Orthodoxy and Ecumenism
by
Nikolai Berdiaev, 1927
#328a (1); translated by
Heinrich Michael Knechten
[p. 3] The Church knows that it is by nature both orthodox and
ecumenical. It confesses to be guardian of the right orthodox belief and to
encompass all peoples and countries, the whole universe, the ecumene. The ideal
consciousness of the Church cannot tolerate any impairment or deformation of
the faith nor any particularistic limitation by space or time. The Eastern, the
Orthodox Church esteems more its right-belief, the Catholic Church of the West
estimates more its universality. This is to be seen in the very terms. But, of
course, the Orthodox Church considers itself also as ecumenical, and the
Catholic as the right-believing, too. Yet in spite of this there is not always
a correlation between the ideal consciousness of the Church and its empirical
existence. Orthodoxy and ecumenism can become impaired in their historical
actualisation and appearance, they can see as fullness that, which is
only a part, and even the pureness of the faith can become obscured. In the
historical development an empirical fact may be given an absolute meaning which
is not proper to it. First of all we have to point out the different meanings
of "ecumenism" in Catholic and Orthodox consciousness. Catholicism
understands ecumenism horizontally, external-spatially. The ecumenical Church
is for the Catholic consciousness a homogeneous world organization, described
in juristic concepts, international and encompassing the whole earth. Orthodoxy
understands ecumenism is vertically, a going into the depths. Ecumenism herein
is an attribute which may thus belong to every eparchy [p. 4] [= the Western
word for diocese], to every parish. Ecumenism is not a spatial category and
does not need a juristic world organization to express itself. That means:
Orthodoxy understands ecumenism more in a spiritual sense. But we Orthodox must
admit that the spirit of ecumenism has not been visible enough in the Orthodox
Church and has not been actualized enough, the ecumenism has been so to say
there only potentially. Ecumenical Christiandom assumes in history an
individualised aspect, and that is in general a blessing. Yet neither
individual persons nor individual peoples nor times can contain the fullness of
the ecumenical Truth. Each earthly existence in fleshly form contains
particularism. The existence of an Eastern and a Western Christian type, the
existence of different rites is a beneficial individualisation which realizes
pluriformity and fullness. Even without the disastrous separation of Churches
there would exist still the individualised forms of an Eastern and Western
Christianity, different agendas, different spiritual styles. The ecumenical
Church would contain the whole pluriformity of individualised types. And in
spite of this, there would still exist a Latinism which might appare strange to
the Eastern, Greek Christianity. Man is a limited being, not able to comprehend
much, and caught up in his own. The individualisation may transform itself into
the pluriformity of ecumenism, but may also see itself as the pluriformity,
i.e. may pass the particularism off for ecumenism. The individualistic
spiritual styles may yield different meanings, according to the point of view.
In the Western Christian world, Catholicism and Protestantism are opposite
types. But from the point of view of Eastern Orthodoxy they appear to belong to
the same Western spiritual style. Both have at their center the idea of the
justification, but not of transfiguration; to both the cosmic conception of
Christianity is strange; both have forgotten the Eastern teachers of the Church;
and the traditions of Platonism are far remote for them. Equally foreign for
official [p. 5] Catholicism and for official Protestantism are Origin, St
Gregory of Nyssa, St Maxim the Confessor. Blessed Augustine however stands
equally high for both Catholicism and Protestantism. Dogmatically, Orthodoxy
and Catholicism are nearer, than Orthodoxy and Protestantism, or Protestantism
and Catholicism, but their relations are different from the point of view of
spiritual styles. Luther worked and thundered against Catholicism, but he
remained part of the Western-Catholic spiritual type, determined by the spirit
of blessed Augustine, he sought more for justification than for
transfiguration, and his conception of Christianity was more anthropological
than cosmic. Dogmatically and ecclesiastically, the Catholics are nearer to the
Orthodox than to the Protestants, but the Orthodox can work easier with
Protestants than with Catholics. The reason for this is first of all that
Protestants confess the freedom of conscience. That is the great and
characteristic privilege of the Protestantism. Orthodoxy too has as principle
the freedom of conscience, freedom of spirit, and this freedom belongs
organically to our conception of Universality [Sobornost']. Protestantism
however understands the freedom of conscience too individually. Orthodoxy sees
itself organically linked with Universality, with the principle of Love.
