r/OrthodoxChristianity Reddit 3 days ago

What would Church reunification mean?

Recent talks between the Pope in Rome and Orthodox leaders have opened a dialogue aimed at full communion, which would reunite the Church. What would this mean for you? Would you want to see a united Church?

Pressure toward sin is growing everywhere, in almost every institution, and especially in those targeting our youth. Whatever differences exist, we hold a shared, clear view of what is evil, and we all face the same tribulations with sin. As the forces against Christianity come together, shouldn't Christianity come together against them?

Shouldn't we fight the devil and his influence rather than fighting our brothers and sisters? Please give your comments and thoughts below.

Main points

Recent Catholic-Orthodox talks aim for full communion and Church reunification
Asks what reunification would mean personally and whether one desires a united Church
Notes rising sinful pressures in institutions, especially those targeting youth
Argues Christians share a common view of evil and face the same spiritual battles
Questions why Christians fight each other instead of uniting against the devil

31 opinions in the discussion 22 participants, 18 replies to each other The opinion with the most support It's either the death of Orthodoxy or the death of Catholicism. Both can't survive inside one church, not after a thousand years of theological divergence. Read the discussion

43 comments at the source Original on Reddit

Discussion · 31

Opinions are anonymous retellings of real comments from the original discussion. The same colour marks the same participant.

opinion#811 28 likes at the source
It's either the death of Orthodoxy or the death of Catholicism. Both can't survive inside one church, not after a thousand years of theological divergence.
- opinion#824 3 likes at the source
  
  Matthew 16:18. The Orthodox Church cannot die.
- opinion#825 2 likes at the source
  If you build an eastern column and a western column and then put a roof across both, neither column gets destroyed and both hold up a roof that gives shelter. We live in times of growing evil and sin and everyone needs shelter. At the very least we can pray for this to happen.
  - opinion#831 16 likes at the source
    
    But if you build the western column out of wood and the eastern one out of marble, what happens when the termites show up?
    
    opinion#834 6 likes at the source
    
    Beautiful analogy, very poetic!
    
    opinion#837 4 likes at the source
    
    The Catholic Church sees the Orthodox as true sister churches with valid sacraments, not as rotting wood. We see you as brothers in Christ, even when online polemics get ridiculously triumphalist.
    
    opinion#838 1 likes at the source
    
    We also see you as brothers and sisters in Christ, but that doesn't mean we have to agree with your church's teachings.
    
    opinion#839
    
    Do you even have a point here? The Orthodox don't feel about Catholics the way Catholics feel about the Orthodox. It's like a teenage crush where the person you like doesn't like you back.
    
    opinion#840 5 likes at the source
    
    That's fine. We still see you as our brothers in Christ no matter what.
    
    opinion#841 2 likes at the source
    
    Then maybe the Roman church is more ready to be the bigger person and roll its theology back to before the schism? Wasn't it just as much the church back then as it is now, in your view? If you consider Orthodoxy valid Christianity, what exactly would be lost?
opinion#813 25 likes at the source
If Rome wanted to come back and somehow gave up their invented dogmas, I'd be delighted, and everyone else should be too. Obviously that would take a while and I don't know how willing Rome would be. Until then, though, Christian division only makes the evil one happy.
- opinion#829
  Can we tone down the militancy a bit? The plain truth is that every tradition has stuff in it the others aren't comfortable with, and each has reasonable arguments for their position. None of them are perfect, whatever they claim. So if we want unity in the body of Christ, which Christ himself prayed so hard for, we'll have to accept some things we dislike about each other and still come together. I'm convinced that's the only mentality that can ever make this happen. Catholics do things I consider heretical. But so do Protestants, and I'm a Protestant. Nobody's perfect. We need to drop this childish, prideful attitude that unity can kick rocks because winning for our team matters more. Which is just division. Note: this does NOT mean compromising anyone's beliefs. It means putting unity above everything else.
  - opinion#833 1 likes at the source
    
    How is it prideful and childish when I'm talking about dogma built on 2000 years of Apostolic tradition and the decisions of Ecumenical Councils, which Christ said the Holy Spirit would lead into all Truth? A lot of Protestants are Protestant because they think there's more than one truth and everything is relative. I say this respectfully, and as someone who prays for Christian unity. There is only one truth, not many.
opinion#812 23 likes at the source
I'd be fine with reunion if the pope dropped infallibility and went back to his historic role as first among equals. Also if the filioque got removed from the western creed. That will never happen, sooo.
- opinion#826 9 likes at the source
  
  Even TLM purists would rather have a coup than a restructuring. A lot of Christians in the West (US/Europe) are ideologically captured by modern feel-good Christianity, let alone the RCC, and most of the RCC majority either don't know or don't understand the Orthodox way. I'm a cradle Catholic who grew up in SSPX and I can tell you firsthand, they're more interested in a coup like I said 😅
- opinion#827 2 likes at the source
  Didn't he recite the creed without the filioque recently?
  - opinion#832 7 likes at the source
    
