Eastern Lights & Shadows
Reflections on Orientale Lumen IV
by Addison H. Hart
The fourth Orientale Lumen Conference was held from Monday, June 19, to Friday, June 23, at the Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, D.C. About 150 were in attendance to listen to a fine array of speakers and to discuss the theme “Eucharist: A Prayer for Unity.” As with the previous three conferences, it was sponsored by the Society of St. John Chrysostom (a society made up of Catholics and Orthodox, dedicated to the promotion of knowledge and understanding of the Eastern churches), the Eastern Churches Journal, and the School of Religious Studies of Catholic University. Jack Figel, the conference chairman, should be congratulated, along with those others who assisted him, for making this conference once again a reality.
I was privileged to be sent by the Catholic Diocese of Rockford, Illinois, affording me the opportunity to see old friends and to make new ones. In fact, one of the best aspects of this annual gathering is those ample times of casual socializing. Despite the schism between East and Latin West, the tensions between Eastern Catholics and Orthodox, and the ongoing irritations among various Orthodox jurisdictions, the mutual sharing and respectful relationships cultivated among those at these conferences is usually genuine and unaffected. This achievement alone is something worthwhile, and I hope it continues and bears fruit for many years.
Unity & the Eucharist
The co-moderators were Bishop Kallistos Ware of Diokleia and Father Raymond Collins, former dean of CUA and professor of Sacred Scripture. Bishop Kallistos set the tone for the conference on the first evening in his opening remarks. After speaking on the unity of the Body of Christ as caused from within the Church through the Eucharist, citing 1 Corinthians 10:16–17 and the Didache, and commenting on the fruitful ambiguity in the phrase Communio Sanctorum, Bishop Kallistos then drew attention to the fact that even at this conference our daily celebrations of the Eucharist itself (Orthodox and Catholic) would illustrate the sad divisions between us, ironically while being acknowledged as the cause of Christian unity. At each of the conference’s Eucharistic liturgies either only Catholics or Orthodox would be able to receive the Sacrament. This point—that the Eucharist causes the Church’s unity and yet we are sadly divided—highlighted a logical inconsistency that would be directly addressed during the third plenary session on Wednesday by Mar Bawai Soro of the Assyrian Church of the East; but we’ll come to that shortly.
Archimandrite Robert Taft, S.J., vice rector and professor of liturgy at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, delivered the first plenary session on Tuesday morning, addressing the topic of the Trinitarian and Pneumatic emphases in the Eastern Eucharistic liturgies. Of particular importance, he noted, is the rich theological understanding that communion with Christ in the Eucharist is also communion with the Holy Spirit and the Father, precisely because of the essential union of the divine Persons. Every aspect of the Eastern liturgies, including the consecrated Blood of Christ in the chalice, includes reception of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13) and communion with God the Father (the fountainhead of the Trinity). Such a liturgical emphasis reveals the impact on the Church’s worship made by the Trinitarian controversies of the fourth century, which were mostly concentrated in the East.
Tuesday afternoon was spent in visiting local churches, ending up at the beautifully frescoed St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral, where vespers was offered and Bishop Kallistos delivered the second plenary session. His topic was “Eucharistic Sacrifice: Who Offers What to Whom?” As one would expect, this was an erudite and substantial presentation, laced at times with Bishop Kallistos’s markedly British wit.
The Fire That Unites
Most engaging, in my opinion, was the third plenary session, given on Wednesday morning by neither a Catholic nor an Orthodox. Mar Bawai Soro is a bishop of the Church of the East (often referred to as the Assyrian Church) in the western United States. His theme was simply that of the conference itself, “Eucharist: A Prayer for Unity.” He spoke from the perspective of his church’s ancient tradition, a church with a unique—indeed for a long time, isolated—tradition. Although rooted in the biblical and Syriac patristic tradition of Antioch, the Church of the East came to be regarded as heretical (because Nestorian). However, old Orthodox/Catholic assumptions and condemnations regarding the actual meaning of its theological language and Christology are being reevaluated and, in fact, relinquished. Talks between the Assyrian Church and the Holy See began in 1984. Within the next few years it is hoped that a mutual statement and full communion will be established between the two churches.
Mar Bawai’s talk was given in three sections. The first, which he called “The Ministry of Reconciliation,” was focused on St. Paul’s understanding of the church’s mission (seen most strikingly in 2 Corinthians) as reconciling man to God. Reconciliation is the ultimate objective of the Church, and it is therefore possible for human beings to be reconciled among themselves in the Church because Christ—living in us—has already ended the supreme alienation, that between God and man. God’s forgiveness of our sins gives us the freedom to combat evil and to love others, thereby revealing to outsiders who God is. Reflecting on the Fathers of the Church of the East, Mar Bawai noted the common patristic view that all divisions in the Church are rooted in pride and hardness of heart, which make impossible the necessary gestures that lead to reconciliation. Divisions undermine the mission of the Church by undermining reconciliation itself.
Addison H. Hart is retired from active ministry as parish priest and university chaplain. He is the author of Knowing Darkness: On Skepticism, Melancholy, Friendship, and God and The Yoke of Jesus: A School for the Soul in Solitude (both from Eerdmans). His forthcoming book is a study of the Sermon on the Mount. He lives and writes in Norheimsund, Norway.
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