Orthodox and Catholics in the Seventeenth Century: Schism or Intercommunion?

by K. T. Ware

[A classic text by Kallistos Ware reminding us why canonical penalties for praying and communing with heretics are not automatically incurred. In the words of the official Brief History of the G.O.C. published by the Holy Synod in 2015, “If, within the life of the Church, the grace of the priesthood were automatically cut off due to violations of the Holy Canons or even lapses in the Faith, then, as St. Theodore the Studite confirms, it would have been lost ‘retroactively’ long ago.” – Administrator note.]

Source: Studies in Church History, Volume 9: Schism, Heresy and Religious Protest, Cambridge University Press, London, 1972, pp. 259 – 276.

 

 

EVENT OR PROCESS?

For use on the first Sunday in Lent, the service books of the Greek Orthodox Church include a special office known as 'The Synodikon of Orthodoxy', which contains no less than sixty anathemas against different heresies and heresiarchs. [1] Yet in this comprehensive denunciation there is one unexpected omission: no reference is made to the errors of the Latins, no allusion to the Filioque or the papal claims, even though more than a third of the anathemas date from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries, a time when doctrinal disagreements between East and West had emerged clearly into the open. This omission of the Latins is an indication of the curious imprecision which prevails in the relations between Orthodoxy and Rome. It is altogether obvious that an estrangement has long existed between the Greek East and the Latin West. What is much less obvious is the precise point at which this estrangement evolved into a definitive schism, into a clear and final breach in sacramental communion. The division between the two halves of Christendom did not occur as a single event, accomplished once and for all at a specific moment in history: it was, on the contrary, a gradual, fluctuating, and disjointed process, [2] stretching over a remarkably extended period.

Despite the reappraisal of the history of the schism, following on the researches of Dvornik, Runciman, and others, it is still not generally realised how complicated this gradual and disjointed process was, and how slow in coming to its final conclusion: perhaps, indeed, the process never has been finally concluded. Long after the anathemas of 1054, long after the sack of Constantinople in 1204, long after the formal repudiation of the Union of Florence in 1484, Greeks and Latins continued in practice quietly to ignore the separation and to behave as if no breach in communion had occurred. Instances of communicatio in sacris are especially abundant in the seventeenth century, and if we are to speak of a 'final consummation' of the schism, perhaps this should not be placed earlier than the years 1725-50.

In the relations between Old and New Rome a recurrent pattern may be distinguished. A sharp dispute occurs between the two, leading to acute tension and even to mutual excommunications; yet on neither side are these excommunications treated as conclusive, and within a few decades the dispute is ignored or forgotten. In 863-7, for example, we see pope Nicolas I seeking to assert supreme jurisdiction over the East; his claim was rejected at Constantinople by patriarch Photius; communion was broken off, and in his encyclical letter of 867 to the other eastern patriarchs, [3] Photius accused the West of heresy concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit. In this way the traditional causes of disagreement between East and West - the Filioque and the papal claims-had already emerged plainly and unambiguously as early as the middle of the ninth century, and had led to an open breach in ecclesiastical relations. Yet the schism was very far from complete. Ten years later, when Photius returned to the patriarchal throne for a second period of office (877), he was in communion once more with the Roman see. Neither he nor the popes who succeeded Nicolas I withdrew explicitly from the positions adopted by the two sides in 863-7, but both parties abstained prudently from pushing the argument to its logical conclusion. Rome did not press her claim to jurisdiction in the East, while Constantinople suffered the charge of heresy to lie dormant. Although the basic grounds of disagreement remained unresolved, each side was content to pass them over in silence for the time being.

The conflict in the middle of the eleventh century was equally indecisive. In the summer of 1054, when cardinal Humbert and patriarch Michael Cerularius anathematised one another, each was at pains to restrict the scope of his excommunication: Humbert directed his anathema against Cerularius and his followers personally, not against the Greek Church as such, while Cerularius and the synod at Constantinople were equally careful to excommunicate Humbert but not the pope or the Roman Church. [4] Admittedly, since the papacy took no steps whatever to disown Humbert's action, his excommunication and the reply of Cerularius came to acquire a wider application, involving not only the two protagonists as individuals but also their Churches. Yet in 1089, when the emperor asked the synod at Constantinople why the pope's name was not commemorated in the diptychs, the bishops in their answer made no reference to the anathemas of 1054, but chose to regard the estrangement as something existing de facto but not de jure. 'Not by a synodical judgement and examination', they stated, 'was the Church of Rome removed from communion with us, but as it seems from our want of watchful care (ἀσυντηρήτως) the pope's name was not commemorated in the holy diptychs.' [5]

Recognising the inconclusive nature of the 1054 quarrel, several recent writers have drawn attention to the effect of the Crusades, and more especially the sack of Constantinople in 1204, in widening the division within Christendom. Sir Steven Runciman, for example, treats the events of 1204 as marking the 'final consummation' of the schism, if not juridically, then at any rate psychologically. 'The Fourth Crusade', he observes, 'could never be forgiven nor forgotten by the Christians of the East. Thenceforward there was definite schism between the Greek and the Latin Churches.' [6] But the rift was not as absolute as might at first appear. When Greeks and Latins met at the council of Ferrara-Florence in 1438-9, from the outset they treated one another as members of the same Christian Church, albeit mutually alienated. Neither side required the other to do penance as schismatics or heretics, and then to undergo a formal ceremony of reconciliation to the Church. Each acted towards the other as if there were a schism within the Church, not a schism by one or other party from the Church. 'Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad', stated the preamble to the decree of union promulgated on 6 July 1439. 'For the wall, which divided the Western and the Eastern Church, has been removed from our midst (sublatus est enim de medio paries, qui occidentalem orientalemque dividebat ecclesiam).' [7] The 'wall', be it noted, is inside the Church. The decree does not say that the East has hitherto been separated from the communion of the Catholic Church and is now being received back: neither side is 'received back', for both are already within. The reunion council, on this interpretation, did no more than render explicit an underlying unity which had never been wholly destroyed.

