Category: Ecumenical, interreligious, and other relationships

Unorthodox Orthodoxy

On 30 November, the feast of St. Andrew, patron of the Church of Constantinople, I spent most of the day in a large, windowless room — the studio of the Eternal Word Television Network in Birmingham, Alabama.
I was honored to be invited to help the network’s viewers understand better the implications of Pope Benedict XVI’s historic apostolic journey to Turkey.
As supreme pastor of the Catholic Church, the pope came to visit his tiny Catholic flock, Roman, Chaldean, Armenian, and Syrian.
As Successor of St. Peter, he came in the service of unity to nurture bonds with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and other Orthodox churches of the East.
As first in the Church of Christ, he came to this predominantly Muslim country to witness to the solidarity and brotherhood of all believers in the one God.
Before his arrival in the Turkish capital city of Ankara, the mass media seemed to have a morbid fascination with the possibilities of disaster. With the cordial greetings of the Turkish authorities and the smooth progress of the pope’s journey, they seemed to lose all interest.
When the water level in the glass is midway, why is it so much more tempting to see it as half empty instead of half full?
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the media that looked to the negative side of the visit. Many Orthodox and Catholic Christians seemed to focus more on sad events and hurts of the past than on the wonderful and positive reality of the trip itself.
Yes, in 1054 the heads of the sister churches of Rome and Constantinople excommunicated each other. Yes, the leaders of the Fourth Crusade pillaged the great Christian city of Constantinople instead of going to the Holy Land.

But, this day, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople and New Rome, warmly welcomed Pope Benedict XVI, Bishop pf Rome to his cathedral church and patriarchate.
They prayed together in the Orthodox Church of St. George. They embraced in the kiss of peace. They jointly blessed the mixed congregation of Orthodox and Catholic Christians. They solemnly signed a common declaration celebrating the progress of the movement toward the reestablishment of full unity and expressing hopes for it attainment.
This was no encounter of two heads of separate churches seeking to find common ground — this was the embrace of two brothers in Christ reaffirming that they and their respective flocks belong to one great family, regrettably separated by culture, language, and history over the years.
Even so, the glass is still not yet full — unity is still not yet complete. There are still painful hurts and memories to be overcome, complex theological issues to be explored and clarified, and diverse traditions and practices to be understood and respected.
In response to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, Benedict and Bartholomew, like Peter and John, are racing together to encounter the Risen Lord — but each leads and shepherds a flock.
If they speed too fast toward unity, they risk leaving behind too many of their grazing and wandering sheep. They can only go as far and fast as solidarity with their flocks allow.
Godspeed!


(Published in
one, 33:1, January 2007)

Middle East Story

Maybe because I’m a native New Yorker, I really like the Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim musical, “West Side Story,” a contemporary adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.”
In the play (and film), two young people, María and Tony, with ties to two rival street gangs fall in love. The hatred between the gangs shatters both their lives.
In one song, Anita warns María:

A boy like that who’d kill your brother,
Forget that boy and find another,
One of your own kind,
stick to your own kind!

This could be the Middle East’s theme song. Don’t get involved with — don’t join forces with — don’t build relations with anybody except your own kind.
But, here’s the rub: Who are my kind?
If I’m a Lebanese named Ahmed, are my own kind fellow Muslims, but not Christians and Druze? Or are my own kind Sunni Muslims, rather than Shiites?
If I’m a Shiite, are my own kind only Shiite Arabs, or do they include Shiite Persians too?
If I’m a Shiite Arab in Lebanon are my own kind Hezbollah, but not fellow Shiites who are members of Amal?

Stick to your own kind!

If I’m a Palestinian called Nabil, are my own kind Christians, not Muslims and Jews? Maybe my own kind are Orthodox, but never Catholics and Evangelicals?
If I’m Orthodox, are my own kind just Greek Orthodox or Syrian and Coptic Orthodox too?

Stick to your own kind!

