From http://easternchristianbooks.blogspot.com/ on Friday, September 30, 2011
Orthodox Diversity on the Problem of Primacy
Met. Hilarion Alfeyev, of whom I was recently critical, has come out with a restatement of his views–already in circulation since the fall of 2007 at least–on the issue of Orthodox understandings of primacy, correctly observing that “there are certain divergences, and there are different positions, of the Orthodox churches on the question of the primacy.” He further noted that “we do not have a very clear picture as to what should be the role of the primate in the Orthodox tradition….Without having this clear and unified vision, we cannot easily discuss the issue of how we see the role of the ‘primus inter pares’ in the universal Church.” In other words, until Orthodoxy deals with its internal notions of primacy, external discussions about papal primacy with Catholics will probably not go very far.
I’ve heard this argument before, and rejected it. As I have argued in several places, most fully and with more detail than anyone else has ever done in my Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity, the problem of primacy within Orthodoxy only becomes an issue after East and West part company. I am convinced (and here follow the suggestion of Met. John Zizioulas in his essay in The Petrine Ministry: Catholics and Orthodox in Dialogue) that Met. Hilarion’s proposed method for resolving this disagreement needlessly extends the process to a superfluous second step. He says Orthodoxy must treat internal notions of primacy first and then papal primacy.
On the contrary, I am convinced that Orthodoxy and Catholicism must have this discussion together: “solving” the problem of papal primacy will ipso facto solve the problem of internal Orthodox orderings of primacy. For that, and many other germane arguments, you really will want to read Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity.
He added on Monday, November 7, 2011
… on infallibility – picking up the point that the late Tomas Spidlik made in referencing a conversation he had with Romania’s greatest theologian of the twentieth century, Dumitru Staniloae:
I went to see a dear Romanian friend of mine, the great Orthodox theologian Staniloe, shortly before his death. He told me he could not understand the infallibility of the Pope. I then replied: You and I are also infallible. He was amazed at my answer, so I explained: When I say during the Mass: “This is my body …, this is my blood …” or when I say: “I absolve you from your sins,” these are infallible words and this is also the Pope’s infallibility, nothing else.
Then Staniloe said: If infallibility is understood in this way, then it is easier to comprehend. Not only is the Pope infallible when he speaks in the name of the Church, but so is the Mother when she tries to speak of God to her child. The priest is infallible in the sacraments and the Pope is also infallible when he speaks in the name of the great sacrament, of the whole Church.