But what of the events which followed the fall of the Byzantine empire? In 1484 a synod was held in Constantinople, attended by the four eastern patriarchs, at which a special service was drawn up 'for those who return from the Latin heresies to the Orthodox and Catholic Church'. The convert was required to renounce the 'shameful and alien dogmas of the Latins', to pronounce anathema on all who add Filioque to the Creed, and to repudiate the Union of Florence; he also promised to 'abstain completely from Latin services'. After this he was anointed with the holy chrism (μύρον). [8] Here, it may well be thought, was an official and definitive severance of communion. The Greeks treated the Latins as heretics, who could be admitted to the sacraments only after a formal abjuration of errors and chrismation. From the Latin viewpoint the Greeks were now schismatics, perhaps also heretics, for they had expressly rejected the dogmatic decisions of the ecumenical council of Florence. It was, surely, no longer a question of mere estrangement but of open division.

Yet the historical reality turns out to be more complicated. Despite the Greek synod of 1484, despite a constant flow of polemical literature from either side - but more especially from the Greeks - in actual practice relations between Catholics and Orthodox often continued to be extraordinarily amicable, above all during the years 1600-1700. In the many regions of the Levant where members of the two Churches dwelt side by side, if there was sometimes tension on the local level, more frequently there was friendly cooperation, and not only cooperation but intercommunion. Within the Venetian dominions it was the normal policy of the Latin authorities to do everything possible to encourage harmony between their Catholic and Orthodox subjects; within the Ottoman empire, servitude to the infidel made Greeks and Latins alike more conscious of the common heritage which they shared as Christians.

Writing at Rome in the 1640s, the Greek Catholic Leo Allatius remarked of the contemporary situation:

The Greeks show no abhorrence for intermarriage with the Latins; they frequent the Latin churches, they attend the divine offices, the church sermons, and all the other functions of the Latins, and they entrust their sons for education at Latin hands... Greeks with Latins, and Latins with Greeks, attend worship and celebrate services indiscriminately (promiscue) in the churches of either rite. [9]

Allatius is not always a reliable witness, but in this instance there is plentiful evidence to show that he was not exaggerating. [10] There were not only mixed marriages between Greeks and Latins: in many Greek islands there were also mixed churches, with parallel naves and two adjacent sanctuaries, one for the Greek and the other for the Latin rite. [11] Roman Catholics were accepted as godparents at Orthodox baptisms, and vice-versa. Latin missionaries from the west, in the absence of a bishop of their own Church, behaved towards the local Orthodox hierarch as if they recognised him for their ordinary, seeking faculties from him, asking formally for permission to work in his diocese. The Orthodox authorities on their side welcomed the Jesuits and other religious orders as friends and allies, and even took the initiative in summoning them to undertake pastoral duties among their flocks. With the blessing of the Greek bishops, Catholic priests preached in Orthodox churches, heard the confessions of Orthodox faithful, and gave them holy communion. When Greeks wished to embrace Roman Catholicism, the Latin missionaries usually rested content with a secret act of submission, and instructed their converts to receive the sacraments as before at Orthodox altars. In the light of all this, the question can scarcely be avoided: How far is it legitimate to speak of a definitive schism or irrevocable breach between Orthodoxy and Rome in the seventeenth century?

Needless to say, local conditions varied considerably, and relations were not uniformly cordial. Contacts were closest in the Ionian and Aegean islands. Outside the Turkish empire, on the other hand, in Russia there was no cordiality at all: so consuming was the hatred felt by Orthodox Russians for Catholic Poles, particularly after the Polish incursions in the 'Time of Troubles' (1601-13), that during the first half of the seventeenth century Catholic converts to Orthodoxy were not only chrismated by the Russians but rebaptised. In the eastern Mediterranean during the seventeenth century there were few if any instances of such intense hostility, but widespread anti- Latin feeling was displayed on occasion in Constantinople, in Jerusalem, and on the Holy Mountain of Athos. Yet when full allowance is made for all the exceptions, the fact remains that in the years 1600-1700 vast numbers of Catholics and Orthodox, educated clergy as well as simple believers, acted as though no schism existed between East and West.