Catholicism officially condemns (2) freedom of conscience under the name of
"liberalism", in spite of the fact that just this freedom produced in
the Catholic world all that, which was the best in it. The individual
forms of Christianity opened themselves these or those aspects of Truth in
different form.
But the individualisation of Christianity may produce the forms of a
harsh ecclesiastical nationalism and the fusion of Church, state and
nationality, a fusion which becomes an enslavement of the Church. An
identification of the religious and national element is a sort of Judaism
within Christianity. It cannot be denied that there has been an inclination of
this kind in the Russian Church. The consciousness of ecumenism of the Ortho-
[p. 6] doxy was adversely affected and weakened. After the fall of Byzantium,
the Russian people felt itself the only representative of the right-belief . On
this basis developed the idea of Moscow as the Third Rome. They began to call
the Orthodox faith the "Russian", to identify the ecumenical Church
with the Russian. The Church became nationalized through and through, and they
began to ascribe an almost dogmatic significance to national peculiarities.
They contrasted Russian faith and Russian Rites against not only
Latinism, but also against the Greek faith. They saw patriarch Nikon not as the
representative of the Russian, but of the Greek faith. The true Orthodoxy
however was the Russian, not the Greek faith. The extreme Russian
traditionalism broke de facto with the older Greek Church. On this basis
developed the schisms of the Old-Ritualists and the Old-Believers. The Old
Ritualists defended the Russian faith against innovations, in spite of the
fact, that these innovations were a return to older traditions. The
errors in the liturgical books were seen as genuine tradition, associated with
the essence of the Russian Orthodox faith. The consciousness of ecumenism was
in a certain part of the Russian people weakened or identified with Russian
messianism. The orientation of Russia to the West and Europeanizing began with
Peter the Great, but the Church became even more national-particularistic than
in the former Russian or with the Old-Ritualists. With Peter the Great came
also Protestant influences. The Church was subordinated to the state, and the
principle "cuius regio, eius religio" which was in this time
triumphing in the West, began to penetrate. This was a process of
secularisation.
The ecumenical consciousness was very weak in the period of Peter the
Great. Orthodoxy was ecumenical in its depths, but the consciousness of
this ecumenicism was weakened. The religious concept reawakened with us
only in the 19th century, and Russian religious thinkers gave an extraordinary
keenness of expression to the consciousness of the ecumenicism of Christianity.
The Russian Orthodox idea had in the time of its maturity an ecumenical
character, and Dostoevsky saw already in the ecumenicism, in the "All- [p.
7] humanity" a characteristic Russian trait. Chomiakov and the
Slavianophiles recognized the ecumenical character of the right-belief, but
they treated Catholicism unjustly and one-sidedly. Vladimir Soloviev has
ecumenism as a central idea. He was its martyr and prophet. The weak point was
his inclination to an external Unia. But his effort for the unity of the
Christian world, for ecumenism, for fullness, was just and yet premature in
comparison with his time. The defective relationship between Church and state
in Russia before the revolution, the external oppression of the Church by the
state, was disturbing to the consciousness of the ecumenicism of the
Right-belief. The state did not want it and was afraid of it, and it upheld the
particularism of the ecclesiastical consciousness. The break of the old
relations between Church and state must prove to be advantageous for the
ecumenical ecclesiastical consciousness, and lead at last to fulfillment of the
great religious hopes of the Russian world of thought in the 19th century
within the life of the Church.
