CNEWA

In Conversation: Decades of Catholic-Orthodox Relations

For the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Father Elias Mallon, special assistant to the president of CNEWA, and Father Hyacinthe Destivelle of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity speak about the status of Catholic-Orthodox relations in the latest episode of ONE: In Conversation.

Editors’ note: In this latest episode of ONE: In Conversation, released to mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (18-25 January), Father Elias D. Mallon, S.A., speaks with Father Hyacinthe Destivelle, O.P., who heads the Catholic Church’s relations with the Oriental Orthodox churches at the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity. Father Destivelle also serves as the director of the Institute for Ecumenical Studies at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum). Father Mallon is CNEWA’s U.N. representative and special assistant to the president. He previously served as director for the Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute and was a faculty member at the Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches in Château de Bossey in Switzerland.

Their conversation provides an update on Catholic-Orthodox relations in the past 20 years, after ONE magazine republished a landmark article by the late Jesuit priest Father John Long on the advances in Catholic-Orthodox dialogue in the 20th century. Father Long’s article was first published in 2005 and was republished in the September 2024 edition as the magazine commemorated its 50th anniversary.

Listen to their discussion in this episode of ONE: In Conversation.

Father Elias:

Would you like to share with us and our audience a little bit about your work in ecumenical dialogue and specifically with the Catholic-Orthodox relations? And how did you come to work at the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity?

Father Hyacinthe:

Yes, actually, I go from my very childhood. I was used to the diversity of Christian traditions since I was baptized by a Melkite priest. And my godfather comes from the Reformed tradition. So, I was used to a certain diversity of Christian traditions since my childhood and in my family. But when I became a Dominican in 1994, it was just some months before the publication of the encyclical “Ut unum sint” by John Paul II, and I was very impressed by this encyclical, “Ut unum sint.” And I thought that perhaps I could most specifically work in the field of Christian unity being a Dominican. And when I, during my formation, I was authorized to also receive my formation in parallel to my Dominican formation to have also an Orthodox formation at the faculty of Orthodox theology in Paris, St. Sergius Institute. And so, I started, yes, the licentiate, the master’s program, and the doctoral program in Orthodox theology.

And after my ordination as a priest, I also was sent to Russia to continue my studies. And I have written there also another Ph.D. in philosophy. And after I have been… I was appointed at the ecumenical center, Istina, in Paris, which was founded by the Dominicans in 1925 to promote the relationship with the Russian emigrés in Paris and after five years of being director of this center in Paris, I was sent to St. Petersburg as a parish priest, and I was almost five years there, serving the Dominican parish of St. Catherine of Alexandria in St. Petersburg. And, 11 years ago, so it was in 2013, I was called to work here in the Vatican for the relationship with Slavic Orthodox churches, so I was more specifically in charge of the relationship with the Moscow Patriarchate and all the churches of Slavic traditions, also the Serbian Church, the Bulgarian Church, the Polish, and so on.

And after five years, I changed my responsibility and now I am in charge of the Oriental Orthodox churches, so the pre-Chalcedonian church, the Syriac Orthodox, the Armenian Coptic Orthodox Church, the Ethiopian, and so on. So far, my service in the church was almost always linked with the question of Christian unity. That’s why, yes, now I’m here working at the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, and I am also involved at the Angelicum as director of the ecumenical institute. So, this was my path. I didn’t choose really this ecumenical vocation, but I was led, I hope it was, yes, by God, not through my superiors to work in this field.

Father Elias:

I think that is something that most Latin Catholics are just not familiar with, how different the different traditions in the Orthodox communion is between the Oriental churches, and then the, well, the church… I was saying to one of my colleagues, I tend to understand the Eastern and the Orthodox churches more in terms of their Christologies and their cities, and so, like, the Antiochene and the Byzantine and the Alexandrian.

Is it even possible to say things that just really apply straight across to all of Orthodoxy? I mean, it seems to me that, like, Byzantine Orthodoxy is quite unique from the Orthodoxy of Baghdad or of Antioch. Are there things that we can say, like, in the relationship with the Catholic Church that applies to all of them in a meaningful way?