If I’m a Israeli named Esther, are my own kind Jews, as opposed to Christians and Muslims? Or, are my own kind Ashkenazi Jews, not Sephardic or Ethiopian?
If I’m an Ashkenazi Jew living in Israel, are my own kind Ashkenazi Jews from Austria and Germany, but not Jews from Russia?
If you keep this up long enough, it boils down to “If I’m me, I’m not you!”
It’s absurd. It’s illogical. It’s counter-productive. Even so, we pick and choose sides and groups, clans, and tribes — and then insanely let rivalry and hatred allow us to demonize the other and force us further and further apart.
It was the rabbi from what is now Turkey, Paul, who tried to persuade his fellow Christians, whatever their background, that

you are all children of God in Christ Jesus . . . There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

May the Middle East story not always be about shattered lives nor conclude like the Shakespearean tragedy:

A glooming peace this morning with it brings.
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished;
For never was a story of more woe . . .


(Published in
one, 32:5, September 2006)

Relational Math

Every now and then I indulge a curiosity about my family roots and try to find out more about my ancestors.
Out of 4 grandparents (22), I never knew two of them at all; they died while I was still an infant. I barely remember a grandmother who died when I was four-years-old. I did know my mother’s father somewhat more. He died when I was thirteen.
Growing up, I never even heard the names of all my 8 great-grandparents (23). Later, I found out that six of them were “from the other side” — i.e. immigrants.
All 16 of the fourth generation of my ancestors (24) were from Europe, my mother’s people from Ireland and my father’s, from Baden, Hamburg, Hesse-Darmstadt and Prussia (all part of today’s Germany).
That’s as far back as I can go, and I don’t even know all the names of that generation of great-great-grandparents. Even so, as I sometimes reflect, if any one of these unknown ancestors had never existed — or never married as they did — I would never have come to be at all.
Most of them were born about a hundred years before me; in other words, in my family the gap between one generation and the next is approximately twenty-five years.
If that’s usually the case, and if I go back a thousand years or so, I must have had almost 40 generations of ancestors. That comes to 240 or 1,099,511,627,776 people.
Clearly that’s impossible. One thousand years ago there weren’t that many people in the whole world — but the math seems correct and I couldn’t be here if I didn’t have these antecedents.
Now, lets push the absurdity just a little bit further: Any one of the several billion people alive in the world today could claim a similar number of impossible ancestors.

The only conceivable way of explaining it is by interrelationships — over the centuries people must have married remote, unknown relatives.
It may not be rigorously scientific, but I think it’s fair to say that if you go back far enough — and 40 generations really isn’t so very far — we’re all distantly related.
That means every other person in the whole world somehow must be a cousin, even if that person is hundreds of generations removed.
Curiously the mathematics — plus a little probability theory — leads to a conclusion similar to that implied by the creation stories of the Book of Genesis: If we’re all descended from the first man and woman, we must all be distant cousins, no matter how many centuries apart.
So what? Well, we all know the bonds of family, the ties of blood and, for better or worse, the obligations that enmesh us in a web of relationships — whether clan, tribe, ethnic group, or nation. If we’re all related, then everybody’s part of that web. There are no outsiders, foreigners, strangers, or gentiles. We are all one human family.
There’s a beautiful attraction at Disney theme parks that illustrates this very well. You get in a boat and ride in a kind of world tour through a fantasy of little animated dolls, each one in the colorful dress of his or her country or culture. All play typical instruments, dance traditional dances, and sing, but, in spite of their diversity, they sing the same song, “It’s a small world after all.”
It is. We are all part of it — and we are all related.


(Published in
one, 31:5, September 2005)

Differentiation

Q. What’s the difference between a whiffenbird?
A. One leg’s both the same!

No, it doesn’t make any sense at all — it’s just an old nonsense riddle. On the other hand, maybe it does suggest something very sensible indeed — the absurdity of overemphasizing difference.
We seem to thrive on difference, for better or worse:

“I’m taller”—“He’s shorter”
“She’s fatter”—“I’m thinner”
“We’re richer”—“They’re poorer”
“He’s a slob”—“He’s a snob”
“She’s too pale”—“She’s too dark”
“They’ve got class”—“They have no class”
“He makes more”—“He makes less”
“I’m smarter”—“She’s dumber”
“They live better”—“We live worse”
“I’ve got friends”—“He has no friends”

After all, it’s differences that distinguish us one from the other. When we need to know exactly who someone is, we look for some unique expression of difference.
Fingerprints identify us. There are at least six billion people in the world today. That means there are at least sixty billion fingerprints. None of them is the same.
Modern technology looks for better identifiers inside us. The combination and sequencing of genes on each person’s chromosomes are unique, even though the number of chromosomes and most genes is common to all.
The Psalmist marveled at his uniqueness,

Truly you have formed my inmost being;
you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made;
wonderful are all your works.

