Unifying Christians 2
The effect of unity of the Christian world, the final triumph of the
ecumenical Church, used to be conceived of in the form of a unifying of the
Churches. One tended to believe, that the striving of Christians of the East
and the West to unity must be expressed in the form of a unifying of the
Churches. But the idea of unifying the Churches is essentially an insincere, a
wrong idea. Both Orthodox and Catholics believe that Church is one, that it
cannot be separated and therefore not united. Religious-ecclesiastical life is
not a matter of politics; inside of this life there cannot be something like
political blocs, treaties, mutual concessions, diplomatic tricks of all kind.
And ultimately Catholics think that unifying Churches means to annex the
Orthodox to the one true Catholic Church, and the Orthodox – to annex Catholics
to the one true Orthodox Church. Only the expression "unifying the
Churches" proves to be a stratagem which is recognized quickly by both
sides. Vladimir Soloviev maybe was the only really upright bearer of the idea
of unifying the Churches, because he saw the insufficiency of each Church and
the possibility of a mutual completion. But [p. 195] he was too much inclined
towards external unias. In reality the unity and unification of the whole
Christian world cannot be matter of ecclesiastical governments, of their
negotiations and treaties, of insincere unias, – it has to be realized in depth
and not on the surface. This unity can be attained only in the mystic sphere,
in the sphere of spiritual life and spiritual experience, not on the trappings
of church politics. For Christian unity there is necessary the reducing of the
importance of church politics which was always a source of all quarrels in
Christianity, and it is necessary to suppress the sinful striving for power.
For us Orthodox this is easier, because church politics has played a relatively
minimal role with us. All the speaking and all the negotiations about unifying
the Churches is the worst possible method for a unification of Christians of
the East and the West, – it normally only leads to more discord. It is not on
the surface, not horizontally, not spatio-geographically that there needs to be
movement on, but in depth and on high, – i.e. vertically. The unity of the
Christian world can be reached in depth and on high, where all Christians are
united, but not on the horizontal surface, where discord and separation rule.
The Orthodox and the Catholics can remain in their Churches, in their
confessional type, yet in the dimensions of height and depth they can come to
unity and fraternity, and overcome the separation. The unification of Churches
can only be a work of the Holy Spirit, and this work would become a wonderful
fact of world history. We cannot impute to us this task, putting politics in
the place of [p. 196] pneumatological. But we must set ourselves another task –
the unity of the Christians of the East and the West, of the Orthodox and of
the Catholics, also of the Protestants, for whom the question has not the same
ecclesiastical actuality, of spiritual community, of mutual acquaintance and an
attitude to each other which is full of love. That is not a formal question,
but rather a dogmatical and ecclesiastical-canonic question, it is a question
of spiritual direction, a question of spiritual experience. The aim is not the
unification of Churches but rather the unification of Christians, a mutual
acquaintance and more mutual love of Christians of all Confessions, and
overcoming the mutual hostility and quarrel. Enmity and hatred between
Christians of various Confessions is one of the most shamefull facts of world
history. Considering the unification, the concentration and immense activity of
anti-Christian forces in the world, this fact must be called outright a crime.
The Antichrist is gaining more and more the world, but the Christians live in
quarrelling, strife and discord. Maybe the credit for promoting the unification
of the Christian world will go to the spirit of the Antichrist. Interaction and
an unification, a sincere, open unification, for the Orthodox is indeed easier
than for the Catholics, because the idea of an external authority is strange to
the Orthodox ecclesiastical consciousness. We are more free. Sometimes one
wrongly conceives of the difference between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, in
thinking that the Orthodox see the external ecclesiastical authority in a
council of bishops, i.e. imagining it as aristocratically constituted, while
the Catholics see the ecclesiastical authority represented in the pope, [p.
197] i.e. perceived as a monarch. But the reality is far different, than that
Orthodoxy negates completely the idea of external ecclesiastical authority, as
was explained excellently by the very significant Russian theologian Khomiakov.
According to the Orthodox consciousness it resides in the people of the Church,
in the spirit of Sobornost’, as the authentic protector of Truth. The
ecclesiastical organizational question for the church government was therefore
never the most important question for the Orthodox ecclesiastical
consciousness, on the contrary, the most important question was always that for
spiritual experience. For Orthodox and Catholics it is always possible to pray
for a unification of the Christian world, to become more carefully acquainted
with the foreign Confession and to study it, to transcend discord and
hostility, to increase benevolence and mutual love, and to come to a
spiritually-fraternal ecumenical relationship in Christ to each other.
