Pope and Patriarch

Pope and Patriarch:

Here is an amazing story about people who may really fix a social problem that is many centuries old. (H/t: Dad29.)

The international mixed commission for theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches started discussing this text in Paphos, on the island of Cyprus, from October 16-23, 2009.

It has started to examine the preaching of Peter and Paul in Rome, their martyrdom and the presence of their tombs in Rome, which for Irenaeus of Lyons confers preeminent authority on the apostolic Roman see.

From there, the discussion continued by examining the letter of Pope Clement to the Christians of Corinth, the testimony of St. Ignatius of Antioch, who identifies the Church of Rome as the one that "presides in charity," the role of popes Anicetus and Victor in the controversy surrounding the date of Easter, the positions of St. Cyprian of Carthage in the controversy over whether or not to rebaptize the "lapsi," meaning the Christians who had sacrificed to idols in order to save their lives.

The intention is to understand to what extent the form that the primacy of the bishop of Rome had in the first millennium can act as a model for a rediscovered unity between East and West in the third millennium of the Christian era.

In the middle, however, there has been a second millennium in which the primacy of the pope was interpreted and lived, in the West, in increasingly accentuated forms, far from the ones that the Churches of the East are willing to accept today.

And this will be the critical point of the discussion. But the delegations from the two sides are not afraid to face it. Benedict XVI himself said this last January 20[.]

This is one of those things like having discussions between the United States and England over us rejoining the Commonwealth. You'd tend to think that there's just no possibility that an egg so badly broken can be restored.

Sometimes, though, things can go the other way. A Christianity that is set upon by external pressures may start to cling together more than it did at other times. One might not be so shocked to see it start to pull together; and from that, it would not be shocking to see it flower anew.