You are absolutely unique. So am I. But, it’s difficult to live in solitary splendor. That’s why we seek some common ground with others.
Alas, often the common ground we find is superficial. We opt for people who look like us, dress like us, or speak our language. But, common characteristics like these can mask profound differences of values, goals, and beliefs.
Our tendency to identify with superficial characteristics can work against our best interests in still other ways. There may be people with whom we have deep feelings, values, and commitments in common, but we don’t recognize them for who they really are — superficial differences put us off.
I may have more in common with a kind and loving foreigner whose dress and language are strange to me than I do with a scheming and selfish neighbor in my hometown.
I may have more in common with a sincere and profoundly religious Jew, Muslim, or Hindu than I do with a vain and hypocritical Christian who sings beside me in church.
It may turn out that I have more in common with the one I have been taught is my enemy than with the one I presume is my friend.
A good rule of thumb is to find the best and deepest common ground and act accordingly. For starters, we’re all God’s creatures, called to be his children, challenged to live as brothers and sisters and destined for eternal life — together!


(Published in
one, 31:2, March 2005)

We Need More Pontificating

I don’t know if you usually do it.
If you do, I urge you to continue more strongly than ever before.
If you don’t, I strongly advise you to develop the habit.
What? . . . Why, pontificating, of course.
No, no! Not pontificating in the sense of “acting or speaking pompously or dogmatically.” That definition is the result of a curious evolution of an excellent idea over the centuries. Let me explain what I mean.
Nowadays, the titles “Pontiff” or “Pontifex Maximus” are usually associated with the Pope. Actually, the Pope, after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, inherited these titles that formerly belonged to the emperor.
The Roman emperor had inherited — or assumed — the office and title of Pontifex Maximus which in ancient, pagan Rome was that of the supreme religious authority.
“Pontifex” comes from two Latin words: pons (pontis), meaning a bridge, and facere, meaning to make. A pontifex is a bridge builder. (And, a Pontifex Maximus is the greatest bridge builder.)
Building a bridge in ancient times was no easy task. Spanning a broad river or a deep chasm was an engineering challenge — and often still is.
Yet, what could be more important than a bridge? A bridge unites two separated places and shores. A bridge facilitates travel, communication, trade, and all kinds of exchanges.
Good roads and bridges were part of the success of the Roman Empire. They wove scattered communities and peoples into one political fabric.

I live on an island (Manhattan), so I’ve grown up with bridges and really appreciate them — especially the beautiful suspension bridges.
Their construction starts with two great towers sunk into the river bottom or the shore. When they are complete, a line is strung across the river — then a wire — then a stronger wire — then a bundle of wires. The net result is a pair of thick steel cables from which the roadway is hung.
Bridging the gulfs of isolation and ignorance, misunderstanding and prejudice, animosity, hatred, and fear uses the same methodology. The bridge maker starts with one strand of contact and communication, reaching across from person to person, from heart to heart.
As communication becomes more frequent, as more persons relate one to the other, the fabric begins to be woven and the bridge to be built.
The paradox of the modern world is that, in spite of so many tools of communication with a potential to weave us into one, so many chasms still divide us.
By all means pontificate as much as you can. Whether you’re seeking to solve international problems or to restore unity to family or community, build bridges.
May your care and concern span the differences that fragment the world! May the subtle threads of your love be woven into those cables that sustain the great bridge of life!


(Published as “Pontificating” in
one, 30:5, September 2004)

Are Christians Jews?

