Sources for the Study of Early Ecumenical Views of Amfilohije Radović: Justin Popović

ABSTRACTThe former Viennese Cardinal Franz König and his foundation Pro Oriente have been prominent actors in the establishment of ecumenical relations between the Catholic Church and Oriental Orthodox Churches since the Second Vatican Council. This article discusses the Christian-Muslim relations dimension of this ecumenical engagement with Middle Eastern churches in the practical field of ecumenical travel to Syria and Egypt. This intertwining of ecumenical and inter-religious engagement is studied on the basis of archival collections and journalistic accounts that make it possible to grasp the administrative process of ‘travelling diplomacy’. The analysis links the practical work of ecumenical relations to the historical legacies of the Western encounter with Islam in the post-Ottoman area. I shall argue that Pro Oriente’s approach was based on a new post-Vatican II theological vision of Islam. Although this did include reorientation with regard to traditional orientalist perceptions, ecumenism also became caught up in political dilemmas that were connected to either an orientalist perception of ecumenical relations (Egypt) or religious legitimization of an authoritarian regime (Syria).

The ecumenical engagements of the Orthodox churches have been a great contributor to modern Orthodox thinking. Even so, the wealth of experience acquired through formal and informal interchurch relations has not been discerned and reflected by the Orthodox churches as profoundly as one might assume. A great deal of this partial or selective reception emerges from unresolved inter-Orthodox issues, such as an insufficient background in the hermeneutics of dialogue. A further significant challenge is the political stance of local Orthodox churches within national states. The chapter attempts to show how a lack of political consent internally affects reception of ecumenical experience by the highest ecclesial authority, as well as seeing how that same experience of ecumenical encounter can help the modernization of Orthodox ecclesial discourse.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) is an Eastern Catholic Church that lives according to the Ukrainian–Byzantine Christian theological, liturgical, canonical and spiritual tradition and is in full and visible communion with the successor of Peter. Unity with the Roman Apostolic See has become one of the most important foundations of the UGCC’s identity, enriching its church life and strengthening its ecumenical ministry. As a sui iuris Church in the “family” of Catholic communion, the UGCC actively develops its ecumenical commitments with the Orthodox Churches and Protestant ecclesial communities. In this article, we will briefly examine how the UGCC developed its communion with the Bishop of Rome and how communion with the Apostolic See was a blessing for this Church, but at the same time sometimes became a threat to its existence in times of persecution by totalitarian regimes. We will also present the current religious context in which the UGCC operates, analyze some of its most important ecumenical initiatives and examine its participation in the development of interfaith dialogue in Ukraine. We will consider the challenges that the Russian invasion has brought to the UGCC and other religions in Ukraine, and how the UGCC, by developing communion with Rome, manages to witness the Gospel of life in the difficult circumstances of war and death.

Fr. John Long, S.J. engaged in ecumenical activity between Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Catholics during the second half of the Cold War. This chapter analyzes his reflections on the origins and development Ukrainian Catholics over the longue durée and attempts to situate his understanding within Long’s broader ecumenical commitments during the Soviet era. In a still unpublished essay, Fr. Long positions Ukraine between the Three Romes of Rome, Constantinople, and Moscow, recognizing Ukraine’s unique status as a contested ecclesiastical and political space which deeply impacts ecumenical engagement. Charting his historical reflection and its impact on late-Soviet ecumenical engagement, this chapter articulates how his essay still bears relevance on the contemporary post-Soviet ecumenical landscape.

The geopolitical catastrophes of the first half of the twentieth century, especially the First World War, provided context for the development of Christian ecumenism. One of the first fruitful experiences of ecumenism for the Orthodox was with Anglicans at the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius. Sergius Bulgakov wrote of the spiritual communion that existed there, which recognized the existence of communion even in cases in which eucharistic communion of a fraternal nature was not yet possible. Afanasiev contrasted Cyprianic “universal ecclesiology” with Ignatian “eucharistic ecclesiology” identifying church unity in the sum of the local eucharistic assemblies in the Church, which altogether constituted the unity of the Body of Christ. The new term—eucharistic ecclesiology—became a prevailing paradigm among Russian diaspora theologians. Understanding spiritual communion and eucharistic ecclesiology, the eucharistic aspect of unity in the Church, as understood by theologians such as Bulgakov and Afanasiev, is instructive in ecumenical engagement between the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics.

