December 4, 1995
From this Holy Church of the glory of God and the pride in the Lord of its founders and all those who acknowledge it as a visible sign of their own glorious heritage and identity, we address a greeting of peace, love and honour. To all: to Your Grace, dear brother, Dr.George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury and those who accompany you; and to all our beloved friends here present, to you all, beloved sisters and brothers in the Lord, who have gathered here today to meet our Modesty and those who accompany us. We address this greeting also to all the inhabitants of the British Isles without exception, and to those throughout the inhabited world who are linked in whatever way with this resplendent edifice of faith and devotion, of the struggles and sacrifices of a long line of human generations from its foundation until today. We give thanks for the heartfelt welcome, for the kind words and many demonstrations of your love; above all for the opportunity to address glory and honour to God worshipped in Trinity in the midst of this assembly. Glory and great thanksgiving for the treasure which we possess in His saints, among whom there is here one greatly revered, Edward the Confessor, the devout king who reigned in England from 1042 to 1066, adorned by God with many gifts of grace, before whose sacred shrine every faithful person raises the Psalmist’s song, “God is wonderful in His Saints” (Ps.67:36).
We thank all of you for the sacred sentiments to which this our common assembly invites us, which of itself completes a visible expression, if not of the full unity of the Church, at any rate of the earnest desire for the attainment of this unity. To speak more precisely, for the preparation of our hearts and consciences for the reception and acceptance of the great gift of unity, as the Author of the Church and our Lord Jesus Christ wished it and as the Holy Spirit gives it, to the glory of God the Father.
We have been invited to formulate some ideas about this unity in the context of the “Constantinople Lecture”, which is organised under the auspices of the Anglican-Eastern Churches Association, which was founded as long ago as 1864. In October, we had the pleasure of meeting members of this Association, led by their Anglican President, Bishop Michael Manktelow, during their pilgrimage to Constantinople and Cappadocia. We thank them most warmly for their kind invitation this evening.
The name of the lecture permits a certain ambiguity, allowing the question, “Who is expected to speak here – the Patriarch of Constantinople or Constantinople herself?”
We are grateful for the freedom of choice granted us by this ambiguity. We hasten to explain at the start that, consonant with the faith and character of our tradition, it is always the Church herself that speaks. We are her humble and unworthy mouths, continuously in need of God’s grace, so that we may expound at every moment and in every place the experience and witness of the Church. Consequently, as being the visible sign and centre of the unity of the most holy autocephalous Orthodox Churches throughout the world, Constantinople must, as she has been invited, lay before you at this hour too her witness on the particular theme of the lecture; namely, the Orthodox perspective on visible unity and Ecumenism in the coming millennium and in relation to the Apocalypse of John, Patmos and the natural environment.
The questions proposed are very great in the dimensions of time, and place, and thought. Who can dare to approach them without fear and trembling? Fortunately, as has been said, we are called to articulate today the voice of the Church. And we hear her saying, to put it briefly, the following:
The first topic is visible unity. The elements of the problem are well-known from the Ecumenical Movement in general and from the particular programmes, studies, proposals and activities of all of us on the subject, particularly in the context of the activities of the World Council of Churches. Elements which have been clearly established both at the Second Vatican Council, in the official theological dialogues and in ecumenical endeavours in general.
All of us who speak on the present question invoke the prayer of our Lord, “Holy Father, keep them in your name … that all may be one” (John 17:11,21).
Nevertheless, we do not always remember that this prayer concludes with the categorical injunction for all those who believe in Christ, “And I have given them the glory that you have given me, that they may be one as we are one”. (John 17:22)
The glory of God, which is imaged and revealed for the unity and through the unity of the Church, is not hidden. Where it truly exists and lives, it shines on all things and persuades all human beings. And the world believes and glorifies God and is saved!
Visible too, however, and not hidden is the disgrace, the “shame”, the “dishonour” of division; because this precisely reveals the harsh contradictions of words and deeds. But the Apostle said that because of contradictions God is dishonoured and His Holy Name blasphemed (Rom.2:23-24)
Sadly, we Christians are entering upon the Third Christian Millennium as children and bearers of this “shame” and “disgrace”! And instead of unity, division, separation and in some instances confusion, forced proselytism, open conflict are visible and are being handed on to the first generation of the coming Millennium.
This spectacle grows even more painful from the fact that the Twentieth Century which is drawing to its close, although it was a period of fearful conflict on a political, ideological and military level, was – as no other epoch of the Second Millennium – a century of active, and, as it was believed, sincere ecumenical endeavour for the re-establishment of the anticipated visible unity of the Churches. What then? Is our failure the only harvest of this toil? Have we passed by and lost the only opportunity given by Divine Providence to the Churches? Did we make as an aim a mechanical understanding of unity, one of domination or one openly pluralistic and wholly foreign to the basic principles of ecclesiology, upon which the ancient undivided Church had in many ways relied to preserve her unity? Does that Church, with which our Orthodoxy believes and confesses that it finds itself in uninterrupted succession and identity, persevere in proposing itself as a foundation and model of visible unity both in the present and in the future?
