Papist Commentary: As 2025 Comes to a Close, is Christian Unity Stalled?

A century after the modern ecumenical movement began, recent events within the Anglican Communion and the Orthodox Churches have halted plausible progress.

Father Raymond J. de Souza | December 30, 2025 | National Catholic Register

 

 

The modern ecumenical movement began in 1925. In 2025, while the prayers for Christian unity continue, there is more pretending now than actual progress.

Year-end reviews for 2025 will include heartening photographs of Pope Leo XIV and King Charles III, supreme moderator of the Church of England, praying together in the Sistine Chapel. There will also be images of the Holy Father with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople at Nicaea. Yet the images betray the reality — the worldwide Anglican Communion effectively ceased to exist in 2025, and Leo’s visit to Turkey only highlighted the fragile state of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, titular head of Orthodoxy.

In 1925 in Stockholm, Sweden, a conference convened by Lutheran Archbishop Nathan Söderblom of Uppsala brought together some 600 Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant leaders. In his message for the centennial of that meeting this summer, Pope Leo XIV called Söderblom “the pioneer of the early ecumenical movement.”

While Catholic representatives did not participate at Stockholm 1925, it is regarded as the beginning of the modern ecumenical movement for its wide array of representatives. And at the Second Vatican Council, as Leo noted, “the Catholic Church has wholeheartedly embraced the ecumenical path.”

The most important ecumenical news of 2025 was the end of the Anglican Communion. Sarah Mullaly was appointed the new archbishop of Canterbury — the first woman to hold the post. GAFCON, an association of Anglican primates whose national churches include the majority of Anglicans worldwide, rejected a female archbishop, stating that “her appointment will make it impossible for the Archbishop of Canterbury to serve as a focus of unity within the Communion.”

Furthermore, Archbishop-elect Mullaly’s “unbiblical and revisionist teachings regarding marriage and sexual morality” means, in GAFCON’s view, that “she cannot provide leadership to the Anglican Communion.”

Indeed, the archbishop of Canterbury is no longer viewed as the head of the Anglican Communion, with GAFCON stating flatly that her “appointment makes it clearer than ever before that Canterbury has relinquished its authority to lead. The reset of our beloved Communion is now uniquely in the hands of GAFCON, and we are ready to take the lead.”

Despite the kind words during King Charles’ state visit to the Vatican, unity between Catholics and the Anglican Communion will never happen, as the Anglican Communion no longer exists. Indeed, the joint prayers in the Sistine Chapel — the first time a pope has prayed with the sovereign moderator of the Church of England — were only possible because Mullaly had not yet been formally installed as archbishop.

During the vacancy in Canterbury, the senior Church of England cleric is Archbishop Stephen Cottrell of York, who presided alongside Pope Leo. It is highly unlikely that Pope Leo will jointly preside at worship with a female archbishop of Canterbury.

On the Orthodox side, relations with Rome could not be warmer than under Bartholomew. Yet the Holy Father’s visit to Turkey highlighted the increasing irrelevance of the ecumenical patriarch. He is no longer in communion with the Orthodox patriarch of Moscow, whose territory includes 70% of all Orthodox Christians. The Moscow Patriarchate was not represented at Nicaea.

The state of unity within the Orthodox Church has never been worse. Patriarch Kirill is not in communion with Bartholomew and other patriarchs and is actively supporting Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine, in which the victims are also members of his flock. Kirill is barred from traveling to many countries due to his support for the war against Ukraine.

While there are not the same doctrinal differences between Catholics and Orthodox as there are with Anglicans, and while Catholics recognize Orthodox sacraments as being valid, the deep corruption and dysfunction of Orthodox leadership, along with a resurgent nationalism, make unity no longer a plausible project until the current generation of Orthodox patriarchs passes from the scene.

In Turkey, it was evident that the future of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is fragile. Bartholomew is 85 years old and has been patriarch in Constantinople for nearly 35 years.

In recent years, the Turkish government has taken a more aggressive Islamic posture, symbolized in 2020 by converting the Hagia Sophia — one of Christianity’s most historic cathedrals — into a mosque from being a museum. For that reason, while Pope Leo’s predecessors visited the Hagia Sophia as a museum of both Christian and Islamic heritage, Leo did not visit it on his trip, now that its Christian past has been suppressed to make it a mosque again.

When Bartholomew dies, it may be that Turkey’s increasingly Islamist government will seek to restrict the ministry of his successor. In any case, Constantinople, with only tens of thousands of Christians in Turkey itself, does not carry the weight associated with being the historic head of Orthodoxy.

Relations with Rome will continue to be warm, but less relevant to progress toward unity with the Orthodox.

The decline of Christian unity had a powerful image from 2025 — or more precisely, the lack of an image.

For the Great Jubilee 2000, St. John Paul the Great decided to open the Holy Door of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls together with the archbishop of Canterbury and an Orthodox metropolitan representing Bartholomew.

The famous “six hands” opening was chosen for St. Paul’s as it is the papal basilica most associated with ecumenism; the Holy Father goes there each year during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in January.

For this year’s Jubilee, Pope Francis elected not to open all the Holy Doors himself, delegating cardinals for the papal basilicas other than St. Peter’s. There were no senior ecumenical representatives at St. Paul’s. No six hands, or even four — just the cardinal archpriest of St. Paul’s by himself.

Prayers for Christian unity should undoubtedly continue because for God all things are possible. But as for plausible progress, 2025 was the year Christian unity died.

 

Source: https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/2025-state-of-christian-unity