Archimandrite Theognost Pushkov, D.Th, non-staff priest of the Luhansk Diocese, UOC

Source Religion in Ukraine

Transl. from russ. Dina Algada (telegram: @dina_engl_greek)

The entirety of the theology of the traditional Christian Churches is today undergoing an internal crisis. The ecclesiology of Orthodoxy, both in theory and in practice, is in a very distressed state.

The classical model of church structure (the "Byzantine model") is receiving blows from various sides:

(1) The canonical borders of the Local Churches have become the subject of heated internal disputes (reaching the point of breaking communion and even anathemas). With the development of church historical science, the conventionality of the hierarchical primacy of one bishop over others becomes obvious—if only because the conditional "first" possesses the same hierarchical dignity (apostolic priesthood) as his subordinate. It is becoming increasingly difficult to justify the principle of administrative advantage of one bishop over a group of bishops, considering their sacramental equality. The historical conditions that created the borders of the Local Churches have "vanished into the past", and therefore the administration of the "primate" often turns out to be standing on  shaky ground.

(2) The moral crisis within the church environment, made public due to modern technologies, calls into question the moral authority of the episcopate and the presbyterium. Sometimes a simple layman turns out to be more decent than his "father and mentor”.

(3) The development of theological sciences has made obvious the conventionality of many "generally accepted norms of the Catechism" and has even revealed contradictions in the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils, the history of which is not only a history of the struggle of theological disputes, but also a history struggles among political factions.

All of this casts doubt on the basic principles of the authority of the church hierarchy and poses a challenge to church intellectuals. Every theologian, priest, hierarch, and believer reacts to this challenge in his own way. And so, the eminent American Orthodox theologian Fr. John Behr has offered us his reflections on this matter. 

The immediate impetus for Fr. John’s reflections was a debate over whether everything the Moscow Patriarch says today qualifies as heresy - or not. And Archpriest Behr decided to touch upon the very foundations of the discussion: who, in fact, defines the boundaries of heresy? He begins with an undisputed fact: Almost every Local Church today is kneaded with the ‘yeast’ of national traditions, ready to go to battle - swords drawn - for their cause. If I have correctly understood the thought of Fr. John himself, he blames episcopal ecclesiology for everything: The institution of the Local Church, governed by bishops, was established for the Church’s benefit, but now it seems to do Her more harm than good.

So what does the author himself propose? – “A return to the era before these structures emerged and were equated with the Church- an era of luminaries like Saints Ignatius and Irenaeus, backed by the New Testament itself, where we find other ways to speak of the Church, not in terms of structures and offices, but as Mother, Bride, and Body: She is our heavenly Mother, the New Jerusalem”.

I will allow myself to doubt the thoughtfulness of this proposal for the following reasons:

1.No matter how Ignatius and Irenaeus spoke of the Church, they still insisted on the special authority of the bishop. These authors were rather unforgiving toward internal dissent within the community and quite ruthlessly cut off from the Church those they deemed heretics - sometimes justly, sometimes not so much. And we don’t hear the voices of the laity or lower clergy from the Churches led by Ignatius or Irenaeus! The voice of the Church, even then, was conceived as the voice of the bishop. In other words, the episcopal structure of the Church was already in place. What was missing was an institution to bind the various bishops into a single structure.

2.The hierarchical structure of the Church in those days rested precisely on the principle of each bishop’s de facto ‘autocephaly.’ Under such an arrangement, one bishop’s opinion held little sway over another. Indeed, the very effort to unite episcopal Churches into a single ecclesiastical structure arose solely because bishops were so often at odds with one another, hurling accusations of heresy, immoral conduct, or schism back and forth.

3.The author cites examples of how, in the 20th century, active laypeople gave voice to the Church. This wasn’t new. But those laypeople weren’t exactly lone rangers. They still relied on the blessing of some hierarchy- sometimes a distant one, not local - through which they entered the Lord’s Eucharistic community. Even Maximus the Confessor leaned on the blessing of Martin, the bishop of Rome. We can hardly imagine a ‘purely lay’ Church that exists without any reference to a hierarchy.

4.The proposed solution doesn’t resolve the conflict between today’s flock and the official hierarchy. How, within the scope of the Eucharistic assembly of God’s people, do we address the divide between, say, a pacifist and a militarist, when both view each other - if not as heretics - at the very least as sinners unworthy of partaking in the Lord’s Table? And even if we grant autocephaly to every bishop (short of splitting the Church into atoms), we’d only multiply discord and schisms. Sure, we might end up with militarist bishops and pacifist bishops (though the latter might face serious trouble from the authorities in a militarized state), but wouldn’t this just spark a kind of ‘civil war’ between the flock and the clergy?

Of course, we are not trying in the least to diminish the significance of the "crisis of authority" that the Church is experiencing. But for now, all the known proposed solutions to this problem actually only exacerbate it. Outdated formulas of faith and discipline have lost their relevance, and if new ones have been written and proposed by anyone, they have not received pan-Orthodox reception (i.e., again, even these, the soundest of solutions, will not unite but divide). Meanwhile, the list of "dividing causes" is quite large! And this is not just the conflict between pacifists and militarists. And these questions, I dare say, are much more important than the dispute about the Filioque or the manner of venerating icons. This is because many new contemporary questions directly concern the foundations of Christian behavior.

Christ desired unity for His Church (John 10:16; 17:21). Naturally, this wasn’t about some formal administrative unity. It was more about a familial unity—though a family, too, is an institution with its own hierarchy at the helm. We might dismantle the discredited institutions of power and mechanisms of ecclesiastical administration (including those of church unity). But what, pray tell, do we put in their place?

I can’t help but recall Luther’s words to Zwingli, reflecting on the fruits of his own work: ‘If the world lasts a bit longer, the differences in our interpretations of Scripture will leave us no choice but to turn back to the authority of the Councils we rejected, seeking refuge in the Church’s authority to restore some semblance of unity and end our disputes and divisions. We cast off that one Pope in Rome, but soon we’ll have as many infallible Popes as there are piles of manure for these newly minted doctors of theology to perch upon.’ [(quote according to: Васечко. Курс Лекций по Сравнительному Богословию. ПСТБИ, 2000)].

Our problem is further compounded by the fact that the historical-critical method of studying Scripture and the language of church dogmatics has called into question centuries-old traditional ecclesiastical exegesis.

We rightly challenge the authority of the current systems and the gatekeepers within them. But what becomes of the flock without its shepherds (Matt. 9:36)? For now, the question hangs in the air, unanswered. At least, I don’t have a ready answer. And if Fr. John Behr comes up with one, I’ll be all ears!

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