Outwardly, the Orthodox know badly little about Catholicism; Catholics know
about Orthodoxy hardly at all. The Orthodox react with mistrust about
Catholicism; whereas Catholics feel contempt for Orthodoxy. Such a spiritual
atmosphere cannot be tolerated in future. We must admit that any relationship
with the official Catholic governing structure is difficult for us; the ruling
system of the Catholic theology is strange to us, strange to us also is the
church policy of the Vatican. But we can get to love the Catholic saints, the
Catholic mysticism, the beauty of the Catholic cult and the genuineness of the
Catholic piety in the people, we can also appreciate the social importance of
Catholicism.
The Kindom of God comes unseen [cf Luk 17:20]; it is created out of the
depth. Each of us can [p. 198] work together in creating basic units of the one
Christian spiritual organism. The Orthodox can remain Orthodox and the Catholic
– Catholic. But from inside one’s confessional type each can strive for unity
and ecumenicism, understanding ecumenicism therein as inwardly and spiritual,
not externally organizational. The time has come for a greater unity of
Christianity. The situation of Christianity in the world has changed decidedly.
It is no more an externally ruling power. Persecutions have begun against Christianity.
The struggle of the Catholics and Protestants or of the Orthodox and Catholics
is not the determining historical impetus, or that the heathen must be
subjected to Christianity, but rather the struggle of the Christian powers
against the anti-Christian powers, against the Antichrist. For the Christian
world of the West what is important is the question of overcoming the
historical protest, which is connected with the Reformation, and for which not
only Protestants are responsible, just as the question of overcoming the
historic raskol (schism) is likewise important for the Russian Orthodox world,
and for which are responsible not only the Old-Ritualists. These are the inner
questions for the Christianity of the West and for the Christianity of the East.
But both these spiritual worlds also must learn to know each other better, and
unite spiritually, not politically. But up to now there has been little
striving for a spiritual unification. The Orthodoxy lived a closed, isolated
existence. II has in it immense spiritual richnesses which have not yet found
their expression and are not known to the world. These spiritual richnesses are
needful also to the world [p. 199] of the West. Russian religious thought, in
which many a creative religious idea has arisen, remains almost unknown in the
West. We ourselves are guilty in this. But it seems that we do not recognize,
that the time for the Orthodoxy has come, to break out of this closed circle.
Our spiritual forces are not so exhausted in too much historical activity and
being organization, in the Russian people there is the great capability to give
birth to a Christian renaissance, just as there is also the capacity, to fall
under the spirit of the Antichrist. But we must however overcome the historic
hostility and the suspicion towards Catholicism. This hostility and this
mistrust was fanned by the politics of conquest of the Catholic Church. The
fundamental condition for a solidarity and a unification of Orthodox and
Catholics is that the politics of conquest must be ended. The Catholics must
stop seeing the Russian people as an object which must be converted to the true
Faith; they should see in it a religious subject, should be attentive to the
inner spiritual life of the Russian people and to the positive spiritual
richnesses of Orthodoxy. The greatest hindrance on the way to spiritual
community and unity between Orthodox and Catholics is the fixation on the
relation to the Orthodox exclusively from the point of view of a conversion to
Catholicism. The self-contentedness of the Orthodox, just as also in the
Catholic world, must be gotten over. These worlds lack the whole fullness, and
they need completion. One ought not strive for unification at any price nor
resort to arbitrary means. Forced external unity, which does not correspond to
an inner spiritual unity, is only of little [p. 200] worth. It requires a free
and open association without any mistrust and without ulterior motives. I
repeat yet again, the Holy Spirit will unify the Churches, when the hour for it
has come, and which the Providence of God has determined. But Christian mankind
must prepare the spiritual soil for this and create a favourable psychical
atmosphere. Such a spiritual soil, such a psychical atmosphere can only be a
spiritual unifying in love, mutual acquaintance, prayer for the other and a
living in brotherhood in Christ. Maybe the unification of Churches and the
ecumenicism of Christianity will only be visible and totally actualized when
there is an end to time, when the apocalyptic epoch is come (so thinks Vladimir
Soloviev in his "Narrative of the Antichrist"); but it is our duty in
each moment of our life to strive innerly for it, to prepare spiritually for
it.
Capareton / August 1925.
Notes
(1) "Aehren aus der
Garbe. Christi Reich im Osten. Die geistige Bedeutung Wladimir Solowjews und
die inneren Voraussetzungen zur Wiedervereinigung der Russisch-Orthodoxen und
der Roemisch-Katholischen Kirche" ("Ears from the Sheaf. The Reign of Christ
in the East. The Spiritual Meaning of Vladimir Soloviev and the Inner
Conditions to Reunification of the Russian Orthodox and the Roman Catholic
Churches"). Mainz: Matthias-Gruenewald, 1926, pp. 185-200. The Russian
original was not published. Translated from Russian into German by Reinhold von
Walter.
(2) Erratum in the printed German text: "romantic" for
"Romanic"; here corrected. (H.M.Knechten)
(3) Erratum in the printed German text: "subordinationalism"
for "subordinatianism"; here corrected. (H.M.Knechten)