THE JESUITS AND THEIR 'TROJAN HORSE ' POLICY

Some of the most striking examples of Catholic-Orthodox cooperation are to be found in the story of the Jesuit missions in the Levant during the seventeenth century. [12] The Jesuits could have chosen to treat the Orthodox strictly as schismatics or even heretics, refusing all collaboration and common worship with them, aiming simply to win over individual Greek converts whom they would then place in self-contained communities, under their own immediate care and wholly independent of the Orthodox congregations. This, with certain qualifications, was normally the course recommended by the Holy Office and the Congregation of the Propaganda [of the Faith] at Rome. [13] The practice of the Jesuits, however, was very different. Arriving in the Levant, they found the directives from the authorities in Rome strangely irrelevant and inapplicable to the local situation. Deeply impressed by the extent to which the Christian East agreed with Catholicism, impressed also by the warm friendship which many Greeks showed towards them, they found it difficult to treat the Orthodox simply as aliens, as schismatics or heretics whom they must shun. In all essentials, so the Jesuits felt, the Greeks were brother Catholics – albeit Catholics who had drifted into certain errors and corruptions from which they required to be purged gently. Most of the Jesuits were devoted priests, with a strong pastoral conscience. Seeing the neglect and spiritual poverty from which the simple Greek believers suffered, and finding that their own ministrations were eagerly welcomed, they strove at once to render what help they could, without waiting for a formal 'reconciliation' of the Greek East to Rome. As in China, they displayed a remarkable flexibility and readiness for adaptation; but in the Levant this policy of accommodation could of course be carried much further, since those among whom they worked were fellow Christians.

It goes without saying that the ultimate aim of the Jesuits was to secure the full submission of Greek Orthodoxy to the Holy See – to reestablish the Union of Florence which, in their view, remained still theoretically in force, although unjustifiably repudiated in practice by the Greeks. But they were shrewd enough to realise that they could achieve more by pastoral collaboration than by polemics, more by courtesy and conciliation than by an aggressive proselytism. Instead of engaging in the kind of negative apologetics which underlined the points of divergence between East and West, they strove to win the confidence and affection of the Greeks, to infiltrate among them, and so to work upon them from within. Deliberately they adopted a 'Trojan horse' policy, not creating a Greek Catholic community distinct from and in rivalry to the Greek Orthodox, but fostering a Catholic nucleus inside the canonical boundaries of the Orthodox communion. This nucleus, so they hoped, would slowly grow until it was in a position to take over the leadership of the eastern patriarchates and to proclaim organic unity as a fait accompli.

It was a policy which came very near to success. In the initial stages most Orthodox overlooked the long-term aims which inspired Jesuit friendship, and they gladly accepted western help without inquiring into its ulterior motives. Jesuit sermons were received with enthusiasm. On his first arrival at Smyrna in 1624, Fr Jerome Queyrot, SJ, was at once invited to preach in the Greek church of St George, and this he continued to do regularly on festivals and during Lent. He was also allowed to teach the catechism to Greek children: at the end of each class he took care to insert a prayer for the pope, which he made all the children recite together. [14] Probably this particular detail escaped the notice of the Orthodox authorities. Ironically, when the Jesuits in Smyrna encountered opposition and hostility, it came not from the 'schismatic' Greeks but from their own Catholic colleagues, the Capuchins. In the ensuing quarrel between the two groups of Latin religious, the Greek metropolitan Iakovos intervened vigorously on the Jesuit side, and even wrote an appeal to Louis XIII of France. In his letter to the French king, he terms the Jesuits 'able teachers, zealous for the salvation of souls'. 'Since their establishment in our most holy archdiocese,' he continues, ' they have not ceased to help all kinds of Christians, alike by the good example of their life, by their preaching in our church, and by the instruction which they give to the children of our rite... These reverend fathers work much for the good and the salvation of Greeks, Latins, and Armenians.' [15] Clearly the Greek metropolitan looked on the Jesuits, not as enemies who had come to steal his sheep, but as trusted helpers in his pastoral tasks.

The same attitude was displayed by the Orthodox authorities elsewhere. In 1630 the Greek metropolitan Ieremias of Naxos gave formal permission in writing, authorising the Jesuits to deliver sermons and hold catechism classes throughout his diocese. His successor Makarios renewed the authorisation but thought it wiser not to put it in writing. The Jesuits were clearly regarded as the best preachers in the island: it was members of the Society of Jesus, rather than the Greek clergy, who were asked to deliver the address at great feasts when the churches were packed with worshippers, and the Jesuits were regularly invited to preach in the Greek cathedral at liturgies celebrated by the metropolitan himself. [16]

The western missionaries were in demand not only as preachers but as confessors. A Jesuit priest on Santorini claimed to have heard the confessions of some 400 Greeks in the space of four years; [17] another in Naxos spoke of confessing 600 Greeks in a much shorter period. [18] One reason for their popularity - or so the Jesuits themselves claimed – was that, unlike the Greek clergy, they did not demand money from their penitents! [19] Now the hearing of confessions is manifestly a more delicate matter than the preaching of sermons: it is one thing to deliver a sermon to schismatics, but quite another to pronounce absolution on someone who chooses to remain formally in schism. Yet the Jesuits adopted an exceedingly lenient view. As a general rule they put no questions to their Greek penitents concerning the Church of Rome; still less did they demand of them any explicit abjuration of schism or act of submission to the Holy See. So long as they detected no evidence of active personal hostility against the papacy, they prudently refrained from inquiring into the dogmatic convictions of the Greeks who came to them for absolution.

