Thursday, November 30, 2006

Where is the Monolith?

The Dawn of Man
(according to Clarke and Kubrick)



Interfax has a commentary on the Pope's trip and its relationship to the rest of the Orthodox world. Though dated today (the 30th), it seems to have been written before the Pope left for Turkey.

The final paragraph (my bolding):

Meanwhile, the ecumenical vector of Benedict XVI’s policy seems to have grown ever more consistent after the first statement he made immediately after his election to the See of Rome, pledging to commit himself to the visible unity of Christian Churches. The Eastern Christian component of ecumenism appears to be a priority for the pope, who admitted a month ago a desire to bring nearer the moment of communion with the Orthodox Greeks. However, the historically establish multi-polar nature of the Orthodox world will demand that the Holy See elaborate as multi-component and multifaceted policy of relations with National Orthodox Churches. The meeting of the Orthodox-Catholic Theological Commission in September in Belgrade has reaffirmed that it is inadmissible to use uniform methods in the dialogue between the Roman Catholic West and the polycentric Orthodox East and that it is necessary to use individual reciprocal ways in every particular case. The Istanbul meeting between Benedict XVI and one of the Orthodox patriarchs, even if more ready than others to make a compromise on the issue of the papal primacy, will still remain a meeting between the leader of the Catholic world and the head of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. And the opinion of the religious leader of a comparatively small Greek flock to be expressed in a future joint declaration made together with the Pope of Rome will never become, however strong the wish, a testimony to an ‘ecumenical breakthrough’ in the awareness of the millions-strong Orthodox world.

Elena ZHOSUL,
Interfax-Religion observer

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