Catechesis · Inquirer
The Orthodox and the Others
Catechesis · Inquirer
The Orthodox and the Others
The Orthodox Church holds that it is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church confessed in the Creed -- the fullness of the apostolic faith, unbroken in its succession from t…
Question
What does the Orthodox Church believe about other Christians?
The Orthodox Church holds that it is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church confessed in the Creed -- the fullness of the apostolic faith, unbroken in its succession from the apostles. This is not a claim of institutional superiority or the condemnation of every person in every other tradition. It is a claim about the fullness of what has been handed on. Other Christians -- Catholics, Protestants, Oriental Orthodox -- possess varying degrees of the apostolic heritage. What they lack, from the Orthodox perspective, is not goodwill or sincere faith but the fullness of the tradition.
The ecclesiological basis of the strict position: Cyprian's dictum -- "outside the Church there is no salvation" (*extra ecclesiam nulla salus*) -- does not mean that God cannot save individuals who are through no fault of their own outside the visible Church. It means that salvation is ecclesial by nature -- it is union with God through Christ in the Body of Christ, and that Body is the Church. The question of the salvific status of individuals outside the visible Church is in God's hands; the question of where the Church is, is a theological one that the Orthodox answer by pointing to themselves.
The teaching
Ecumenism honestly -- what the Orthodox can and cannot say
The Orthodox Church participates in ecumenical dialogue (notably through the World Council of Churches, which it helped to found) from a specific position: it is the Church, not a church among others searching for a unity it does not already possess. This means Orthodox ecumenism is different in kind from Protestant ecumenism, which typically seeks a convergence of separated equals. The Orthodox seek to witness to the fullness they possess and to invite others into it -- not to find a common ground that no one yet fully inhabits.
What the Orthodox can say without qualification: baptised Christians of other traditions are our brothers and sisters in Christ. Their faith is real. Their love of God is real. Many of them are holier than many Orthodox Christians. The Spirit works in ways we do not control. God's mercy is not constrained by our ecclesiological categories. The Orthodox do not consign non-Orthodox to hell -- such judgments are not ours to make. What they can and do say is that the fullness of the apostolic tradition, the sacramental economy in its completeness, and the theological precision of the defined faith are found in the Orthodox Church.
We know where the Church is. We do not know where the Church is not. The boundaries of the Church visible to us are not the boundaries of God's mercy.
This formulation -- widespread in contemporary Orthodox ecumenical theology -- captures the appropriate stance. The Orthodox make a positive claim: we know where the Church is -- here, in the apostolic, conciliar, sacramental community that confesses the Creed and has not broken from the apostolic succession. They do not make a negative claim: we know that God's saving work is limited to the visible boundaries of the Orthodox Church. The positive claim is ecclesiological; the negative limit is theological humility before the freedom of God.
After Metropolitan Kallistos Ware
The Orthodox Church · 1963
The Great Schism
How East and West divided and what it actually cost
The Great Schism of 1054 is conventionally dated to the mutual anathemas exchanged between Cardinal Humbert (representing Rome) and Patriarch Michael Cerularius of Constantinople. But the schism was not a single event -- it was the culmination of centuries of growing estrangement between the Eastern and Western churches, driven by cultural, political, theological, and ecclesiological differences. The Filioque, the question of papal jurisdiction, the Carolingian coronation of Charlemagne as a rival emperor, different approaches to canon law and monastic discipline -- all contributed to a separation that neither side fully intended.