Sadly, it is becoming more certain that we Christians will not have prepared a crown of glory, worthy of the grace and loving kindness towards us of the God of compassion, so that we may crown the last year of the Second Millennium and the first of the Third with visible unity. And this not only because the stated aims have not been attained but also since some of the things that had been attained ecumenically have either been lost once again or have been relegated to the sidelines, while new signs of friction have appeared and new obstacles have been placed on the road to unity. As we call to mind great and sacred moments of older ecumenical events and attitudes of loving association of Christians, we have the feeling that what was said to the angel of the Church in Ephesus applies also to us, “I have this against you – that you have abandoned your former love!” (Apoc.2:4). That first ecumenical love, where it has not yet fled, shows the right road towards visible unity and preserves hope.
We said at the beginning of our speech that the word at this moment belonged not so much to our Modesty as Patriarch of Constantinople, as to Constantinople herself. In other words, to the collegial conscience of Orthodoxy. We think it wise therefore to recall that we, the leaders of the Most Holy, Autocephalous and Autonomous Orthodox Churches in different places, considered together the problems that occupy us here both at our first meeting in our See at the Phanar on the Sunday of Orthodoxy in the year of Salvation 1992 and also at our second during this past September on the Sacred Island of Patmos. On these questions among others we pronounced as follows:
There is a pressing need for the visible unity of the Orthodox to be stressed even more and to be better established. From the point of view of the subject of our address, this means that when the unity of one of the Christian families is strengthened, the unity of the whole body is strengthened. And where existing unity is more distinctly established, there a model of a wider unity of Christians is accorded. The subsisting unbroken internal unity of the Orthodox Churches in different places exists and constitutes for this reason a presumption of a promising ecumenical perspective. We underline this and for the reason that, as has been shown in numerous instances, the spectacle of ecumenical unity has become a nightmare for some believers who are in other respects well-disposed, but also an instrument for internal terrorism of the Churches at the hands of the distrustful. And for this reason there is an obvious need for linking together ecumenical and pastoral care.
Moreover, we said in that spirit:
“The Most Holy Orthodox Church throughout the inhabited world, sojourning in the world and being inevitably affected by the changes taking place in it, finds herself today confronted with particularly severe and urgent problems which she desires to face as one body, adhering to St.Paul who said, “If one member suffers, all suffer together” (I Cor.12:26). One of these problems is also the internal upheavals in the life of certain of the sister Orthodox Churches, which have become manifest principally since the late great and unexpected political changes mainly in the countries of Eastern Europe, that are predominantly Orthodox, and subsequently. Such dissensions lead to tensions and even to schisms. Because of this we, the Leaders, drew attention to the fact that “The blood of martyrdom cannot wipe out the sin of schism” and that “to tear the Church asunder is no less an evil than to fall into heresy” (St.John Chrysostom). It is necessary then, indeed urgent, that beside the failures and disappointments, we adhere to the pursuit of the restoration of the unity of Christians, envisaging at the same time the unity of the whole of humanity. In this spirit, we clearly emphasised and we repeat it today, that the participation of Orthodoxy in the Ecumenical Movement was and is the fulfilment of a sacred obligation so that our Church may establish her witness, giving a reason for the hope that is in us (I Peter 3:15) in humility, love and confidence.
This hope of ours flows from the firm conviction that Orthodoxy, adhering to the witness of the one, undivided, Church of the Apostles, the Fathers and the Ecumenical Councils shows the way not to the past, but to the future!
This conviction is greatly encouraged by the evident more general revival of the Spirit of the Fathers of the Church. This creative revival “has not only helped the contemporary theological and ecclesiastical world to renew the life of our local churches in general, but also offered to the various organisations of the contemporary Ecumenical Movement and the connected bi-lateral and multi-lateral theological dialogues the witness of ‘the one holy catholic and apostolic Church'”.
Sadly, this witness has not succeeded in averting phenomena that overshadow the vision of unity. For this reason, “the crises and deviations observed during the last decades in the bosom of the Ecumenical Movement impose upon the Orthodox Church the need to resist such deviations”.
We will certainly disappoint all those who expect that from this resistance there will follow the declaration of confessional warfare! Nothing is more foreign or abominable to Orthodoxy than this, notwithstanding the violent and utterly unfraternal assaults, proselytism and other such attacks, which it sustains today from the ancient and the newfangled “Saviours of humanity”! The resistance of Orthodoxy, considered as a counter-attack of love, has been for the most part a martyr witness of faith and endures as an exercise in silence, prayer and patience. We are doing today all in our power on behalf of re-conciliation and peace “in accordance with the measure of the gift of Christ” (Eph.4:7).
