mediterranean and the Middle East. It hews more
closely than most faiths to its ancient
theological roots, which stem from the beginnings
of Christianity. But the Orthodox do not consider
themselves Catholic, as in Roman Catholic, but
rather catholic (as an adjective)—in the sense
that the church is the "one, holy, catholic and
apostolic church." Included in its communion are
the ancient patriarchates of Constantinople,
Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem (and now
Moscow). Rome used to be on that list, but that
was before 1054, when longstanding disputes
between East and West were finally made concrete
in what is known as the Great Schism. There were
doctrinal issues (Roman Catholics accept an
amended version of the Nicene Creed which reads
"We believe in the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from
the father and the son" whereas the Orthodox
vehemently reject that addition), as well as
power issues. Because Rome was the capital of the
Roman Empire, the bishop of Rome was considered
"First among equals" compared with the other four
bishops of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch
and Jerusalem. Yet as power shifted to
Constantinople, that honorific fell under
dispute. "Eventually the Church of Rome insisted
that their bishop had not only 'primacy of honor'
but also 'primacy of authority'," explains Father
Andrew Jarmus, a spokesman for the Orthodox
Church in America. As a result, the pope in Rome
and the Patriarch of Constantinople mutually
excommunicated each other. "The real question was
that of the authority of Rome, especially in
matters of doctrine and governance," Jarmus says.

That question—the primacy and legitimacy of the
pope—has yet to be satisfactorily answered as far
as the Orthodox are concerned. After the split of
1054, says Jarmus, "East and West had little
official dialogue until the 1960s, when the pope
and the Patriarch of Constantinople met for the
first time in centuries." In the Orthodox
retelling of that event, it was a watershed
moment, leading to some first real steps towards
reconciliation. "In 2001, Pope John Paul II
apologized for the Crusaders sacking
Constantinople," says Jarmus. "Personally, I felt
vindicated. If there is going to be any
reconciliation, both sides will have to take
ownership of the hurt they have caused."

The Vatican, however, seems more prone to play
down those differences. As Donald Wuerl, the
archbishop of Washington, D.C., told NEWSWEEK:
"One of my favorite quotes, and this was from the
ecumenical patriarch years ago, was his answer to
the question: 'What separates the Orthodox Church
from the Catholic Church?" He said "Nothing more
than nine centuries'." Wuerl thought it was an
excellent answer. "What he was saying was, when
you get through all the history and politics and
overlay and get down to what's at the heart of
our faith, there's very little that separate us.
And I think John Paul II made valiant efforts to
build those bridges, and I think Pope Benedict
XVI is profoundly committed to continuing to build and cross those bridges."