Being human, the Greek clergy must sometimes have resented the popularity of the Jesuits, yet in many cases they displayed no signs of jealousy. One Jesuit recounts how, while he was talking to a village priest on the island of Naxos, a woman came up and asked the Greek papas for confession. 'Here is the confessor,' the Greek at once replied, pointing to the Jesuit, 'here is the father, make your confession to him': and he promptly withdrew, leaving her in the care of the Latin missionary. [20] This ministry of confession was normally performed with the knowledge and tacit consent of the local Orthodox bishop, and sometimes, as at Smyrna, Aegina, and Naxos, with his explicit authorisation. [21] The Jesuits acted as regular confessors at the Orthodox convent of St Nicolas in Santorini. [22] Sometimes Greek clergy and even bishops went to Latin priests for confession. [23]

Cases where western missionaries administered holy communion to Greek faithful are understandably less frequent. Because of their superior education and pastoral training, the Jesuits were in demand as preachers and spiritual fathers, but for holy communion the Greeks naturally tended to go to their own parish priests, who would administer the sacrament to them in the familiar way under both kinds. On occasion, however, acts of intercommunion certainly occurred. The Dominican liturgist Jacques Goar, resident in Chios from 1631 to 1637, relates one such instance:

If the [Greek Orthodox] bishops and parish clergy learn that some of the sheep in their flocks have turned aside to the pastures of the Latin Church and are receiving communion there, they are not in the least annoyed. On the contrary, they issue no public condemnation of such a course, thus by their silence implicitly commending it. I add, not something which I witnessed, but something which I myself did: with my own hands, publicly in the presence of all and in the sight of the church, I gave holy communion - under one kind - to some Greek deacons; and when their bishop learnt about it, he made no protest whatever. [24]

At Corpus Christi processions, the Orthodox behaved with marked reverence towards the Latin sacrament. The Chian Jesuit Andrea Rendi recounts how in 1630 the Greek metropolitan with another Orthodox bishop went specially to a house from which they could conveniently observe the procession, while in front of the building they posted three priests in vestments, to cense the blessed sacrament as it passed. [25] On the predominantly Orthodox island of Andros, the Greek bishop himself took part in the Latin Corpus Christi procession, accompanied by his clergy in full vestments, with candles and torches. [26]

So delighted were the Orthodox authorities with Latin ministrations that they did not merely wait passively for the missionaries' arrival but actively encouraged them to come. In 1615 patriarch Theophanes of Jerusalem, after meeting the Jesuits during a visit to Constantinople, begged some of them to accompany him on his return to the Holy City: he promised them quarters in one of the Greek monasteries, which they could use as a centre for pastoral work among the Orthodox. The plan came to nothing, not because of Orthodox hostility, but because of opposition from the Franciscans in Jerusalem, who had no wish to see the Jesuits established there. [27] In 1628 a former abbot from that stronghold of traditional Orthodoxy, the Holy Mountain, called on the officials of the Propaganda in Rome and requested a priest, to open a school on Athos for the monks. [28] In 1644 the Greek patriarch of Antioch Euthymios asked the Jesuits to found a house in Damascus, [29] while in 1690 metropolitan Damaskinos of Aegina wrote directly to pope Innocent XI, with a request for two Jesuits to undertake pastoral work within his diocese. [30]

Pere Besson spoke no more than the truth when he observed in his book La Syrie sainte: 'The Greeks and the Syrians open their houses to the apostolic men; they open even the doors of their churches and their pulpits. The parish priests welcome our assistance and the bishops beg us to cultivate their vineyards.' [31]

LATIN INTERPRETATIONS OF THE 'GREEK SCHISM'

Such are not the relationships which we should expect between two Christian communities divided by schism, and it may well be asked how the canonists and theologians on either side defended these acts of communicatio in sacris.

On the Greek side there seems to have been little or no attempt at theoretical justification. The official theology of the Greek Church throughout the seventeenth century remained fiercely polemical: though influenced by the thought forms and terminology of Latin scholasticism, it never ceased to chastise the Latins for their doctrinal deviations, treating them not just as schismatics but as heretics. If the Greek bishops acted differently in practice, this was not because of any special theory concerning the incomplete nature of the schism, but simply because of urgent pastoral necessity. They and their flocks were fighting for survival under the rule of a non-Christian government; their own clergy were almost entirely simple and ill-educated; in desperate need of qualified preachers, catechists, and confessors, they turned naturally to the Latin missionaries.

The Latin missionaries, for their part, were likewise influenced by pragmatic considerations. The attitude of the Turkish authorities made it difficult for them to do otherwise than adopt the method of secret conversions. Religious minorities in the Ottoman empire were organized in a series of self-contained millets or 'nations'. There was a 'Roman' – that is, Greek Orthodox – millet under the patriarch of Constantinople; there were Armenian and Jewish millets; there were Catholic communities of the Latin rite, which enjoyed the protection of the western Catholic powers, especially France. But there was no Greek Catholic or 'Uniate' millet. What, then, were the Jesuits to do with their Greek converts? They could admit them to the Latin rite, but this had two grave disadvantages: it made the act of conversion more difficult, since it required the Greek convert to adopt unfamiliar forms of worship; and it provoked Turkish suspicions, since a growth in the Latin rite implied an extension of the influence of the western powers within the Ottoman dominions. If they were to avoid trouble with the authorities and possible expulsion, the Jesuits had really no alternative to the 'Trojan horse' policy: they had to tell their Greek proselytes to remain outwardly where they were. The directives concerning communicatio in sacris from the authorities in Rome failed to take account of the concrete practicalities of the local situation.