Words are squiggling little things, tough to nail down — their meanings are always changing. When we speak, we presume that the word we use means the same thing to another person as it does to us. But, it often doesn’t work like that.
A challenging word that has a variety of meanings — yet seems so simple and obvious — is “Jews.” It has a long, distinguished history.
The word is rooted in the name Judah, which refers both to one of the twelve sons of Jacob (Israel) and to the Israelite tribe that traced its ancestry to Judah.
After the Israelites conquered the land of Canaan, each tribe was given a territory. From that point on, “Judah” refers not only to a son of Jacob and to a tribe but also to a geographical area.
After the death of Saul, the first king of all the Israelites, David of Judah succeeded him. Initially, he ruled only Judah; later he ruled all Israel. However, this unity was short-lived. A few years later, all the other Israelite tribes except Benjamin rebelled against David’s grandson, and the Israelites became permanently divided into two separate kingdoms.
“Judah” now begins to refer also to a geopolitical entity, the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrians in 721 BC; the kingdom of Judah survived until its conquest by the Babylonians in 587 BC.
Until that time, the Bible refers to the people as Israelites. It was only after the conquest of Judah that we find the people referred to as “Jews” and the land as Judea.
“Jews” now means the people of God — worshipers of the one God and practitioners of a religion, Judaism.

In the New Testament it is not so clear what “Jews” means. For example, Jesus and his apostles are called Galileans. This seems to distinguish them from Jews in the sense of people from Judea — yet they are all, religiously speaking, Jews.
At times “the Jews” are portrayed as hostile to Jesus and his disciples. This seems to refer to the official religious leaders, especially those who collaborated with the Romans. Criticism of “the Jews” cannot refer to all Jews, since Jesus and his disciples are numbered among them.
At that time, Jews were divided by doctrine and practice into Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. Jesus’ followers formed a new group, messianic Jews, later called Christians.
There are many references to criticism of Jesus by Pharisees and Sadducees. In the years his death, hostility broke out between them and Jesus’ followers. “Jews” came to mean those Jews in opposition to the Jews who followed Jesus.
After the destruction of the Temple, the Pharisee school survived and evolved into modern Judaism. The missionary, expansionist part of the Jewish family became Christianity.
Alas, the ancient differences and hostilities survived rather than the unifying, common traditions and faith. For many, “Jews” became a pejorative term.
It’s baffling how a Christian can be anti-Semitic. I think it means he hates his antecedents and himself.


(Published as”Jews” in
one, 30:4, July 2004)

Antidisestablishmentarianism

“What’s the longest word in the English language?” was a challenge in my grade school. “Antidisestablishmentarianism” was supposed to be the correct answer.
The word refers to opposition to disestablishing, in particular, the official Church of England. This is almost the exact contrary of the popular American idea of separation of church and state.
Many British colonists in North America were religious dissidents who had fled religious oppression in their homeland. When political structures for the United States were being developed, it was agreed that there should not be any official, government-established religion.
This was a radically new idea that went against the tide of history.
For example, the ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, and Roman empires all saw state, religion, and culture as indivisibly linked.
Many early Christians were killed not for being followers of Jesus, but for denying public veneration of the divine Roman emperor. Their religious convictions made them appear as traitors to the state.
When Christianity became the imperial state religion in the 4th century, the tables were turned, but the same linkage of religion and state prevailed. In the Byzantine East, until the 15th century, the emperor was head of the Church and “Coequal of the Apostles.”
It was the emperor who convoked and presided at the early ecumenical councils — and set much of their agenda as well.
After the fall of Rome in the 5th century, again the linkage prevailed, but this time the religious authority, the pope, took on the power of the state.

