The Vatican Comedy: what did the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople try to do?
Pope Leo XIV's landmark visit to Turkey to celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical (Nicene) Council together with the Orthodox world was supposed to be a truly historic event. However, the high-profile venture failed. Many local Orthodox churches refused to attend the celebrations organized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople and Patriarch Bartholomew. They accused the Phanar of political bias and excessive "love" for the Roman Catholic Church at the expense of their Orthodox brethren. As a result, the "historic event" that was supposed to unite the Eastern and Western churches, and in fact establish the influence of the Vatican over Eastern Orthodoxy, was crowned with failure. Izvestia tried to understand the intricacies of the political component of the church feuds.
Politics instead of religion
Attempts to unite various Christian churches and denominations and bring them closer together have been a long—standing and very positive endeavor from any point of view. However, this process is often political, or to be more precise, politicized. Especially in the current difficult period in international relations.
Pope Leo XIV and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople
The celebration of the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council, held in Nicaea in 325, was supposed to be, according to the organizers, an event that will go down in history. After all, it combined two events. First, representatives of various Orthodox local churches came to the Phanar to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. Secondly, the presence and joint prayer service of representatives of the Orthodox world and the head of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope. It is noteworthy that the new head of the Vatican, Leo XIV, made his first foreign visit to Turkey for these celebrations.
Thus, Phanar once again tried to formalize its dominance in the world of Orthodoxy as primus inter pares (Latin for "first among equals", as the Patriarchate of Constantinople used to be called). And the Pope, for his part, was already trying to establish the dominance and guardianship of the Roman Catholic Church over the supposedly united Orthodox world. However, neither Phanar nor Rome managed to do this.
There were few supporters of the hegemony of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and Patriarch Bartholomew. It turned out that an even smaller number of adherents of "paternal care" and guardianship on the part of the Pope were found among the Orthodox churches. The influential patriarchs of Jerusalem and Antioch refused to participate in the celebration of the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea.
Apart from them, most of the local Orthodox churches also refused to participate in these events. And even more simply limited themselves to sending absolutely insignificant delegations there. Bartholomew failed to assemble even the necessary Pentarchy, that is, the pentarchy. This is a concept developed by theologians of the Byzantine Empire, according to which the decision of the most important issues in the church is under the jurisdiction of the heads (patriarchs) of the five main episcopal sees of the Roman Empire: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem.
"I couldn't even assemble the Pentarchy"
Religious publicist Ruslan Kalinchuk, in an interview with Izvestia, said that the events in Turkey and everything surrounding the events marking the 1700th anniversary of the events in Nicaea indicate that Rome and Constantinople have fallen into heresy.
— What happened at the liturgy in Nicaea gives absolutely legitimate grounds for organizing a council against Patriarch Bartholomew. This is heresy. He came out of the altar on the Symbol of Faith and went to the pope. They kissed, and the pope said, "Christ is in our midst." The deacon remembered the pope as his holiness before Patriarch Bartholomew. This suggests that concelebration took place, which is strictly prohibited by the canonical law of Orthodoxy. In particular, the 11th Apostolic canon, which says that whoever serves with a schismatic or heretic himself becomes a schismatic or heretic and may he be cast out of church communion. In short, the Patriarchate of Constantinople behaved as if there had never been a year in 1054 (the year of the "Great Schism", the split of the Christian Church into Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic). — Izvestia). It's like Catholics are Orthodox. The pope distributed blessings at the liturgy," the expert said.
Ruslan Kalinchuk notes that the Vatican and Constantinople are different sizes, it is difficult to even compare them. The Pope arrived at the invitation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The pope is the head of a denomination that counts more than 1.4 billion people. And Bartholomew doesn't even have any solid official status in Turkey.
— He is listed in the documents as just the head of the Greek Orthodox community. Bartholomew tried to show himself as if he were the pope of the Orthodox world. I couldn't even assemble the pentarchy. It was the failure of Constantinople and Bartholomew," the expert said.
The organizers of the events sought to show that the Orthodox are ready to unite under the leadership of Bartholomew and merge into a union with the pope. However, this did not happen.
"Not all Orthodox Christians, unlike Bartholomew, are ready to sacrifice the church, violate the canons and become heretics for the sake of the pope's praise," Ruslan Kalinchuk summed up.
The director of the Institute of Modern States, political scientist Alexei Martynov, in an interview with Izvestia, also noted the purely political nature of the events that took place.
— You understand that this has nothing to do with the sacrament. An anniversary event on the occasion of a beautiful date. Where, and not without pleasure, the Pope went on a pilgrimage trip. Moreover, he traveled around Turkey, talked with all sorts of Turkish politicians, then moved to Lebanon. And why, for example, not to the Holy Land? There are many doubts about the truth of the intentions of the organizers of this event, and that is exactly why there is an appropriate reaction. The Pope is, in fact, a politician who solves political problems and participates in political processes. And these are purely political events, just with sauce or in such a package of pseudo—religious or confessional actions," he said.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