We need this endurance and love even more in view of the very probable eventuality, “that the coming millennium will bring humanity face to face with ‘a clash of civilisations’ in which the religious element will be dominant. Such a possibility obliges all religious leaders to use wisdom, prudence and courage so that every element of fanaticism and hatred may be averted and eliminated, thereby safeguarding peace in a world which has been tried so severely in wars and conflicts during the century that is drawing to its end”.
Further “in a world confronted by all kinds of sects and terrifying interpretations of the Book of the Apocalypse, all of us, especially the younger generation, are called to learn and bear witness, in word and deed, to the fact that only the love of God, of our fellow human beings and the whole creation offers meaning and salvation to our lives, even during the most difficult periods of history”.
In proclaiming these things from Patmos, we the Leaders of the Orthodox Church stressed, in addition, that “in spite of the dramatic presentation of the events, the book of the Apocalypse contains in its depths the same Gospel of Christ, and reveals to us that human sin and the demonic destructive forces have been, and will be, defeated by Jesus Christ, the Lord of history, who is ‘the Alpha and the Omega .. the One who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty’ (Apoc.1:8)”.
In saying this, we find ourselves already in the spiritual atmosphere of the Sacred Book of the Apocalypse. Those who proposed the subject of the “Constantinople Lecture” expressed the wish that we should also say something about this sacred book in relation to the anxiety over the natural environment. Clearly this was also dictated by your desire to participate also in the celebration of the Year of the Apocalypse that was proclaimed by our Church on the completion of one thousand nine hundred years since the writing of the last book of Holy Scripture by John, the Servant of God, who “was on the island named Patmos for the Word of God and the witness of Jesus Christ” (Apoc.1:9).
In fact, it pleased Almighty God that we should celebrate this anniversary, along with many brethren, on Patmos during last September. We had the opportunity, in the context of an organised scientific international symposium to this end, of studying topical and supremely important and urgent ecological questions and of announcing conclusions and proposals, which, we hope, will attract the interest of those responsible throughout the world, but also of all human beings, who need to be conscious of the simple fact that the destruction of the natural environment is equivalent to the suicide of humanity.
This anxiety of our Ecumenical Patriarchate for the defence of the natural environment and the integrity of God’s creation is a fruit of sound biblical and theological principles, which we have received from our Fathers and understand in relation to the destructive ecological distortions of the thought and behaviour of contemporary humanity. Through this our Church has undertaken concrete initiatives in recent years on an inter-Orthodox, inter-Christian, inter-Faith, inter-race scientific level, both on its individual responsibility and in co-operation with other Churches, Foundations and Organisations. Among the latter we think particularly of the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), which is surely well-known to you, while we also express from this place sentiments of honour, love and thanks to its International President, His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who honours us particularly by his friendship and co-operation.
With all these things in mind, we Leaders of the Orthodox Churches included in our Message from Patmos the following: “The Orthodox Church considers humankind to be a steward and not the owner of material creation. This perception is particularly expressed in the tradition and experience of the ascetic life and of worship, and above all of the Eucharist. It is imperative today that we all display love and keep an ascetic attitude towards nature”.
However, this ascetic stand before the material creation presupposes spiritual training and discipline for the great aims and great visions, which our God, incarnate in Christ, revealed and which He entrusted to His Church and set them as a farther goal and final realisation of human history.
These insights, these divine visions have been and are darkly overshadowed by two errors of Christians, by two di-visions. Christian peoples have placed greater hopes in military divisions than God’s visions for the life and salvation of humankind. Christian Churches have neglected the vision of unity and have been dragged into the di-vision, the separation of the error of self-satisfaction and self-reliance.
It is now time that, at the dawn of the third Christian Millennium, we should definitively throw away the prefix “di-” in both cases, in thoughts and uses. For us Christians, vision is enough: it is enough and more than enough. Because it is a portrayal of the God of Peace, of reconciliation, of love. As is well-known, we, the Churches of our continent, are preparing the Second European Ecumenical Assembly for the year 1997 in the city of Graz in Austria. Its theme “Reconciliation – Gift of God, Source of New Life” gives strength to the vision. We Christians are justified by the grace of God and we can and must be, so that we can dedicate the third Millennium in hope. On the eve of Christmas we remember most intensely the words “See, the tabernacle of God is with humankind, and he will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and He, their God, will be with them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, because the former things have passed away” (Apoc.21:3-4)
As we say ‘yes’ to life, we say ‘yes’ to the vision of unity, with confidence in what will be. As we look forward to the One Who is coming, the Bridegroom of the Church, we cry out “Amen. Yes. Come, Lord Jesus” (Apoc.22:20)