But the Latin missionaries were not merely opportunists, for they were prepared to offer a reasoned defence of their conduct. The form which this theoretical justification took can best be illustrated from two books: Quaestiones morales...de Apostolicis Missionibus by the Theatine missionary Angelo Maria Verricelli, published at Venice in 1656; and De Ecclesiae Occidentalis atque Orientalis Perpetua Consensione by Leo Allatius, published at Cologne in 1648. The first provides a rationale of the missionaries' policy from the standpoint of canon law, the second from that of church history and theology.

Verricelli takes as his basis the decree Ad evitanda scandala of pope Martin V (1418), [32] which he considers applicable to the situation of the Greeks. [33] On this basis he argues that communicatio in sacris with heretics and schismatics is permissible, provided that the persons in question have not been excommunicated publice et nominatim. [34] Heretical hierarchs, even those who are 'notorious', retain power of jurisdiction, so long as they have not been condemned by name; a fortiori the same is true of mere schismatics. [35] Since the four eastern patriarchs and  the Greek hierarchy in general have not been condemned publice et nominatim, they are to be treated as true bishops of the Church, endowed with genuine spiritual authority, and common worship with them is not excluded.

Verricelli proceeds to give specific examples of what he has in mind. A Catholic priest may attend a schismatic Greek liturgy, vested in a cope. [36] A Catholic may request the sacraments of confession or communion from a schismatic Greek priest, even extra mortis articulum. [37] A Greek, converted to Catholicism, may continue to receive the sacraments from schismatic and heretical Greek clergy. [38] A Catholic may receive ordination from a Greek bishop, even from one who is a 'notorious heretic or schismatic', provided that the hierarch in question has not been excommunicated nominatim. [39] A Greek priest, converted to Catholicism, need not mention the name of the pope when celebrating mass, but may continue to commemorate a bishop or patriarch who is a 'notorious heretic'. [40]

Here, then, is a church lawyer fully prepared to justify, on canonical grounds, all that the Latin missionaries were doing in the Near East. Admittedly, Verricelli speaks of the Greek Orthodox as schismatics and heretics, [41] but the cumulative effect of his recommendations is that in practice they are to be treated as nothing of the sort. It is significant that Verricelli's book appeared at Venice, where the writ of the Inquisition did not run. It is doubtful whether such a work could have been published at Rome, with the blessing of the Holy Office and the Propaganda.

Allatius goes much more deeply into the whole question than Verricelli. Passing beyond the level of canon law, he raises the basic issue of principle: Has there ever been, and does there exist today, a complete schism between the Christian East and Rome? During the middle years of the seventeenth century, precisely at the time when Allatius was writing, western scholars were beginning to formulate what may conveniently be styled the 'standard view' of the eastern schism. This 'standard view' is set forth succinctly by a personal friend of Allatius, the French Oratorian Jean Morin, in the opening pages of his monumental Commentarius de Sacris Ecclesiae Ordinationibus.' [42] In this work Morin was concerned to prove that, ever since the start of the schism, Rome had never called in question the validity of schismatic Greek ordinations; and it was therefore important for him to establish precisely when the schism had in fact begun. He had little doubt about the exact date, 1053, and about the identity of the two chief culprits: Photius and Cerularius. 'The first seeds of the secession of the Greek Church from the Latin', he writes, 'were sown around the year 866... Photius was the first Greek who dared to accuse the Latin Church of errors in the faith, thus advancing the banner of schism and pointing the way for others to follow.' Pope John VIII, 'acting somewhat remissly', in 879 consented to the restoration of Photius to the patriarchal throne; and so, for the time being, the further evolution of the schism was halted. Disagreeing with Baronius, Morin evidently thinks that there was no 'second Photian schism', but that East and West remained in communion until Cerularius closed the Latin churches in Constantinople in the middle of the eleventh century. 'One hundred and eighty-seven years after the seeds were first sown by Photius, open schism broke out in the year of salvation 1053… Such is the date which we must assign to the schism.' [43]

Apart from the question of the 'second Photian schism', where Morin anticipates the conclusions of Dvornik, this is very much the view of the schism which prevailed generally until the second world war, and which still persists in the popular textbooks: a preliminary conflict under Photius in the 860s; a final breach under Cerularius in 1053-4. Allatius, by contrast, presents an account of East-West relations that is incomparably more subtle and more carefully qualified. The incidents of Photius and Cerularius he sees as important, but in themselves totally inconclusive. His main thesis, clearly indicated in his title De F.cclesiae Occidentalis atque Orientalis Perpetua Consensione, is that there never has been a 'final breach': the Western and Eastern Churches remain essentially united in a single faith. 'Greeks and Latins', so he argues, 'approve and reject the same things, and with united mind they pronounce the same concerning the dogmas of the faith. Their religious experience springs from one source, and both alike interpret it identically'. [44]

According to Allatius, there have been quarrels and misunderstandings between individuals on either side, but no act of complete schism formally and irrevocably committing the two Churches as such. Particular Greeks have been hostile to the Holy See, as were Michael Cerularius or Mark of Ephesus; particular Greeks have misinterpreted the Filioque, as did Photius, or they have propounded heretical theories about the divine light, as did Symeon the New Theologian or Gregory Palamas. [45] But these hostile attitudes and doctrinal misconceptions are not to be attributed to the Greek Church and nation at large. Adducing a wealth of evidence from the period after 1054, Allatius maintains that there have never been lacking Greeks who remained well-disposed towards Rome; and he points to the friendly contacts which exist in his own day. Neither in 1054 nor at any other time has there ever been a 'complete consummation' of the schism.

