27. August 2004

Tiefer gespalten als jemals zuvor

Ralf hat in pax et bonum auf eine wirklich bemerkenswerte Stellungnahme des (übrigens erst 38 Jahre alten) russisch-orthodoxen Bischofs Hilarion von Wien und Österreich verlinkt, der ganz ungeschminkt auf die eigentlichen Probleme der Ökumene eingeht:

Die Rede von einer "realen, aber unvollkommenen Kirchengemeinschaft", wie sie in ökumenischen Erklärungen verbreitet ist, hält er für "fraglich, irreführend und (be)trügerisch [deceitful]". Es gibt keine Communio zwischen den Kirchen, solange die Kommunion, die Eucharistiegemeinschaft nicht erreicht ist.

"Our inability to share the Eucharist, in turn, reflects the most profound division in dogma, spirituality, ethics, in the very experience of faith that exist among various bodies calling themselves ‘Christian churches’."

Die fortschreitende Liberalisierung in den "westlichen Kirchen der Reformation" ist es, die die Kirchenspaltung mehr als je zuvor vertieft hat:

"Our inability to share the Eucharist, in turn, reflects the most profound division in dogma, spirituality, ethics, in the very experience of faith that exist among various bodies calling themselves ‘Christian churches’. Metropolitan Gennadios of Sassima in his response to the paper in question has rightly pointed out that ‘there is little ontological unity and little agreement among those… who confess Christ as God and Saviour’. And let us be honest to one another and not pretend that the question is about a ‘unity in diversity’: we are deeply disunited, in spite of almost a century of the ecumenical movement.

The tragedy of contemporary Christianity, I believe, consists in the fact that, while we are all engaged in a laudable struggle for unity, processes are underway within some Christian communities which alienate us from one another ever more profoundly. And I think it is no longer the divisions between the Catholics and the Protestants, or the Orthodox and the Reformed, or one confessional family and another that should be an object of our primary attention. We must address very seriously the fundamental discrepancy between the traditional and the liberal versions of Christianity.

I believe that the recent liberalization of ‘faith and order’, of dogma and morality within a number of Western churches of the Reformation has alienated them from the traditional churches – notably from the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches – more than several preceding centuries of Protestant history. As a result of this liberalization and in spite of many decades of ecumenical quest for unity, we are now more profoundly divided among ourselves than ever before."(Europaica Bulletin Nr. 46 vom 16. August 2004))

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