The ecumenicism, the universal unity possesses for the Catholic Church
the pathos for Right-belief. It is an actualizing of the ecumenicism, and
demonstrates it in a fleshly form wherein we can perceive it. It possesses a
visible and universal center and a visible, uniform and universal outlook which
contains all peoples and countries. But in spite of this it is clear for us
that the ecumenicism of the Catholic Church is not genuinely complete, that in
it a part is passed off for the whole and that not all the whole potential has
been actualized. In these times they tend to stress that Catholicism cannot be
identified only with Latinism, that the Latin rite is only one of the
Catholic rites, that the Eastern rite is equally and organically its own. But
in fact the Catholic Church in history has been the Latin Church, the Latin
rite, the Latin spirit. The whole classic style of Catholicism was created by a
Latin spirit. Only the Latin mass and the Latin rite are organic in Catholicism
and can be considered as a whole, in the sense of a work of art. St Thomas
Aquinas, so central and influential for Catholicism, is a Latin spirit, a Latin
genius. The Catholic Church is an artistically perfect masterpiece, one of the
most perfect creations in world history, but it is a creation of the La- [p. 8]
tin genius. Latinism not only bears the seal of the Latin mass and the juristic
edifice of the Catholic Church, but also of scholasticism, of Catholic theology
and Catholic mysticism. German Catholicism was always specific and less Latin,
and so it was less classic and not rarely came under suspicion. The German
mystic was regarded as not really Catholic, in spite of the fact that he
remained within the limits of the Catholic Church (Eckhardt, rehabilitated by
Denifle (3), Tauler, Suso, Angelus Silesius), and he was not so highly esteemed
as was the Spanish mystic (St John of the Cross, St Theresa). The best German
Catholic theologians of the 19th century (not only Moehler, but also Scheeben)
were in their outlook very different from the Latin: they are less
rationalistic. Moehler, e.g. in his book "The Unity of the Church" is
very near to Orthodoxy. (4) Without doubt, Latinism also lays claim to world
supremacy, as did the Roman Empire. The idea of a forced universalism is a
Roman idea. And Latinism passes itself off without scruples for ecumenism. Its
potentiality is actualized by Latinism in abstractness. The center of the
Catholic Church remained Latin, and that not by chance. But a contradiction for
the Catholic consciousness is that for the ecumenical consciousness the Church
of Christ should be only actualized in some of its elements, remaining
therefore in a high degree potential and hidden. A total actualization of the
ecumenicism would demand not only the abolition of the confessional schisms
inside of the Christianity, but also the spreading of the Christianity to the
non-Christian world, its being pervaded by the spirit of Christ: The Orthodox
consciousness can entirely recognize that the ecumenical Church has been
actualized only partially, being partly in a potential and hidden state. This
does not mean that the ecumenical Church is not real and should be invisible.
But this visibility and incarnation is not complete, [p. 9] not yet perfectly
accomplished. For the Catholic consciousness it is difficult to think in this
way, in consequence of the Aristotelian-Thomistic view of the relationship
between potentiality and act [potentia et actus]. From this point of view
potentiality bears always a minus in comparison with act, potentiality is to a
high degree not-being. In God there is no potentiality, God is pure act [actus
purus]. This point of view is very sceptical about potentiality, because out of
its depths could come a new, not yet existing, creative development, destroying
the system, which has become normative, and indeed the whole edifice. The
Catholic consciousness thinks that ecumenicism has become a total reality, in
the organisation of its Church. There is nothing new to await containing a
greater fullness out of the hidden, not yet manifest, potentiality. But outside
of the Thomistic system of thought it can be said that the potential ecumenism is
deeper and broader, richer in possibilities than the actualised ecumenism. The
Church of Christ is not a finished and completed edifice, there are always
creative tasks in it, and enrichment of the life of the Church is possible. The
ecumenicism of the Church is given in the depth of being and has in historic
incarnations its task. But the ecumenicism of the Church can only become
reality by its carried-out partial actualisation and bodily creation.
Protestantism in comparison with Catholicism represents the opposite
type in its view on ecumenism. Visibly it exists in the Protestant
Churches not at all. Ecumenism remains invisible and not revealed. The
Protestant consciousness is comfortable with the existence of many Churches,
i.e. – essentially – many Christian communities, and doesn't suffer for one
visible ecumenic Church. Ecumenism is realised by a multiplicity of Churches,
no one of which makes claims to ecumenicism. Protestantism is willing to
acknowledge also the Orthodox Church with its peculiarities as but one of many
Churches. But this consciousness comes at the price of a complete reduction of
the value of the dogmas and sacraments in the Church, by a [p. 10] displacement
of the center of gravity exclusively to the subjective world of the faith and
the spiritual disposition. Protestants are aiming at unity, union of the
Christian world, but not at unity of the Church, not at one ecumenical
Church. This direction has in our days also a positive aspect, because it helps
uniting Christians of all Confessions, helps their vital inter-mutual relations
which is for Catholics always difficult. We see this in the many conferences
and congresses which are organized by Protestants, and in the help for
Christian movements of all countries by the Christian Young Men Association
(YMCA) and the Universal Christian Federation.