Popes continued as temporal rulers in the West until the 19th century, when they lost their lands to a new, unified Italian state.
Union of church and state characterized many Catholic countries right up until the Second Vatican Council.
Sometimes religion was displaced by another, pseudo-religious ideology, but one still linked to the state — for example, rationalism/secularism in France, Nazi socialism in Germany, and Marxist Communism in Eastern Europe.
Notwithstanding the American inspired idea of separation of church and state, in much of the world today, in effect, an “antidisestablishmentarian” view prevails.
Wherever Muslims are the majority, Islam is the prime constituent of society. Islam does not know a separation of religion from government. Islamic states, whether secular, moderate, or extremist, all still have an “established religion.”
Israel was founded as a Jewish state. It still struggles to define its identity and the role and rights of its non-Jewish citizens.
Paradoxically, the United States, so concerned for separation of church and state at home, supports both the Jewish and some Muslim states in the Middle East while wrestling with its relations with the other Muslim ones.
Moses was a ruler; so was Muhammad. Jesus denied that his kingdom was of this world, but it has been taking his followers a long time to really get the message.


(Published in
CNEWA World, 29:2, March 2003)

Family Reunions Are Challenging

“My son is dead,” the father said, though the son was actually very much alive. The young man was raised in an Orthodox Jewish household. From the moment he decided to embrace Christianity, his father never looked on his face or spoke to him again.
What pain for both. What a price to be paid by each for fidelity to his religious convictions. The father saw his son as not only abandoning the traditions that were the father’s very lifeblood but also as rejecting the commandments and very truth of God. The son saw his father as so locked into his customs and practices that they overrode his understanding and love.
Throughout the centuries, Christians too have often read whole Christian communities out of the Church and acted as though they no longer existed. In effect, this is what the first ecumenical councils of the Church — its “family reunions” — did to confront controversies.
Arians were condemned at Nicaea in324; the followers of Macedonius, at Constantinople in 381; and Nestorians, at Ephesus in 431. This led to the estrangement of the Assyrian Church of the East from the rest of the Church.
The decrees of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 were rejected by many of the subject Christian peoples of the Byzantine Empire. As a result the Universal Church no longer counted the churches of Armenia, Egypt and Syria as part of the world-wide Christian communion.
In 553 and 680 at Constantinople and in 787 at Nicaea, councils still wrestled with problems of orthodoxy.

A sad result of the council held in Constantinople in 869 was the condemnation of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Photius. This aggravated the growing estrangement between the East and West. By 1054, the Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople solemnly read each other out of full communion with the Church.
Councils were convoked by the Catholic Church in 1123, 1139, 1179, and 1215 (Rome); in 1245 and 1274 ( Lyons); in 1311-12 (Vienne); in 1414-18 (Constance); in 1431-42 (Basel-Ferrara-Florence); in 1512-17 (Rome): in 1545-63 (Trent): and in 1869-70 and 1962-65 (Vatican).
At the councils of Lyons and Basel-Ferrara-Florence there were short-lived attempts at dialogue and reconciliation with the Orthodox Church, but even so the schism between the East and West continued unabated.
A great change of heart came about with the Second Vatican Council in 1962. The Catholic Church invited all the Christian churches of the world to send observers to the council. It recognized them as still-living parts of the one Church of Christ, even though not in full communion with Rome.
For the first time in centuries, in spite of existing important differences, all Christians were considered as one great family, and bold steps were taken towards achieving a complete family reunion.


(Published as “Family Reunions”
in Catholic Near East, 25:6, November 1999)

A Rock and a Hard Place

In March I had the privilege of assisting a group of bishops and rabbis, led by William Cardinal Keeler, on their “Interfaith Journey to Israel and Rome.”
The trip was sponsored by the U.S. Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Its purpose was for Catholics and Jews to share their experiences of the places dear to each and to see them through the other’s eyes.
You know who was the central figure of the trip? Simon son of Jonah, “the Rock” (or Peter), as he came to be known.
Scene I: We stood in the garden of olives, where Jesus agonized over the prospect of his forthcoming passion and death. And Simon’s role there? He slept.
Scene II: Nearby, we visited the grotto of Gethsemane, where Jesus often spent evenings with his disciples. The place of perfidy, for there Judas marked him with a kiss so that the soldiers could seize him. The Rock? He feebly fought, then fled.
Scene III: Caphernaum, once a bustling lakeshore town on the great Roman Sea Road from Syria to Egypt. Excavations have revealed remnants of a Byzantine church built over the foundations of one house in particular—the humble dwelling of the fishermen brothers, Simon and Andrew.
Only a few years ago a modern shrine-church was built over this site.
The remains of the nearby synagogue evoked memories for all of us — for the Christians, the miracles of Jesus that took place there — for the Jews, the revival in our days of the ancient land of Israel.
“Truly this is a place of miracles for us all,” reflected one of the rabbis.