The Relationship between Religion and the Public Square: Freedom of Religion in the Public Space

THE ORIGINALITY OF ST. THOMAS'S POSITION ON THE PHILOSOPHERS AND CREATION TIMOTHY B. NOONE The Catholic University ofAmerica Washington, D.C. AS IS WELL KNOWN, Thomas Aquinas stands out from his contemporaries in his apparent willingness to defend the possibility of an eternal but created universe, although, like all orthodox Christian believers, he affirmed that the world had a temporal beginning in the light of Scriptural teaching. That Thomas Aquinas defended the possibility of an eternal creation was amply demonstrated over a decade ago by Fr. John Wippel, who pointed to Aquinas's discussion of creation and endless temporal duration in the De aeternitate mundi, a work written in 12 71 or earlier.1 More recently, Professor Mark Johnson wrote an article in which he concluded that, no matter what doctrine the historical Aristotle may have held, St. Thomas consistently attributes a doctrine of creation to Aristotle.2 Most recent of all have come a pair of important studies by Wilks and Macintosh defending the coherence of Thomas's claim that the 1 John F. Wippel, "Did Thomas Aquinas Defend the Possibility of an Eternally Created World? (The De aeternitate mundi Revisited)," The Journal of the History of Philosophy 19 (1981): 21-37; on the date for Aquinas's De aeternitate mundi, see James A. Weisheipl, "The Date and Context for Aquinas' De aeternitate mundi," in Lloyd P. Gerson, ed., Graceful Reason: Essays in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy Presented to Joseph Owens, C.S.S.R., Papers in Medieval Studies, 4 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1983), 270. Arguments for an earlier dating can be found in Thomas Bukowski, "An Early Dating for Aquinas' De aeternitate mundi," Gregorianum 51 (1970): 277-303 and more recently, "Understanding St. Thomas on the Eternity of the World: Help from Giles of Rome?" Recherches de theologie ancienne et medievale 58 (1991): 113-25. The main thesis of this paper is unaffected by the dating of the De aeternitate mundi. 2 Mark F. Johnson, "Did St. Thomas Attribute a Doctrine of Creation to Aristotle?" The New Scholasticism 63 (1989): 129-55. 275 276 TIMOTHY B. NOONE world could be both eternal and created, while another pair of studies by Aersten and van Veldhuijsen have begun to explore from a more historical perspective the importance of Aquinas's formulation of the doctrine of creation for understanding his thought and its distinctiveness.3 The present paper is intended not so much to challenge the conclusions of any of these admirable studies as to put their findings into a wider historical framework through which we may hope to discover what is unique in Aquinas's doctrine of creation. In reading the Scriptum super Sententias of Thomas Aquinas, one is immediately struck by the novelty of Aquinas's claim that the philosophers and thus reason itself may reach the conclusion that the world is created. Such a claim seems quite different from the account of the philosophical knowledge of creation given by several of St. Thomas's immediate predecessors and contemporaries . What, then, emboldens Aquinas to make such a claim? Is Aquinas's reading of the philosophers so original and so superior to that of his contemporaries that he is capable of seeing in the philosophers a doctrine of creation that they missed? Or does Aquinas's originality on the philosophical demonstrability of creation have more to do with a reformulation of the doctrine of creation? Or does Aquinas both have an original interpretation of the philosophers and a different understanding of the doctrine of creation? In an attempt to answer these questions, the present paper will survey early and mid-thirteenth century views on the philosophers and the doctrine of creation and compare those views to Aquinas's position in the Scriptum super Sententias. The thirteenth-century authors included in this survey are chosen for their prominence in thirteenth-century thought, not 3 See Ian Wilks, "Aquinas on the Past Possibility of the World's Having Existed Forever," The Review of Metaphysics 48 (1994): 299-329; J. J. Macintosh, "St. Thomas and the Traversal of the Infinite," The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 68 (1994): 157-77; J. A. Aertsen, "The Eternity of the World: The Believing...