As Allatius puts it in one of his other works:

Individual persons, although holding office in the Greek Church, do not constitute the Greek Church. Nor, because various heresies have arisen and spread within that Church, is she herself to be considered heretical… The Greek Church as a whole, whether in her professions of faith or in the service books read continually in her public worship, has never professed any heresy condemned by the councils and the Church of Rome… Because certain individual Greeks have endeavoured to spread some ancient or freshly invented heresy, and have inveighed against the papacy in their published writings, it does not therefore follow that the Greek Church is separated from the Church of Rome: this would only be the case if the heresy in question were universally adopted and outwardly professed by all alike; and this, you will find, has never happened on the occasions when certain individuals have launched attacks against the Roman Church. [46]

The standpoint of Allatius is concisely summarised by his younger contemporary, Nicolo Papadopoli: 'There are many schismatics in Greece, but Greece itself has never been schismatic.' [47] With this may be compared the statement of Carlo Francesco da Breno, in his manual for Latin missionaries in the Near East, published in 1726. 'Is the Eastern Church schismatic?' he inquires, and replies: 'Considered in itself it is not really schismatic, although there are many schismatics within it' (non esse secundum se spectatam reipsa Schismaticam, etsi in ea multi Schismatici sint). [48]

THE SEQUEL: INCREASING HOSTILITY AND RENEWED FRIENDSHIP

Such, then, were the friendly contacts existing between Orthodox and Catholics during the seventeenth century; and such was the theoretical justification provided by contemporary Catholic scholars for the acts of communicatio in sacris which took place daily throughout the Levant. In the first part of the eighteenth century, however, relations deteriorated markedly. Instances of joint worship and sharing in the sacraments, which around 1650 were a commonplace, had virtually ceased a hundred years later. By 1750 the separation between East and West had come to possess a sharpness and a finality which in 1700 it still lacked.

On the Orthodox side, the man most responsible for the growth in hostility was Dositheos, patriarch of Jerusalem for nearly forty years (1669-1707), an able and tireless foe of Rome, inspired by a passionate aversion for the Jesuits and all their works. [49] On the Catholic side, a rigorist approach to communicatio in sacris came to prevail more and more. The authorities at Rome, who had always looked with reserve on Jesuit leniency, grew increasingly severe in their directives as the eighteenth century proceeded. On 5 July 1729 Propaganda issued a general prohibition, excluding all common worship in terms of the utmost strictness. On 10 May 1753 the Holy Office published another general prohibition, insisting that the decree of Martin V, Ad evitanda scandala, applied only to civic cooperation and not to communicatio in sacris. [50]

But the most decisive single factor in the deterioration of relations was probably the schism in the patriarchate of Antioch from 1724 onwards. [51] The western missionaries had found Syria and the Lebanon a particularly fruitful field, and nowhere else in the Levant did they succeed in making so many secret converts, including several patriarchs of Antioch. But the eventual outcome belied the Jesuit hopes. Instead of securing the reconciliation of the entire patriarchate en bloc to the papal obedience, they succeeded only in producing a schism: in 1724 rival patriarchs were elected, the one looking to Rome and the other to Constantinople, and thenceforward the faithful were divided into two opposed flocks. This incident not only caused great local bitterness but led to widespread alarm throughout the Orthodox world. Many Greeks realised for the first time the way in which friendship with the Latins was leading to secret conversions; they were terrified that what had happened in Antioch would occur elsewhere, and so they broke off friendly contacts with the Latin clergy. The schism of 1724 made them view the Latins, no longer as fellow-workers whose collaboration they could sincerely welcome, but as enemies dedicated to the subversion of their Church. Anti-Latin feeling came to full development in 1755, when the patriarch of Constantinople, together with his colleagues of Alexandria and Jerusalem, laid down that Latin converts were to be received henceforward by rebaptism, and no longer by chrismation, as in the regulations of 1484. [52]

By the nineteenth century acts of shared worship had become little more than a dim and distant memory for both Catholics and Orthodox. In 1862 Dom Jean-Baptiste Pitra, the future cardinal, prepared a perceptive memorandum on communicatio in sacris with the Orientals. [53]   He was well aware of the intercommunion which had existed between Greeks and Latins some two centuries previously, and he cited the De… Perpetua Consensione of Leo Allatius and the reports of the Jesuit missionaries, as well as interesting evidence from Kerkyra (Corfu) in 1724. But he went on to insist that the situation had altered. The precedents adduced from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, so he argued, now possessed no more than a 'speculative value'; such practices he considered out of the question in the mid-nineteenth century.

Yet even in Pitra's day the sacramental severance was not total, for Latin canon law has never ceased to permit a Catholic, if in danger of death and cut off from his own Church, to receive Orthodox sacraments. [54] And had Pitra been writing, not in 1862 but in the years following the second Vatican council, his conclusions would necessarily have been different. The decrees of Vatican II 'On Ecumenism' and 'On Eastern Catholic Churches', both dated 21 November 1964, together with the supplementary 'Ecumenical Directory' issued in May 1967, have greatly enlarged the possibilities of communicatio in sacris with the Orthodox. The reaction of many Orthodox to these decisions has been guarded, but on 16 December 1969 the synod of the Russian Church declared that 'if… Catholics ask the Orthodox Church to administer the holy sacraments to them, this is not forbidden'. The Russian resolution has been vigorously attacked by the synod of the Church of Greece, but the ecumenical patriarchate has maintained a discreet silence and issued no condemnation. It appears that Catholic-Orthodox relations are entering upon another period of flexibility, reminiscent of the seventeenth century. Let us hope that the establishment of closer contacts will not lead to a fresh schism among the Orthodox, such as occurred at Antioch in 1724.

