Perspectief 2015-29

Perspectief 36 Dr. Pantelis Kalaitzidis Germany signed the Magdeburg Declaration (2007) mutually recognizing the Baptism of the other Christian churches. If the ecumenical movement is “a great move of conversion and repentance” (Jürgen Moltmann), then it may be time for the Orthodox to recognize their own mistakes and failures for which they need to ask forgiveness, clarify the topics and issues they should reconsider in the light of the common tradition of the undivided Church. In any case, according to the prevailing idea among many clerics, monastics, and lay Orthodox (which is not the one maintained in the institutional level), this return should not only include the acceptance by Westerners of the Orthodox position in key dogmatic issues such as, for example, the filioque or papal primacy and infallibility, the distinction in essence and uncreated energies in God, purgatory, and the theory on the satisfaction of divine justice by the Cross of Jesus Christ, etc., but should also move to the liturgical rite, to canonical matters or even to local customs and practices. There has not been any serious discussion among the Orthodox regarding the nature and the origins of the differences separating us from Christians of other traditions, i.e. the effort to distinguish and discern which of the differences we have with the Westerns (Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants) and the Oriental Orthodox, those which touch the very core of the ecclesial faith and those which are just a reflection or an expression of the cultural, social or political context of each place and time. The example of the recent canonical practice of women’s ordination adopted by the mainstream Protestant churches, as well as by the Anglican, and the Old Catholic Church, but strongly rejected by the Orthodox Church, is an indicative one, and high revelatory of the prevailing mentality. In recent times, the Orthodox have tried to respond to the challenges posed by the feminist movement and feminist theologies on many occasions, particularly at the Rhodes Consultation in 1988, which mainly focused on the elaboration of arguments against women’s ordination. 6 Despite the overall negative Orthodox attitude, 6 See the volume G. Limouris (ed.), The place of the woman in the Orthodox Church and the question of the ordination of women: Inter-orthodox Symposium, Rhodos, Greece 30 October - 7 November 1988 , Katerini: Tertios, 1992. Cf. in the same direction the volume Th. Hopko (ed.), Women and the Priesthood , Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999.