Reviewed by: An Infamous Past: E.M. Cioran and the Rise of Fascism in Romania Otilia Baraboi Marta Petreu, An Infamous Past: E.M. Cioran and the Rise of Fascism in Romania. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2005, 332 pp. The translation of Marta Petreu’s An Infamous Past: E.M. Cioran and the Rise of Fascism in Romania enhances the existing approach to the formation of ideological extremisms throughout the twentieth century, regardless of their left or right orientation. This oversight of Romania’s geopolitical crisis in the Balkans calls into question the role that the interwar Romanian intelligentsia played in the elaboration of the doctrine of the “Iron Guard” (right extremist movement), also known as the “Legion of the Archangel Michael.” Alimented by the discussion of “Romanianism,” a term that sums up a constant quest for identity often seen as the burden of belonging to a downtrodden country, Petreu’s insightful work conjoins an ethical personal drive to account for an “infamous” historical heritage and the epistemological imperative to contribute to the worldwide scholarship on the birth of violent ideologies in general. Furthermore, as Norman Manea notes in his foreword, the close examination of the Iron Guard’s highly problematic claim to ground its political agenda of self-sacrifice in Christian Orthodox spirituality sheds new light on fundamentalist religious terrorism at large. Accordingly, in a passage added to the American edition, Marta Petreu compares the “Legionnaire’s death” confined only to Romanian territory with today’s borderless “suicide bombers” (45). While serving the immediate purpose of capturing the attention of the reader preoccupied by the currently unequal dynamics of power in the world, this parallel needs to be carefully contextualized. Thus, Petreu orchestrates an impressive series of sources (newspaper articles, letters, pamphlets, unpublished personal archives, historical and philosophical writings of both European and Romanian thinkers) on a minutely detailed historical background. To further illustrate her argument, she places at the center of her inquiry the Romanian and French philosopher E. M. Cioran. In so doing, Petreu develops her case study from the vantage point of a work enshrouded by controversy—The Transfiguration of Romania (1936) and several newspaper articles and personal letters that testify to the ups and downs of Cioran’s support of the far right between 1933 and 1941. Petreu thus sets forth the extent to which Cioran’s biography [End Page 225] echoes the dialectical process of transfiguration that the young philosopher wanted for his “primitive” country. Convinced that all his personal achievements were conditioned by the national failure to equal the other leading European countries in power, Cioran believed that the far right violence against older politicians and intellectuals would save him from collective mediocrity. Thus, the Iron Guard’s vision of a dictatorial regime in Romania was in accordance with his plea for a dialectical leap into History, as opposed to a gradual adaptation to the Western European standards preferred by the older generation. Not only does Marta Petreu bring us closer to the parallel between Cioran’s personal turmoil and the political instability of interwar Romania, but she also highlights the significance of his “heretical” stands (pro-Occidentalist and anti-Christian Orthodox) within a group that eventually ceased to acknowledge him as one of its own. Moreover, her analysis of Cioran’s controversial stance regarding Romania’s minorities, especially Jewish and Hungarian minorities, further enriches our understanding of nationhood. In sum, this study is a remarkable and long-awaited attempt to fill in several epistemological ruptures still in place within post-Soviet identity narratives. With this in mind, Marta Petreu first lays the philosophical foundation for Cioran’s view on history as tributary to Spengler’s vitalism, as well as to Hegelian dialectics. Second, by establishing a close connection between Cioran’s “national collectivism” (a mixture of “state socialism” and the Bolshevik agenda) and Ceausescu’s dictatorship, she unravels the continuity between Romania’s Communist regime and the doctrines promoted by the autochthon intelligentsia. Third, by reading the apolitical French Cioran in the light of his endorsement of the Iron Guard, Petreu rightly traces his gradual process of disenchantment and detachment from his early political views in Romania, which culminates in his disapproval...