 

FOOTNOTES [numbering combined]

1. For the text of the Synodikon, see Τριῴδιον κατανυκτικόν (Apostoliki Diakonia, Athens 1960) pp 44–51. Compare also J. Gouillard, ‘Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie: édition et commentaire’, Travaux et Mémoires, II (Centre de recherche d’histoire et civilisation byzantines, Paris 1967) pp 1–316.

2. I take this phrase from Fr Gervase Mathew, OP: see The Eastern Churches Quarterly, VI, 5 (Ramsgate 1946) p 227, and compare [G.] Every, [SSM,] Misunderstandings [between East and West], Ecumenical Studies in History, No 4 (London 1965) p 9.

3. For the text, see PG 102 (1860) cols 721-41.

4. See PL 143 (1853) cols 1004B; PG 120 (1864) col 748B.

5. Greek text in W. Holtzmann, 'Die Unionsverhandlungen zwischen Kaiser Alexios I. und Papst Urban II. im Jahre 1089', Byzantinische Zeitschrift, xxvm (Leipzig 1928) p 60: cited by G. Every, The Byzantine Patriarchate 451-1204 (2 ed, London 1962) p 180.

6. The Eastern Schism (Oxford 1955) p 151.

7. Text in J. Gill, The Council of Florence (Cambridge 1959) p 412.

8. The text of this service is given in I. N. Karmiris, Τὰ Δογματικὰ καὶ Συμβολικὰ Μνημεῖα τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας, II (Athens 1953) pp 987–9. Orthodox writers occasionally describe the synod of 1484 as ‘ecumenical’, see, for example, G. A. Rallis and M. Potlis, Σύνταγμα τῶν θείων καὶ ἱερῶν κανόνων, V (Athens 1855) p 143, but it should more correctly be styled ‘local’, compare P. N. Trembelas, Δογματικὴ τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας, I (Athens 1959) p 136, n 53.

9. De Ecclesiae Occidentalis atque Orientalis Perpetua Consensione (Cologne 1648; photographic reprint with new introduction by K. T. Ware, Gregg International Press, Westmead 1970) cols 970–80, 1059.

10. A vast inventory of acts of communicatio in sacris during the seventeenth century is supplied by [P.] Grigoriou-Garo, Σχέσεις [καθολικῶν καὶ ὀρθοδόξων] (Athens 1958). The main evidence is briefly summarised by [Timothy (K. T.)] Ware, Eustratios Argentis: [A Study of the Greek Church under Turkish Rule] (Oxford 1964) pp 17–23, 36–7.

11. See A. K. Sarou, Περὶ μεικτῶν ναῶν ὀρθοδόξων καὶ καθολικῶν ἐν Χίῳ, in Ἐπετηρὶς Ἑταιρείας Βυζαντινῶν Σπουδῶν, XIX (Athens 1949) pp 194–208; Grigoriou-Garo, Σχέσεις, pp 25–6, 34–41, 57.

12. For contemporary accounts of these missions, see [François] Richard, [SJ,] Relation [de ce qui s’est passé de plus remarquable à Sant-Erini isle de l’Archipel, depuis l’établissement des Pères de la Compagnie de Jésus en icelle] (Paris 1657); the anonymous report dating from 1643 and perhaps by Fr Mathieu Hardy, SJ, entitled ‘Relation [de ce qui s’est passé en la résidence des Pères de la Compagnie de Jésus establie à Naxie le 26 Septembre de l’année 1627]’, ed [V.] Laurent, [Echos d’Orient,] XXXIII (Paris 1934) pp 218–26, 354–75, and XXXIV (1935) pp 97–105, 179–204, 350–67, 473–81; [A.] Carayon, [SJ,] Relations inédites [des Missions de la Compagnie de Jésus à Constantinople et dans le Levant au XVIIe siècle] (Paris 1864). Compare [H.] Fouqueray, [SJ,] Histoire [de la Compagnie de Jésus en France des origines à la suppression (1528–1762),] 5 vols (Paris 1910–25) especially III, pp 200–15, 606–35; IV, pp 315–62; V, pp 341–89. There is much valuable material in the series of articles by V. Laurent, ‘L’âge d’or des Missions latines dans le Levant (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècle)’, L’Unité de l’Eglise (Paris) issues for 1934–5. For the work of the Capuchins in the Near East (who were usually more cautious and reserved than the Jesuits in the matter of communicatio in sacris), see Fr Hilaire de Barenton, FMC, La France catholique en Orient durant les trois derniers siècles (Paris 1902).

13. See the articles by [W.] de Vries, SJ, 'Das Problem der "communicatio in sacris cum dissidentibus" im Nahen Osten zur Zeit der Union (17. und 18. Jahrhundert)', Ostkirchliche Studien, vi (Wiirtzburg 1957) pp 81-106; 'Eine Denkschrift zur Frage der "communicatio in sacris cum dissidentibus" aus demjahre 1721', Ostkirchliche Studien, vii (1958) pp 253-66; '"Communicatio in sacris": An Historical Study [of the Problem of Liturgical Services in Common with Eastern Christians Separated from Rome'], Concilium iv, 1 (London 1965) pp 11-22.

