Church Squabbles

There are lots of things brewing in different churches around the country these days. Depending on your perspective, any of it can be pretty serious. In the Roman Catholic church, there is a great deal of brouhaha surrounding the new translation of the Roman Missal, the official book of prayers and instructions for celebrating Mass. In the Self-ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, the status of the Bishops (other than Metropolitan Philip, the Archbishop and Primate of the Archdiocese) as either diocesan bishops or auxiliary bishops, assigned to administer the church in specific territories currently called dioceses, is the controversy in question. At stake in both of these situations is something far more significant than grammar and translation theories, or the question of titles and prerogatives; the very order of the church, or at least the ways this order is perceived to have been violated, is in need of serious consideration.

First, the Catholic Church. Apart from the technical aspects of translation, and different people's sense of what the translation should be, which is an important topic I do not want to focus on here, what seems to be at stake is a debate on the rights of different bishops and grouping of bishops. According to what is being described as the canonical norm, the Roman Curia, specifically the Congregation for Divine Worship, has no business telling the US Conference of Catholic Bishops what their English translation of the Roman Missal should be. The only role of the Vatican with regard to translation of liturgical books is to confirm that the proper canonical procedure was followed in approving the translations, i.e., that the US Bishops followed due process in approving a particular translation for the dioceses of the United States of America. What has happened is something more like Rome taking on the role of approving the translation itself, or, to put it more accurately, rewriting the translation approved by the US Bishops and telling them to use the rewritten translation. Another way of looking at it is that Rome is assuming the role of making decisions about which elements of the various English translations approved by different regional conferences of bishops from English-speaking regions and creating a single version for use in all English speaking dioceses. While this may seem like a useful idea at first glance, it gets problematic when you consider that American English is stylistically different from British English, Irish English, Australian English, etc. Even more importantly, the legitimate right of the US Bishops' Conference to make determinations about liturgical translations from the Latin into the local vernacular is being trampled underfoot. It's a squabble over who gets to be the 'decider.'

In the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese, we have another question of the rights of bishops, and their status. It's a very complex story that is influenced by the uncanonical situation in which the Orthodox Christians find themselves in the New World, and parts of Western Europe. There are many overlapping diocesan structures of various autocephalous or at least autonomous Churches, such that an Orthodox Christian might say that he is with the Patriarchate of Antioch, another with the Ecumenical Patriarchate (of Constantinople), a third with the Moscow Patriarchate, and a fourth with the Orthodox Church in America (which was granted autocephaly by the Moscow Patriarch in the latter third of the 20th century, but this autocephaly is not recognized by all Orthodox churches). Hard work has been done and continues to be done to resolve this situation, such that there would be one American Orthodox church, following the ancient canon that there would, in each place, be only one Orthodox bishop in charge. In this context, when Metropolitan Philip sought the grant of autonomy from the Holy Synod of Antioch (in Damascus, Syria), concerns were raised about the use of the Arabic word for 'autonomous' (Arabic is the official language of the Patriarchate of Antioch, much as Latin is for the Roman Catholic church). The word for 'self-administration' or self-rule (which is the literal translation of the Greek-derived word 'autonomy') was suggested and accepted by the Synod as an alternative. Somewhere in there, it was insisted that the Antiochian Archdiocese be seen as one unified particular church (manifested and described as clergy and laity gathered around the bishop in the eucharistic celebration), with only one head, namely Metropolitan Philip. The problems is that at some point in the process, bishops were consecrated and installed with the understanding that they were 'diocesan bishops,' and their particular territories are called 'dioceses.' The Holy Synod of Antioch, however, decided earlier this year that all Antiochian bishops in North America, other than Metropolitan Philip, were to be considered auxiliary bishops to the Metropolitan, not as diocesan bishops having all the rights and prerogatives that belong to diocesan bishops. Well, as you can imagine, this has caused some messes, one of which has been in the news and all over the blogosphere lately, where one bishop has called into question the decision in Antioch, and has had a rather public controversy with the Metropolitan. Refusing to be transferred to another 'diocese' of the Antiochian church, he's now in the process of transferring into the Orthodox Church in America. It's a mess, and it's hard on a lot of people. The question is not easily dismissible, because it pertains to important structural understanding of what the church is, and how it is or should be ordered. Equally, it's not easy for an outsider such as myself to say which position is the 'right' one, because the variables are really beyond my frame of reference.

On top of all that, the North American Orthodox-Roman Catholic Theological Dialogue has issued a statement within the last month calling on leaders of both communions to pursue more urgently the goal of reunification, putting all sorts of questions of church order, centered mainly around the role of the Bishop of Rome in the universal church. It is the boldest statement I have seen from the dialogue, and is significant in that it calls for each communion to rethink how the church ought to be ordered. This is really the most challenging aspect of Catholic-Orthodox relations, and it will continue to be the biggest obstacle to reunion.

As a person who fervently wishes for a reunification of Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, along with all the appropriate changes that would be necessary for each church to make, I am heartened by the statement. As a disciple of Jesus, I find much of the disunity and squabbling distasteful at best, scandalous at worst, and saddening throughout. As bold as the statement was from the dialogue, I find myself not hopeful that the men involved in ordering the church will overcome human passions of vanity and envy in order to obey our Lord's desire that we all be one. The scandal is that the men who will fail to overcome these passions are the very men who are supposed to preserve and transmit the teachings of Christ for us. How are we to believe in this way of life if our own teachers can't give evidence that it is at all possible?

Well, all hope is not lost. I am reminded of two things. First, there are actually stories in the gospel of squabbling and jockeying for position among the original twelve apostles. As seminal as these writings are for the church, and as formed by the early experience of the church as they are, I can say with confidence that this squabbling is not new, and I bet the evangelists didn't think it was going to go away anytime soon. In the very propaganda they wrote to spread the gospel throughout time, they included stories of squabbling over position and precedence, and told us what we are to make of it. Secondly, in the Orthodox Divine Liturgy, before the assembly professes the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, the priest (or perhaps deacon) says, "Let us love one another well..." and they exchange a sign of peace, exchanging a sort of pass-phrase: Christ is in our midst! He is and ever will be! Apparently, even before addressing the doctrinal content of our faith, which is part of the gateway through which one passes on the way to the eucharistic anaphora, it is most important to love one another and affirm that Christ is in our midst, just as he promised he always would be when two or three of us gathered in his Name.

Putting these two together, I also recall that during those periods of controversy among the first disciples and apostles of Jesus, Christ was in their midst, and isn't this the most important thing about us as church? Christ is in our midst (even when we squabble over position and prerogatives)!!! He is and ever will be!!! I wonder what church life would be like if all our bishops, Catholic and Orthodox, would follow the lead of the sacred liturgy in all that we do as church. This sacred liturgy is, after all, in the words of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of Vatican II, the summit of our Christian life, and the source from which all the church's power flows. Maybe we should follow its lead, as the key interpreter of sacred scripture, through which Christ opens our minds to understand the scriptures, and makes himself known to us in the breaking of the bread.