Father Hyacinthe:

Yes, I would say that the Byzantine churches, yes, the Chalcedonian churches, they consider themselves as one church, a church of churches, let us say, a communion of church. While the Oriental Orthodox churches, they will say they are a family of churches. It is the terminology they use, a family of churches. While the Byzantine Orthodox, they usually consider themselves as one, one single church in full communion of faith, of sacraments, of ministry, but it is one and it is even visible in the titles of our dialogues, because with the Orthodox Church, the title of the commission is the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church as a whole, while with the Oriental Orthodox churches, the title is quite different. It is the Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. So, and they insist a lot on this diversity.

So, I think it’s interesting for us to be aware of this distinction, because we realize that we are also, the Catholic Church, a church of churches somehow, of local churches. And it is terminology now very used also in the Synod on Synodality, that the Catholic Church is one church, but with a diversity of local churches.

Father Elias:

That is very interesting, and I think very important. What would you think have been the most important advances in Catholic-Orthodox relations in, say, the past 20 or 25 years?

Father Hyacinthe:

With regard to the dialogue with, the relationship with the Orthodox, strictly speaking the Eastern Orthodox, there were many significant steps in the field of theological dialogue, what we call “the dialogue of truths.”

We had three new documents on the question of the relationship primacy and synodality. The first document after the resumption of the dialogue, there was a crisis. In the article of Father John Long, it’s very well-explained that after the Balamand document in 1993, there was a kind of crisis in our theological dialogue, and the dialogue could resume only in 2006 in Belgrade.

And in 2007, there was a possibility to agree on a new document on the relationship between primacy and synodality. It was in Ravenna, the Ravenna document. And after, there was a more historical document on the first millennium, always on the same topic, adopted in Chieti in 2016. And last year, a third document on the same topic, but in the second millennium and today. So, primacy and synodality in a systematic way in Ravenna, in the first millennium in Chieti and in the second millennium in Alexandria.

So, with regard to the dialogue, the theological dialogue, I think it was really a very important step to be able to say that there is primacy and synodality at each level of the church, at the local level, at the regional level, but also at the universal level. So, there is a need for primacy, and for synodality, also at the universal level. I think it was a courageous step, both for the Orthodox Church and for the Catholic Church to be able to state this necessity of primacy and synodality, also at the universal level.

With regard to the dialogue of what we call “the dialogue of love,” not only the dialogue of truth, but the dialogue of love, there were also many significant steps in these 20 past years. If we see only the pontificate of Pope Francis, there were a lot of new visits. The first very important step with regard to the Orthodox, I would say that it was the joint pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 2014 with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. It was a commemorative pilgrimage after the first pilgrimage in 1964, with Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI. Also, we can mention also an important meeting, the first meeting with the patriarch of Moscow in 2016 in Cuba, and very significant, also, visits of Pope Francis to different Orthodox countries, like Georgia in 2016, in Bulgaria and Romania in 2019, in Greece and Cyprus in 2021, and so on.

So, I would say that both in the dialogue of truth and the dialogue of love, there were significant steps with the Eastern Orthodox Church. Now, with the Oriental Orthodox churches also, there were very significant steps in these 20 past years regarding the theological dialogue. There was the establishment of a commission of dialogue with all the Oriental Orthodox churches. This commission was established in 2003, and the first meeting was 20 years ago in 2004. And since then, the commission agreed on three documents: in 2009, on a first document on the nature and mission of the church, in 2015, a second document on the communion and communication in the first millennium in the early church, and the last document was adopted two years ago on the sacraments, on the seven sacraments, and I think it was a very significant step to agree with all the Oriental Orthodox churches on the seven sacraments. So, with the Copts, the Ethiopian, the Eritrean, the Armenians of both See of Echmiadzin and Antelias, and also with the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Malankara Orthodox Church.