    Eastern Catholics aren't required to say the filioque, but as far as I know they do have to accept it as infallible dogma. That's unacceptable in the Orthodox Church.
    
    opinion#835 3 likes at the source
    
    More precisely, they have to accept Florence as dogma, no matter what words are in the Creed. The Romans just think saying it either way stays within their dogma.
    
    opinion#836 2 likes at the source
    
    Right, that was exactly my point, that the pope is the one who did this
- opinion#828
  
  You're leaving out at least a dozen more heresies that also need to be repented of
opinion#814 18 likes at the source

We've been in dialogue since the 1960s. It's not "recent," and it's mostly a nice gesture. The ecumenical patriarch has stated clearly what unification would require of us, and several popes in a row have stated their position too. It could happen if God wills it, but it's hardly "right around the corner."
opinion#815 12 likes at the source

We don't compromise the faith once for all delivered to the saints just to do some good things together (I won't get into what those things might be here; I'll just say the overlap in means, and often ends, is usually exaggerated). The Roman Catholics have to renounce Vatican I and Florence. Then we can actually talk. Nobody is discussing reunion within any of our lifetimes. ETA: Of course there's nothing wrong with doing good things with anyone. Caring for the orphan and widow doesn't by itself make a unified Church, though.
opinion#816 6 likes at the source

Not to brush off the first part of your question, but since laymen won't be involved in sorting out the details of Rome's return to the Church, none of us can say what it would look like. It's way above our pay grade, and it's good to recognize that. So rather than speculate, the Orthodox response for the laity is to pray that God bring the pope to repentance and give our bishops the right words to say to him
opinion#817 6 likes at the source

It won't happen; however much good the EP has said, he's also made clear over and over that huge differences remain. And even if it somehow did happen, nothing would change for any of us. If you think some political compromise would fix the world's problems or make the "church" more powerful, I'm sorry but you misunderstand the problem. Secular politicians in this or that country aren't going to start obeying the church because the EP and Pope are friends again. The big issues only get solved when the whole world repents and turns to God, which I fear won't happen until some cataclysm or collapse, and I'm certain it won't happen through political compromises on doctrine.
opinion#818 5 likes at the source
With God, all things are possible. I can't see how it could happen. But it's possible, and through God it would be good. Let's pray for unity.
- opinion#830 1 likes at the source
  
  Amen. First thing that has to go is all the pride. Even right here in these comments.
opinion#819 3 likes at the source

I asked a bishop about this recently (specifically his take on Bartholomew). He thinks Bartholomew is sincere about it, but also uses it to identify where the problems and disagreements lie, and prays over it. I also think he's sincere in the dialogue. That said, I don't expect anything to happen soon. We just need to keep talking, praying, and hoping for unity, but realistically I see nothing happening any time soon. Also, if the leaders actually went through with uniting, I'm sure both sides would have groups rejecting it, so we'd end up with 3 churches claiming to be the Church. One united, one "True Orthodox" and one "True Catholic". So instead of going from 2 to 1, we'd go from 2 to 3.
opinion#820 2 likes at the source

Papal supremacy has to go. Catholics act like if they could just convince us of the filioque then everything's fine, but the bigger issue is that they simply *inserted it* themselves. No council, not even consulting the eastern bishops. No bishop has that kind of authority, it has to go, and it would take a *lot* for one man to give up that much power over a billion people.
opinion#821 1 likes at the source

Real unification is basically impossible unless one church or the other changes drastically. The Orthodox Church has barely changed in 1000+ years, while Rome has had major dogmatic changes. I just can't see the churches fully healing the schism. Maybe walking alongside each other, but never full reunion.
opinion#822

I don't think it's possible. Even if the pope apologized, dropped a ton of Catholic dogma, rejected Catholic saints, and accepted his place among the other patriarchs, it would just split the Catholic Church and leave the Orthodox with some Western Orthodox thing, kind of like the Catholics have with the eastern Catholics
opinion#823

The thing is, reuniting the Church ***would not make any practical difference in the fight against sin or the growing sinfulness of the world.*** It wouldn't change anything for the ordinary Christian either. It would be a nothing-burger. If the Churches reunited, the outcome would be that we'd occasionally visit the nearby Catholic parishes and receive communion there. And their people would sometimes come to us and receive communion in our churches. That's it. Nothing else would change from today. We'd keep our separate liturgies, our separate customs and traditions, which already make it impractical for anyone to bounce back and forth between Eastern and Western churches even if it were allowed. Everyone knows this. And it goes further. We'd also keep our separate ***finances***, so we wouldn't pool resources for common projects. We'd stay separate institutions with separate bank accounts and separate priorities. We'd keep reading different books, listening to different teachers, and having different internal cultures. ***In short, if Eastern Orthodoxy reunited with Catholicism, we'd end up like the Armenians and the Ethiopians are now:*** For all practical purposes different religious traditions doing their own things, except people from one could occasionally visit the other and receive the sacraments there (though in practice they almost never do). That's what the…