The Church that Unites and Divides Orthodox and Catholics

Eastern Catholic (bottom right) and different bishops astatine the Second Vatican Council. Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Lothar Wolleh CC BY 3.0

Imagine walking into a church, wherever spectacular icons look down from the walls, priests with agelong beards plaything incense censers, and the chanting has that acquainted Byzantine enactment arsenic everything looks and feels Orthodox, but it’s each Catholic. It sounds strange, but you recognize it wholly erstwhile you perceive it: The priests commemorate the Pope of Rome.

Welcome to the satellite of Eastern Catholics, oregon Greek Catholics, oregon the word galore Orthodox inactive use: Uniates, from the Latin connection ‘unio’, meaning ‘unity’ oregon ‘one’.

Their communicative is simply a surviving illustration of the turbulent past betwixt the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches, wherever faith, powerfulness plays, and the centuries-old divided betwixt the Orthodox East and Catholic West go much evident than ever.

Who are the Uniates oregon Eastern/Greek Catholics?

To recognize the Uniates, you indispensable rotation up your sleeves and excavation into immoderate beauteous thorny ecclesiastical and geopolitical history.

Things got analyzable aft Constantinople fell, with Ottomans expanding their power successful Europe and assorted European powers playing chess with nations. Movements similar the Union of Brest emerged from this humanities unit cooker successful 1596.

The Union of Brest marks the captious infinitesimal erstwhile astir leaders of the Ruthenian Orthodox Church, situated wrong the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (in areas of modern Ukraine and Belarus), decided to formally articulation the Roman Catholic Church. This meant accepting the Pope’s authorization and ending their communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople.

Big groups of Orthodox believers crossed Eastern Europe accepted Papal authority—something the Orthodox Church does not—but they held onto their Byzantine liturgy and customs, including traditions specified arsenic joined priests.

Rome often framed this arsenic bringing mislaid sheep backmost into the Church, a pastoral outreach to those who mislaid their communion with the Universal (Catholic) Church. But inquire an Orthodox Christian, particularly a Greek 1 with a agelong memory? “Outreach” isn’t rather the connection they would use. It felt much similar taking vantage of radical caught betwixt a stone and a hard place, a governmental determination dressed up successful spiritual robes. It wasn’t seen arsenic brothers reuniting, but much similar a governmental determination to grow Rome’s power eastwards.

Today, determination are respective Eastern Catholic oregon Greek Catholic Churches successful galore countries crossed Europe, chiefly the Eastern portion of the continent. In Greece, determination is the “Greek Byzantine Catholic Church,” which belongs to this household of Orthodox-looking Catholics. It is abstracted from the Orthodox Church of Greece and the Catholic Church of Greece, which person astir 350,000 faithful crossed the country.

Our Lady of Dormition Cathedral successful Damascus. Credit: Jan Smith, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Will Uniatism inactive beryllium a sticking constituent betwixt Catholics and Orthodox aft Francis?

Even saying the connection “Uniatism” feels loaded with controversy. Eastern Catholics mostly dislike it now, but galore Orthodox usage it deliberately erstwhile referring to them. It points straight astatine that humanities method—bringing Eastern churches nether Rome arsenic a bloc, maintaining their benignant but changing their allegiance.

For ages, this was a monolithic contented successful immoderate superior speech betwixt Catholics and Orthodox to bring the 2 astir important Churches of Christianity person together. The Orthodox saw it arsenic Rome saying, “Your Church isn’t rather implicit without us.” It felt similar a rude motion of superiority.

In 1993, the Balamand Declaration, a large infinitesimal successful the authoritative dialogue, fundamentally said that Uniatism isn’t the mode guardant for the Union of the Catholics and the Orthodox, but besides had to admit these Eastern Catholic Churches beryllium and person rights. It was progress, to the eyes of the authoritative Orthodox Church, but it didn’t magically erase generations of mistrust.

Greek Catholic Church: Caught betwixt worlds

Approximately 18 cardinal individuals are Uniate oregon Eastern oregon Greek Catholic Church members worldwide. Greece lacks a important Uniate past similar Ukraine oregon Romania, with lone 6,000 members, chiefly successful Athens. However, the full contented resonates profoundly with Greek Orthodox faithful, peculiarly among blimpish members of the Church. It taps into that agelong communicative of Byzantium, the hard Ottoman centuries, and a deep-seated wariness of Western interference—religious oregon otherwise—in Greece’s affairs. These Eastern Catholic communities—such arsenic the incredibly resilient Ukrainian Greek Catholics who survived Soviet persecution—are often fiercely arrogant of their identity.

They spot themselves arsenic afloat Catholic and afloat Eastern, proudly holding some traditions authentically. However, galore Orthodox proceed to symbolize past conflicts; a living, breathing effect of a unity strategy that they felt Rome imposed astatine a clip erstwhile the Ottoman Muslims suppressed Constantinople and a important portion of Orthodoxy. Nevertheless, astir Christians successful some Western and Eastern Europe are inactive caught successful this humanities crossroad and the stubborn anticipation for eventual reconciliation—a anticipation Pope Francis embodied for many, and whose lack makes the way up consciousness a spot much shadowed.