So, we were able to agree on these three documents, very significant documents, I would say. And also Pope Francis made a lot of visits to these churches, for example, in Armenia in 2016 for the commemoration of the genocide. It was a very significant visit. He visited also the Coptic Orthodox Church in 2016 in Egypt, and also there were a lot of visits from all patriarchs from these churches: Patriarch Aphrem, Catholicos Aram, Catholicos Karekin, Patriarch Mathias, Catholicos Mathews III. Pope Tawadros came twice in 2013, just after the election of Pope Francis, and also last year. So, we had really, also, a very good process and development of the relationship, both in the theological field and in the fraternal life between our churches. And it is true also with the Assyrian Church of the East, because the Assyrian Church of the East is not part of the dialogue with the Oriental Orthodox, but we have a specific bilateral dialogue. We were able to agree on two documents: on the sacramental life in 2015, and, two years ago, a magnificent document also on the images of the church in the Latin and Syriac patristic traditions.

So, there were a lot of new documents, a lot of new meetings and visits, very significant, these past 20 years, confirming the ecumenical journey of the Catholic Church with the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches.

Father Elias:

In the anglophone world, we sometimes hear the expression, “the ecumenism of friendship” in terms of… especially Pope Francis. And it’s interesting because it’s very obvious, for example, that he and Patriarch Bartholomew, they like each other. And, in terms of the Assyrian Church of the East, of course, the joint document with Mar Dinka IV and Pope John Paul II was a marvelous breakthrough in, well actually, ecumenical methodology. There seems to be a different methodology at work there, and so that’s very good news to hear.

One thing, especially in the hyper-divided world in which we live — the church is part of our world — and the conflict in Ukraine and the conflict in Palestine, that impacts all of us and we’re aware, and maybe not as much as we should or even could be, of tensions, intra-orthodox tensions, specifically within the Byzantine tradition. How does that… Well, for example, Pope Francis has a warm relationship, with Patriarch Bartholomew. I would say it’s less warm with Patriarch Kirill. How does that, or does that, impact the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, since we’re speaking, or you mentioned it is one church, but it’s one church that has internal tensions?

Father Hyacinthe:

Yes. It’s a very important question indeed. I think, yes, I like to describe the ecumenical approach of Pope Francis as a synodal ecumenism. He has a synodal approach in the sense that for him, we have to walk together and etymologically it is “synodos,” so we have to walk together, and physically he has done so when he went together with Archbishop Hieronymus to Lesbos in 2016 to pay attention to the situation of migrants. He was also in South Sudan with the Archbishop of Canterbury. So, he really wants to work together, and his motto, yes, ecumenical leitmotif is walking together, working together, and praying together.

He’s perhaps less sensitive to the theological work, even if he’s aware that it is also essential. And as you rightly remembered, it was 30 years ago, there was this very important step, the agreement, the common Christological agreement between Pope John Paul II and Assyrian Patriarch Mar Dinka. This was the fruit of a theological dialogue. I would say the approach of Pope Francis is a synodal approach in the sense that he wants to work together, and he has also implemented this approach in a very interesting manner when he invited the heads of churches from the Middle East in Bari in 2018. It was a gathering of patriarchs of the Middle East, Catholics, Orthodox, and also representatives from the churches of the Reformed tradition. And it was a journey of reflection and prayer on the situation of Christians in the Middle East.

It was a kind of synodal meeting, yes, because… an ecumenical meeting, but with the aim of praying and reflecting. The same was done for the situation in Lebanon in 2021. So, this is also a good example of this synodal approach, working together with other Christians, sometimes in a physical way, when Pope Francis invites other Christian leaders to work with him, but also a synodal approach in the sense that we can already have a certain synodality between our churches, even if we are not in full communion.

Father Elias:

I think it’s important, at the Second Vatican Council, a great deal was made about reception. We don’t hear that much anymore, but I think the image of the churches, and the very concrete image, namely, not just the churches abstractly, but the patriarchs and the pope working together promotes the reception among the people of God, and that the ecumenical relationship between the churches is not merely an academic exercise, but it’s something that touches the congregational lives of the people in the church, too. So, I think that’s very important.

If we were to look ahead, where would you hope we would be in another 25 years?

Father Hyacinthe:

Yes, it’s a good question. I think we need… It is exactly what we need, I think, in the ecumenical work now it is a vision. Yes. Where do you want to go? Not only repeating what has been done in the past 20 years or in the past 60 years after Vatican II, but where is the… where do you want to go?

