THE
P RTAL
March 2016
Page 22
Patrimony - Use - Rite - Church
The Ecumenical nature
of the Catholic Church
In the first in a new series of articles Fr Mark Woodruff
explodes some myths about the Catholic Church
When
the Ordinariates for groups of Anglicans with their own liturgy and
patrimony were announced, a protest was raised by some Orthodox: “This is Uniatism – you agreed
with us that it was a thing of the past.” Uniatism is the proselytisation of Christians away from their own
Churches and uniting them with yours by setting them up in a rival organisation, usually keeping their
accustomed worship tradition, or rite. Is that what the Ordinariates are?
The Roman Catholic Church is blamed for Uniatism
the most, but all Churches seem to have practised it.
Protestant missionaries in 19th century India, instead
of supporting the small, ancient Churches of the
‘Nasrani’, the Malabar Nazarenes who traced their
apostolic succession to St Thomas’ mission out of first
century Syria, persuaded some to adapt their liturgy
and faith to the Anglican Reformation. Thus the Mar
Thoma Church, now associated with the Anglican
Communion, was born. This merely followed the
example of Portuguese colonists in the 16th century,
who sowed division among the single Church they
discovered by enforcing Catholic union, leading
to separate Churches, while those who accepted
underwent the imposition of Roman Catholic control
and the previously unknown Latin rite in place of
their own.
The Russian Tsars ran Churches for targeting
Catholics and Lutherans, and even today there are
“Western Rite Orthodox” Churches for attracting
Catholics and Anglicans. A dark episode in Catholic
history concerns the missionaries to Copts under
Ottoman Muslim rule in Egypt, pressuring people to
accept the protection of “Roman obedience” in place
of their own Pope, direct successor of St Mark, on the
polemical ground that his Church was heretical (which
we now believe was untrue). In mid-20th century
Russia, when the Orthodox Church on its knees was
most in need of Catholic help, a Vatican commission
tried to recruit bishops as fifth columnists to bring it
into clandestine union with Rome. No wonder some
Orthodox remain suspicious of Catholic ecumenism.
For each of these adventures brought division,
weakening Churches instead of relieving tensions. Nor
were they - at first - about an outward evangelisation
towards those who had never encountered Christ.
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In 1993, however, the Catholic-Orthodox Joint
International Dialogue’s “Balamand Declaration”
stated that Uniatism belonged in the past, with no
place either as mission or a means to unity. The twenty
or so non-Roman Catholic Churches - Eastern in rite
and tradition, but no less Catholic - felt it implied they
should not exist in the first place. Yet several had come
into unity with the See of Peter not by proselytism
but as whole Orthodox Churches, once isolated
by history, politics or frontiers, then recovering a
former, lost, unity. These include the 1,000-year-old
Church of Kiev, alive today in the Ukrainian GreekCatholic Church (now revived after decades of USSR
suppression), America’s Ruthenian Church, and the
very small Belarusian and Russian Catholic Churches
(the Russian Orthodox Church is also a descendant of
the Kievan Church). Then there is the Melkite GreekCatholic Church across the Middle East with almost
2,000 years of history, the Chaldean Church in Iraq,
and the Syro-Malabar Church in India.
In forthcoming editions, we will see how the
forebears of today’s 19 million Eastern Catholics
worldwide found unity with the see of Peter at Rome,
not by becoming Roman Catholics but as Churches in
their own right, each adding their own venerable rite
and patrimony. They will help us respond to those who
say that the Ordinariates and Anglican patrimony are
“not proper Catholic”, or else “divisive, like Uniates”,
whereas they stand in the Universal Church’s rich
tradition of diversity contributing to its fullness of
communion.
Fr Mark Woodruff is Vice-Chairman of the Society
of St John Chrysostom and Catholic Co-Secretary
of the Catholic-Orthodox Pastoral Consultation
in England - www.orientalelumen.org.uk