14. Fouqueray, Histoire, iv, pp 344.-5.

15. 'Brieve relation [de l'etablissement des Peres de la Compagnie de J£sus en la ville de Smyrne...'], in Carayon, Relations inUites, pp 174-5: compare Fouqueray, Histoire, v, p 367.

16. 'Relation', ed Laurent, xxxiv, pp 350-1, 353-4: compare the letter of Fr Mathieu Hardy in Carayon, Relations inidites, p 116.

17. Richard, Relation, p 127.

18. Grigoriou-Garo, Σχέσεις, p 83.

19. ‘Relation’, ed Laurent, XXXIV, pp 359–60.

20. ‘Relation’, ed Laurent, XXXIV, p 357.

21.‘Drève relation’, pp 172–3; Fr F. Richard, SJ, in Grigoriou-Garo, Σχέσεις, p 83; Laurent, ‘L’âge d’or’, L’Unité de l’Eglise, No 72 (1935), p 477.

22. Grigoriou-Garo, Σχέσεις, p 34.

23. For examples, see Richard, Relation, p 135; Grigoriou-Garo, Σχέσεις, p 97.

24. Allatius, De . . . Perpetua Consensione, cols 169–60; compare S. Salaville, Studia Orientalia Liturgico-Theologica (Rome 1940) pp 54–61.

25. Grigoriou-Garo, Σχέσεις, p 107.

26. Hilaire de Barenton, La France catholique, p 175. For other examples, see Richard, Relation, pp 309–12; ‘Relation’, ed Laurent, XXXIV, pp 198–9; Grigoriou-Garo, Σχέσεις, pp 83, 112, 116.

27. Fouqueray, Histoire, III, p 618.

28. G. Hofmann, ‘Athos e Roma’, Orientalia Christiana, XIX (Rome 1925) pp 5–6, 29–31; Grigoriou-Garo, Σχέσεις, pp 163–74.

29. Fouqueray, Histoire, v, pp 382-3.

30. G. Hofmann, ' Byzantinische Bischofe und Rom', Orientatia Christiana, LXX (Rome 1931) pp 19-20.

31. J. Besson, SJ, La Syrie sainte (Paris 1660), p 11.

32. Mansi, XXVII, cols 1192D–93A. For the importance of this decree for the question of communicatio in sacris, see de Vries, ‘“Communicatio in sacris”: An Historical Study’, p 13.

33. Quaestiones, p 207.

34. Quaestiones, p 138.

35. Quaestiones, pp 139, 465.

36. Quaestiones, p 145.

37. Quaestiones, p 152. But Verricelli admits that others hold an opposite view on this point, and he only defends his opinion as probabilis.

38. Quaestiones, p 753.

39. Quaestiones, pp 492–3. Compare the truly Machiavellian schemes of Thomas à Jesu, De Procuranda Salute Omnium Gentium (Antwerp 1613) pp 293–7.

40. Quaestiones, p 148.

41. Verricelli in fact inclines to the view that the Greeks in general are to be considered schismatics rather than heretics; individual Greeks may be tainted with heresy, but this cannot be affirmed of the Greek nation as a whole (Quaestiones, pp 634–5).

42. First edition: Paris 1655.

43. Commentarius, p 3. On the views of seventeenth-century historians concerning the date of the schism, see the valuable discussion in Every, Misunderstandings, pp 15–24.

44. This particular statement comes, not from De . . . Perpetua Consensione, but from another book on the same subject, in which Allatius collaborated with Bartold Nihusius and Abraham Ecchelensis: Concordia Nationum Christianarum… in Fidei Catholicae Dogmatibus (Mainz 1655) p 121.

45. For the views of Allatius on Hesychasm, see his De Symeoniorum Scriptis Diatriba (Paris 1664), pp 151–79; De… Perpetua Consensione, cols 802–40.

46. Ioannes Henricus Hottingerus Fraudis, & Imposturae Manifestae Convictus (Rome 1661) pp 6–7. Compare De… Perpetua Consensione, col 711.

47. Praenotiones Mystagogicae ex Jure Canonico (Padua 1697) p iv.

48. Manuale Missionariorum Orientalium, 2 vols (Venice 1726) I, p 83: compare G. Borgomanero, ‘Gli apologisti della dottrina cattolica contro i Greci nel secolo XVII. Il P. Carlo Francesco da Breno’, Bessarione, 3rd series, VIII (Rome 1910–11) p 292.

49. See Ware, Eustratios Argenti, pp 31-2.

50. See de Vries, '"Communicatio in sacris": An Historical Study', pp 18-19.

51. See Ware, Eustratios Argenti, pp 28-30, for further details and bibliography.

52. See Ware, Eustratios Argenti, pp 65–78. The 1755 measure did not apply to Russia, which ceased to rebaptise Latin converts from 1666–7 onwards. Since the end of the last century, the 1755 decision has fallen largely into disuse, but it has never been formally revoked and is still occasionally applied.

53. Memorandum to cardinal von Reisach, in A. Battandier, Le Cardinal Jean-Baptiste Pitra (Paris 1893) pp 435–9. This reference was kindly supplied to me by Br George Every.

54. See Codex Juris Canonici Pii X Pontificis Maximi iussu digestus (Rome 1949) §882; C. Journet, The Church of the Word Incarnate, I (London 1955) p 508.