Reviewed by: Orthodox Readings of Augustine Eric W. Northway Aristotle Papanikolaou and George E. Demacopoulos, editors Orthodox Readings of AugustineCrestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2008 Pp. 314. $20.00. The thirteen essays contained in this book originally were papers delivered in June 2007 at the Orthodox Readings of Augustine Conference held at Fordham University. In recent years there has been resurgent interest (both positive and negative) in Augustine among various Eastern Orthodox scholars, as well as among non-Orthodox scholars concerned to learn more about the bishop's reception by eastern Christians. Given this interest, the editors of the present work understand the conference and the essays it produced to be groundbreaking: "The articles presented here offer for the first time an ecumenical engagement with the history of the reception of Augustine, both the man and his work, in Eastern Orthodox Christianity" (38). Unfortunately, neither time nor space allow for a comprehensive analysis of every presenter's contribution. What follows, then, are short summaries of a handful of essays, meant to spur on potential readers in the hope that they themselves will carefully mull over each and every one of the fine pieces contained in this volume. The intriguing opening chapter, co-written by Aristotle Papanikolaou and George E. Demacopoulos, traces the historical/theological currents that demonstrate the ancient majority consensus that Augustine was an Orthodox father, as well as the tentative acceptance by some scholars of certain aspects of Augustine's teachings within eastern Christianity. In both instances this occurred, we are told, primarily because of Photius's defense of Augustine in the ninth century, Bulgakov's engagement with his trinitarian theology in the first third of the twentieth century, and Lossky's quietly clement evaluation of the apophaticism of Augustine in the 1950s. Conversely, the "condemnation" (28, 37) of Augustine's entire theological methodology found its genesis "in early nineteenth-century Russia in its Slavophile form" (37). This downbeat assessment eventually flourished because of the soon to be normative interpretation of Augustine's negative impact on western theology and culture by certain Greek theologians of "the 1960s Generation" (27). The principle articulator of this interpretation was John Romanides, who, in turn, influenced Christos Yannaras and John Zizioulas. Romanides, whose theology was hermeneutically contingent on post-colonial Greek conceptions of "the other" (i.e., "East" over against "West"), appears to have reinforced the pre-existent relationship gap in the church by undermining Augustine's historical station as a father of the Orthodox Church (37). Elizabeth Fisher's essay recounts the circumstances surrounding the translation of Augustine's De Trinitate in 1280 by Planoudes. Fisher briefly, but helpfully, compares passages from Augustine's Latin text to the Greek translation. Based on her assessment of the corresponding texts, Fisher concludes that, "Planoudes chose to incorporate in his translation some features of vocabulary and syntax that echo the Constantinopolitan Creed and place the Greek version of Augustine's De Trinitate in the linguistic framework of this fundamental Christian text" (52). Ultimately, however, Planoudes rejected Augustine's trinitarian doctrine. But, his [End Page 331] translation received both scathing reviews (some aimed criticism at the translation itself, while others at the fact that he translated it in the first place), and cautious acceptance—all the while remaining influential in the Greek East for centuries after its completion (55). In regard to the influential nature of Planoudes' translation, Reinhard Flogaus argues persuasively (if not controversially) in his essay that Augustine's De Trinitate influenced Gregory Palamas, a detail that Flogus believes has been suppressed by eastern scholars in order to maintain "the old stereotypes" of the "Augustinian West and the Orthodox East" (79f.). The last chapter by Andrew Louth is simultaneously an exceptionally learned piece of scholarship and a mediating pastoral reflection. Entitled, "'Heart in Pilgrimage': St. Augustine as Interpreter of the Psalms," Louth focuses the spotlight on Augustine as preacher—examining the bishop's homily on Psalm 100 as found in Enarrationes in Psalmos—and not "the Augustine of the great controversies" (291). Describing his methodology as "an exercise in seeing how Augustine read one of the psalms with his congregation" (295), Louth allows Augustine's exegesis to lead the discussion...

The Witness of Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch. Edited by William G.Rusch. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2013.