Scene IV: Tabgha, the Church of the Primacy of Peter. It commemorates the resurrection appearance of Jesus described in John 21. We celebrated Mass by the lakeshore — the bishops who were the celebrants, the rabbis, the congregation.
“Do you love me?,” Jesus three times questioned Simon Peter, who had thrice denied him. And then and there Jesus gave him that great primacy of love: “Feed my sheep.”
Scene V: The Vatican, the Basilica of St. Peter. Upon arriving in Rome, we spent two hours walking through the great church, admiring its art and altars, chapels and statuary.
The next morning we gathered in the grottoes underneath for Mass near the tomb of Peter. Later that day we visited the excavations under the grottoes themselves — the very burial ground over which the church was built.
Scene VI: We attended the public audience in St. Peter’s Square — along with some tens of thousands of fellow pilgrims and visitors. After, we were greeted by Pope John Paul II, the successor of Peter as head of the Church.
Our interfaith journey spanned place and time — from Peter’s simple house in Caphernaum to the great shrine-church marking the place of his crucifixion and burial — from the first fisher of men of Jesus’ time to the one who still walks in the shoes of the fisherman today.


(Published in
Catholic Near East, 24:3, May 1998)

Bab Sittna Mariam

When Suleiman the Magnificent rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem in 1539-1542, his builders embedded lion reliefs in both sides of the last gate of the city to be completed. They probably were taken from the coat of arms of the Sultan Baybars.
It’s no surprise then that today, in Hebrew, the gate is commonly called, “the Lions’ Gate.”
Actually, Suleiman intended the gate to be called Bab el-Ghor, “the Jordan Gate,” since it faced East toward the Jordan Valley; however that name never took.
Christians persist in calling it “St. Stephen’s Gate” after an old gate that stood in the same area before the walls were rebuilt. Since Crusader times it was associated with the nearby church of St. Stephen outside the city walls.
For   For Muslim—and Christian—Arabs, the gate’s name is Bab Sittna Mariam, “Our Lady Mary’s Gate,” for down the hill from it, in the Kidron Valley near the Grotto of Gethsemane, is the Tomb of the Virgin.
Our Lady’s tomb is a place of great devotion for Muslims as well as Christians, especially for women.
Originally a great Byzantine church stood over this spot, probably with its altar built over the tomb itself. It was destroyed by the Persians in 614, rebuilt, and then destroyed again. The Crusaders built another great church there, but Saladin destroyed it, leaving only the crypt.
If you walk down into the crypt to visit the tomb of Our Lady, next to it you will find a mihrab, a curved niche in the wall that marks the direction of Mecca, so that. devout Muslims can orient themselves correctly when they pray at this holy place.

Muslim devotion to the mother of Jesus is rooted in the teachings of the holy Qu’ran.
Although there are several references to her in other places, one of the 114 surats, or chapters, of the Qu’ran is dedicated to Mary. Part of it recounts the story of the Annunciation:

. . . Then We sent to her Our angel, and he appeared before her as a man in all respects.
She said: “I seek refuge from thee to God Most Gracious: come not near if thou dost fear God.”
He said: “Nay, I am only a messenger from thy Lord to announce to thee the gift of a pure son.”
She said: “How shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me, and I am not unchaste?”
He said: “So it will be: Thy Lord saith, ‘That is easy for Me: and We wish to appoint him as a Sign unto men and a Mercy from Us’: It is a matter so decreed.”
So she conceived him . . .

Mary is a point of convergence for the three great monotheistic religions. She is a Jewish maiden, the mother of the Christ, beloved of his followers and Muslims too.
Maybe the real translation of Bab Sittna Mariam ought to be “Our Lady Mary is the Gate.”


(Published in
Catholic Near East, 24:2, March 1998)