And I think what we need, first of all, is to refresh our desire for unity. Yes, because it is something…

Father Elias:

You can’t be synodos if you’re not going anywhere.

Father Hyacinthe:

Exactly.

Father Elias:

It’s a road, it’s a path and you can’t just stand static.

Father Hyacinthe:

Yes, we need to know where we want to go. Yes. In the Catholic tradition, the understanding of unity is unity in faith, in ministry and in sacraments. And, I think most, it is the same with the Orthodox. I think more or less, we are looking for unity in faith, in ministry and in sacraments. So these three dimensions are important. And by the way, they are also linked with the three functions of Christ as King, as priest and as prophet. So, these three dimensions are very important, but I would say what we need now, perhaps, is a model of unity.

What kind of model of unity do we propose? With the Orthodox Church so far, the only model we, the Catholic Church, is proposing is the model of the Oriental Catholic churches. We know that this model is not acceptable for the Orthodox, even if it is also a model of unity in diversity, which can be also very inspiring for the Latin Church. But, this we have, I think, to propose a new model of full communion, and we have to reflect on this model together, as Pope John Paul II proposed, by the way, in “Ut unum sint” in 1995, when he invited all leaders and theologians to reflect and decide together, of course, on the exercise of the ministry of unity of the bishop of Rome, it was an invitation… and recently the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity published a document synthesizing all the responses from the different Christian traditions. to this invitation of John Paul II in 1995, and this document is called, “The Bishop of Rome.” And I think it is an important document to continue the reflection on this model of unity.

The second thing I would say is that we need, also, on this journey together, we need more pastoral agreements. Pastoral agreements, they are also very important because they are implementing the theological agreements in the daily life of the faithful, and they help really to involve the whole people of God.

So, it is the question of the reception, the whole people of God in the ecumenical journey. I would mention, for example, the pastoral agreement between the Catholic Church and the Syriac Orthodox Church in 1984, giving the possibility for the faithful of both churches to receive the sacraments of Eucharist, penance and anointing of the sick in either church. We have the same agreement between the Chaldean Church, so the Catholic Chaldean church and the Assyrian Church of the East. We have… it was agreed upon in 2012. We have also a very interesting pastoral agreement on marriages with the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church, agreed in 1994. So, there are already several agreements. Most of them, they were, concluded, agreed upon, with the Oriental Orthodox churches, but they are very important also on the ecumenical journey.

Father Elias:

I think those are extremely important. And not merely as exceptions, but perhaps different models of catholicity — that catholicity is not uniformity, but that catholicity is inclusiveness. And this is a practical application that actually gives witness to it. It gives witness to a new and vital type of our understanding of catholicity.

Father Hyacinthe:

It’s true, yes, we need really to rediscover together this note of the church, the catholicity. And it is interesting that in some traditions, catholicity is translated, especially in the Slavic languages, by conciliarity. In the Slavic tradition, they say, “I believe in the one holy soborny.” It means “conciliar and apostolic church.” So, catholicity and conciliarity, or synodality, are linked together.

Father Elias:

That’s very interesting. I did not know that. Thank you very much, Father. I think we’re running out of time. And I’m sure our readers and those who follow us will get a great deal of information and hopefully renew commitment to the ecumenical work of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity. When I was at Bossey, that was a long time ago, that was in the 1970s, I was a member of the staff of what was then the Secretariat for Christian Unity, and it’s wonderful to see the work and the progress that’s being made. It’s not always easy, but it does give us hope, and we thank you very much for that.

Father Hyacinthe:

Thank you, Father Elias, and thank you also to CNEWA for the support given by CNEWA to the ecumenical journey, especially of our dicastery, but all over the world, the support CNEWA is granting for continuing the ecumenical path with other Christians.

The March 2025 edition of ONE magazine will feature an essay by Father Elias Mallon on the Council of Nicaea, as it marks its 1,700th anniversary. Go to cnewa.org/one on Monday, 3 March, to read this piece.

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