The assumption is often made that the Orthodox Church has a unified approach to ecumenical engagement with other churches. This paper argues that while there is a ‘mainstream’ model (reflected especially in the thought of Georges Florovsky), there is also a minority ‘traditionalist’ model. While having radically different attitudes towards the modern ecumenical movement (traditionalists are vehemently opposed), both of these accept the premise that the historical Orthodox Church alone is the fullness of the Christian Church and that doctrinal agreement and incorporation into the Orthodox Church must precede sacramental communion. A more open alternative model (‘prophetic’) reflects proposals made in the twentieth century by theologians such as Sergius Bulgakov, Nicholas Afanasiev, Anton Kartashev and Nicholas Zernov. These were not taken up at the time but it is argued that they deserve to be studied again by Orthodox bishops and ecumenical leaders as possibilities for bold prophetic action toward Christian unity.

I was prompted to present on the topic of power and spiritual direction by some words of Fr. Alexander Schmemann. They struck me, and have remained etched in my mind ever since: “there is nothing more frightening than the thirst for power over souls. It is the thirst of the antichrist.” 1 Schmemann knew first-hand the kinds of distortions taking place under the name of Orthodoxy which this line evokes. Distortions, perhaps, should not be surprising. After all, if Lord Acton was right when he declared that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” 2 then the potential risks inherent in the ministry of spiritual direction in the Orthodox Church become clear. But this paper is not about the frequent and tragic abuse of spiritual authority and power in the history of Orthodoxy. I want rather to focus on one of the chief ways in which the Orthodox tradition has attempted to promote and protect the Christian integrity of the ministry of the spiritual father (and the spiritual mother), namely through the tactics of the director’s selfabasement, humility, and love. These tactics, I submit, are an attempt at the subversion of models of power as they generally obtain in this world, after the example of, and for the sake of, Christ. Since I am offering a bird’s-eye view of a specific facet of the concept of spiritual direction, I should mention some of the places where a fuller view of spiritual direction in Eastern Christianity and the early church can be found. There are several important works which deal with the theme, including, for instance: I. Hausherr’s Spiritual Direction in the Early Christian East (with the article prefacing the English edition by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware), John Chryssavgis’ Soul Mending: The Art of Spiritual Direction, and more recently George Demacopoulos’ Five Models of Spiritual Direction in the Early Church. 3 These are good

This chapter details the evolution of the constituent bodies of the World Council of Churches in the period between 1910 and the Council’s formal organization in 1948. It shows how these constitutive components (the International Missionary Council, the Faith and Order movement, and the Life and Work movement) grew originally from Protestant postmillennial optimism at the start of the twentieth century and evolved in the wake of the First World War, the rise of the Soviet state, the global economic depression of the 1930s, the rise of German National Socialism, the Second World War, and the destruction that the war brought about. All of these factors made ecumenical engagement utterly urgent in the eyes of the leaders of the ecumenical movement. The chapter also shows how Eastern Orthodox churches and representatives of the Catholic Church, even prior to the Second Vatican Council, became engaged at varying levels with ecumenical work.

The Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht have different historical backgrounds. The Dutch Church has her roots in the Catholic Counter‐Reformation, the German‐speaking Churches in the protest‐movements against Vatican I, and the Polish Churches in the problems of emigrants to USA. However, they adhere in common to the conciliar and synodical tradition of the Catholic Church. They lay stress on the relative autonomy of the local church, the episcopal apostolic succession, and the Eucharist as the manifestation of the Church. The autonomy of the local church is not seen as detached from the universal Church or the responsibility to stay in or to restore Church unity. This leads to an ecumenical engagement which has resulted in full communion with the Anglican Churches and a doctrinal consensus with the Orthodox Churches. Reference back to the undivided Church is a key feature of Old Catholic ecclesiology, though this does not lead to uncomplicated ecumenical solutions.

This chapter explores Anglican ecumenical engagement. After a brief historical survey of Anglican involvement in the global ecumenical movement, it focuses on the mostly bilateral ecumenical discussions which have taken place since the Second World War, considering relations between Anglicans and Old Catholics, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Moravians, Methodists, Reformed, Baptist, United and Charismatic/Pentecostal Churches, offering a snapshot of the state of these relationships in 2012. It concludes that ecumenical dialogue has proved effective in helping churches to know and understand each other better, but that this level of discussion can feel unconnected from the lived reality of individual Christians, particularly in contexts in which confessional boundaries are no longer experienced as clear lines of demarcation. Increasingly, the focus of ecumenical encounter is on shared mission.