Finally, we are brothers!

Have you wondered, why this meeting of Pope Francis and Orthodox Patriarch Kirill is so important? It was a delightful scene for me to watch the two religious leaders enter through the wide wooden door in the airport in Havana. It seemed like; finally the East has met the West. Why is this so delightful to me and for many Western and Greek Christians? In order to know this we need to span our attention to the history of the ‘great schism’ (the great division). Here is a brief history of the great schism that ultimately took place when Pope Leo IX and Patriarch Michael Cerularius excommunicated each other in 1054. There are several reasons for the gradual schism but I consider these two are important ones, and they are as follows;

1. Primacy of the Pope: There were different political situations in the east and the west; in the west the Church's centralized and monarchical structure was reinforced by the barbarian invasions. The Roman Pope claimed he held authority over the four Eastern patriarchs, while the four eastern patriarchs claimed that the primacy of the Patriarch of Rome was holy honorary, and thus he had authority only over Western Christians. Now so long as the Pope claimed an absolute power only in the west, Byzantium raised no objections. The Byzantines did not mind if the western Church was centralized, so long as the Papacy did not interfere in the east. The Pope, however, believed his immediate power of jurisdiction to extend to the east as well as to the west; and as soon as he tried to enforce this claim within the eastern Patriarchates, trouble was bound to arise. The Greeks assigned to the Pope a primacy of honor, but not the universal supremacy, which he regarded as his due. The Pope viewed infallibility as his own prerogative; the Greeks held that in matters of the faith the final decision rested not with the Pope alone, but with a Council representing all the bishops of the Church.

2. Troubled Holy Spirit: The second great difficulty was the Filioque (Latin: and from the Son). The dispute involved the words about the Holy Spirit in the Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed. Originally the Creed ran: 'I believe ... in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and together glorified.' This, the original form, is recited unchanged by the east to this day. But the west inserted an extra phrase 'and from the Son’, so that the Creed now reads 'who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Therefore most Orthodox believe the Filioque to be theologically untrue. They hold that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, and consider it a heresy to say that He proceeds from the Son as well. The insertion of the Filioque clause into the Nicene Creed by the Roman Church in direct violation of the command of the Council of Ephesus (ADE431), which declared the text of the Nicene Creed decreed at the Frist and Second Ecumenical Councils to be complete.

Attempts to Reconciliation

Pope John Paul II returned the bones (relics) of Patriarchs John Chrysostom (347-407), a prominent doctor of the Greek Orthodox Church and Gregory of Nazianzus (325-389), Doctor and theologian, to Istanbul in November 27, 2004. This gesture paved a path to ‘promote Christian unity’. On April 8, 2005, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I together with other heads of self-governed Easter Churches were present at the Pope St. John Paul II funeral. This is the first time for many centuries that an Ecumenical Patriarch has attended the funeral of a Pope and this also contributed to the dialogue towards reconciliation between the Eastern and the Western Churches.

“Finally, We are Brothers”

Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill embraced and kissed one another, a gesture of unity and harmony. They met for the first time ever at the entrance to a room with dark wood paneling in Havana airport in Cuba. The meeting took place a long way from Europe and its divisions, on an island that is both a crossroads and a symbol.

“Hermano, hermano, brother, brother, somos hermanos (we are brothers)” the Pope said to the Patriarch, “finally!” The Pope and the Patriarch sat in two big white upholstered armchairs, the scene dominated by a wooden crucifix. “Now things are easier,” Kirill said. “It is clearer now that this is God’s will,” the Pope said.

They both joined hands in signing the joint declaration, in which the two express their common concern for Christians undergoing persecution and they ask the international community to help them. They also focus on migrants and refugees and announce a common commitment to combating poverty. They establish a clear distinction between family and other forms of cohabitation and make an appeal for life: “blood of the unborn cries out to God”. The two religious leaders also call for Christian unity for the good of humanity. This call comes as a reminder to us to be united always in the words of Jesus, ‘so that they all may be one’, and this way we can work together to guard each one’s dignity and to save each one’s pride.